Zepto has just staged Seoul Street, an invite-only recreation of a Korean street in Delhi. About 300 guests turned up. Nongshim India, the title sponsor, let visitors personalise their cup noodles and chopsticks. Sprite ran a spice challenge. Cheffin held a noodle-making contest, Gimi Gimi put up a K-style photobooth, and McCain and WickedGüd served Korean-inspired snacks.
Zepto’s chief brand officer Chandan Mendiratta calls the larger idea “snowballing the fandom”. He puts it plainly: “The fandom already exists. Can we make it bigger?”
Marketers have been borrowing from the Korean wave for years. Oreo teamed up with BTS. Too Yumm! launched Korean Karare with Varun Dhawan. Bingo! built a campaign around a dance challenge, and Knorr hitched its Korean ramen to Squid Game. Those were ads. Zepto wants to be the host.
The 300 guests are the smallest part of the audience. The real audience is the creators who film the event and push it out to everyone else. “It’s about who comes and who amplifies the event,” says Mendiratta. Zepto spends more on distribution than on production, and it keeps its events to Delhi and Mumbai because that is where most creators live. At Seoul Street, it played retailer, media platform and experience partner. That is a lot of hats for a delivery app. The investment split with the brands is undisclosed.
How does this stack up against the old hands? Anime India Mumbai alone drew 150 times Zepto’s guest list. Comic Con India began in Delhi in February 2011 with about 20,000 visitors. Organiser figures put the third edition in 2013 at 50,000. Delhi Comic Con 2025 reported over 52,000 across three days. So Delhi barely moved in twelve years. The growth came from new cities. Jaipur drew over 20,000 at its debut. Chennai reported over 45,000 in February. Kochi, the first Comic Con in Kerala, drew over 20,000 in two days this year. Vizag managed over 12,000 this month. Maruti Suzuki presents these shows, and Crunchyroll powers them. These are organiser numbers, but the direction is clear. The pie is not getting bigger in the old cities. It is being sliced across more of them.
“Delhi is where Comic Con India first came to life, so coming back here always feels personal,” said Nodwin Gaming co-founder and managing director Akshat Rathee.
A disclosure here. Anime India comes from the indiantelevision.com group’s AnimationXpress, and we run the same playbook. So let us look at how it has played out.
Mumbai turned one in August. The three-day edition at Nesco in Goregaon ended on 30 August with over 45,000 fans through the gates. Anime Times, our Japanese partner, put the number above 46,000 and called it a record. Naruto director Hayato Date made his first trip to India and got the welcome of a rock star. Delhi came earlier, in June, at Yashobhoomi, with a J-pop concert by Yurika. Inoue Kazuhiko, the voice of Kakashi in Naruto, made his India debut there. Toyota Kirloskar came in as a partner for the 2026 series, saying it wanted to reach Gen Z, and it set up anime-inspired vehicle displays. Kolkata, in February, had a Street Fighter showdown with Indian fighting-game players. Gaming now runs through every edition.
There is a bigger plan under the costumes. Anime India is expected to work as a long-term ecosystem for anime, animation, gaming and creators. They want India-Japan collaborations that adapt Indian stories into anime. The roadmap lists Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Hyderabad, with Indore next and other cities to follow. The Anime Idea Contest, run by Anime Times, has already picked 13 finalists, six in video and seven in proposals. Winners will be announced in Hyderabad. The top video entry wins one million yen and the top proposal 300,000 yen.
Is this a niche? Anime India co-founder Mishaal Wanvari says no. “Japanese anime has more than 100 million fans in India,” he said. “It is Anime Times and Crunchyroll’s largest market outside of Japan and the US.” AnimationXpress has partnered with the Avex group and Anime Times for three years, and the team are hardcore fans themselves. That matters more than any sponsorship deck.
Brands have noticed. Unilever India came in with its Elle 18 brand on three of the four editions. Dabur has backed two. Oppo joined for Mumbai in August 2026. Many more are signing up for Hyderabad. Anime India co-founder Neha Singhal Mehta explained the pull: “Brands love the engaged and involved audiences we pull in. Brand love can easily be built with them, because their favourite anime characters and creators are there in a big way.”
Across Mumbai twice, Delhi and Kolkata, Anime India has pulled in around 180,000 fans. Hyderabad is next, on 14 and 15 November at The Address Convention Centre in Narsingi. The cosplay prize is Rs 2 lakh, and entries must be based on Japanese works, from anime and manga to light novels, idols and Vocaloid. We expect more than 50,000 fans.
The models differ sharply. Comic Con and Anime India sell tickets. Fans pay to walk in, and brands rent a stand and a stage. Zepto hands out invitations, the brands pay for a curated moment, and creators carry it to the crowd.
One model has the fans’ money in it. The other has the fans’ attention. Attention is cheaper to fake, and fans are quick to spot a brand playing dress-up. A fan who queued for hours for a Naruto director will forgive a lot. A fan who sees a logo on a costume will not.
Zepto will not say which fandom comes next.
The fans, meanwhile, will be queuing in Hyderabad on 14 November. The brands will find them there.
