For anime fans in India, there has never been a better time. From streaming giants like Netflix and Prime Video to Animax and Crunchyroll, OTT platforms are going full throttle on bringing popular anime titles to the Indian audience.
Crunchyroll, with a presence in over 200 countries and territories, has recently amped up its marketing efforts in India. At a recent event in Mumbai, the platform brought in Indian actors Tiger Shroff and Rashmika Mandanna, both anime fans, to share their love for their favourite series.
Currently, the platform has over 500 titles, 3,800 plus hours of content and 7,500 plus episodes in India. “There is a vibrant, passionate fan community in India, who want more access to anime,” said Crunchyroll director – marketing Akshat Sahu. “We want to super-serve fans in India by continuing to grow our content offering, connecting to the community and broadening the anime business.”
Crunchyroll launches a new anime season in India every three months. “We’re also launching catalogue content on Crunchyroll on a rolling basis,” Sahu said. Their selection of content for India is “similar to how we approach all our territories – by choosing a wide variety and genre of series to suit all the varied tastes and interests of our fans. The most popular titles globally are also some of the most popular in India,” Sahu revealed.
Realising the need to penetrate the non-English content consuming audiences, Crunchyroll has started offering anime titles in Hindi as well as Tamil – Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man being the latest shows. “Each country has their own regional nuances,” Sahu explained. “India is the largest (in terms of population) country we operate in; and with size comes an incredible amount of diversity. While anime connects so many different young people from so many different backgrounds, we also want to make sure we have something for all anime fans in India regardless of where they live or what language they speak.” The platform will add Telugu dubs as well by this year end to better serve those fans, Sahu added.
The platform offers Spanish (Castilian and Latin American), Portuguese, French, German, Italian and Russian dubbed anime series across many territories. For India, they picked Tamil and Telugu because “through our market research and from listening to fans who are reaching out to us directly, our team felt that Tamil and Telugu would be great dub languages to offer,” Sahu said. “And so far, the response has been very positive.”
India is the second-largest global anime audience (behind China) and will represent 60 per cent of the increase in anime interest over the next few years, Sahu stated. The country’s anime fans “watch a daily average of over 60 minutes of anime and watch an average of four series” on Crunchyroll.
Regarding the question of whether Crunchyroll plans to leverage Sony LIV to expand its audience through bundled subscription options, Sahu mentioned their collaboration with Sony LIV for the Crunchyroll Anime Awards in March. Sony LIV was the exclusive home of the Crunchyroll Anime Awards that honour the cast, creators and studios behind fan favourite series, music, and films.
While talking about anime, it is important to talk about simulcast – programs that air around the world on exactly the same day and date that they premiere in Japan. “Since the Crunchyroll community is made up of so many passionate fans, they want their content at the speed of Japan. There is something magical about fans in India streaming the newest episode right alongside fans in the USA, across Latin America, and all around the world. Plus, simulcast series generate a lot of conversation as fans discuss this week’s episode in eager anticipation of what’s to come next week.”
While the anime market has become competitive in India, Sahu believes that “no one curates a community experience quite like we do, which includes both breadth of genres and depth of catalogue.”
On their plans to bring anime to Smart TVs, he said, “We’re actively exploring ways to bring Crunchyroll to even more devices.” And fans should keep an eye out on their social channels or Crunchyroll News for more, he concluded.
