Anime’s rise in India is no longer being measured only in online buzz or cult followings, but in hard data. Indian viewers now spend more than 60 minutes a day on average watching anime, according to Crunchyroll, a leading global streaming service dedicated to Japanese anime, which offers over 800 anime titles in the country and adds fresh content every quarter. “Over 65% of total anime viewership in India comes from Hindi, Tamil and Telugu dubs,” said Raúl González Bernal, vice-president of regional marketing at Crunchyroll, underscoring how deeply the genre has moved beyond a subtitled, niche audience.
Competing platforms are reporting similar momentum.
65% Localization Factor
A spokesperson for JioHotstar said anime is seeing “strong and sustained growth”, driven by global franchises and “deep localisation for Indian audiences”, with the 15-25 age group emerging as the core engine of discovery and engagement. In cinemas, exhibitors are seeing similar signals. Anime films, once treated as experimental programming, are increasingly being positioned as event releases, drawing committed audiences across age groups and city tiers.
That shift became visible on last year, when queues outside multiplexes in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru resembled the opening of a Marvel franchise rather than a foreign-language animation. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba–Infinity Castle, directed by Haruo Sotozaki, recorded the highest opening weekend ever for an anime release in India and went on to surpass the lifetime box-office collections of all previous anime films in the country within a single day.
Backed by Shueisha, Aniplex, Sony Pictures Networks, Toho Pictures and Crunchyroll, the film’s performance was less an anomaly than a marker of how decisively anime has crossed into the mainstream. On February 20, the team behind Spider-Verse and K-Pop: Demon Hunters, distributed by Sony, is returning with another animated spectacle Goat, a high-energy animated sports comedy.
Silver Screen Shift
For India’s largest cinema chain, this transformation has been gradual but unmistakable. Anime audiences, said Nayana Bijli, director at PVR INOX Pictures, are “high-intent” viewers who track global release calendars and turn up for theatrical screenings with a sense of occasion. “What we are witnessing is not casual consumption but passionate followership. Anime audiences track global releases, wait for theatrical launches, and show up with a sense of celebration and community.”
The core demographic is led by Gen Z and younger millennials, but dubbed titles and familiar franchises are pulling in families and younger children as well, expanding anime’s footprint beyond metro cities into tier-two markets.
That widening audience is visible early. Sumaira Bharti, a 12-year-old Class 7 student at Bal Bharti Public School in Delhi, began watching anime at the age of nine after hearing her friends talk about Demon Slayer. “I heard them discussing Demon Slayer, so I decided to watch it, and anime then became my hobby,” she says. What keeps her engaged is not just spectacle but meaning. “I learn some good things, such as moral values, discipline, bravery, and self-control,” she added. Her favourite character, Shinobu Kocho, represents a quieter kind of strength. “From Shinobu, I learn that you do not have to show anger to be powerful, and that intelligence and kindness are also forms of strength.”
A decade earlier, anime entered India’s urban youth culture in a more fragmented way, largely through television reruns, pirated discs and early streaming sites. Anurag Gupta, now 29 and a finance consultant at SAP, first encountered anime in his mid-teens. What distinguished it from other animation, he recalls, was “how dramatic and emotionally driven the stories are”. Those narratives, he says, “really tug at your feelings and stay with you”.
These parallel experiences, one shaped by early digital fandom, the other by fully localised mainstream access, help explain why anime’s growth in India has been steady rather than episodic. Streaming platforms are actively shaping this transition from youth-centric fandom to broader mainstream consumption. On JioHotstar, anime engagement over the past six months has been driven by “thoughtful curation across anime sub-genres, combined with language localisation”, according to its spokesperson, helping expand reach well beyond early adopters. The company sees fandoms deepening and viewing habits maturing, pushing anime steadily towards mainstream status.
For exhibitors, anime’s ascent is now embedded in programming strategy. “Anime today is a strategic and curated category for PVR INOX,” said Bijli. “It is no longer experimental or occasional.” Certain titles are positioned as event cinema, with screen allocation, marketing and release windows comparable to Hollywood franchises. Films such as Demon Slayer, Haikyu: The Dumpster Battle, Blue Lock: Episode Nagi, Spy x Family, My Hero Academia and Detective Conan are supported with premium formats, subtitled and dubbed versions, and targeted outreach to fan communities. “Anime fans value authenticity, timely releases, immersive formats, and language accessibility,” she added.
Streaming platforms have amplified this momentum. Crunchyroll, now part of Sony’s global entertainment portfolio, now premieres 40-50 new titles globally each anime season, giving Indian viewers near-simultaneous access with Japan. While action and fantasy remain dominant, Bernal noted that “among women in India, drama and slice-of-life series were some of the fastest growing genres,” pointing to a broadening of tastes.
Viewership data increasingly shapes licensing and investment. “India is one of Crunchyroll’s fastest-growing markets globally, and viewership trends directly shape our localisation and content strategy,” said Bernal. At the same time, he stressed that cultural authenticity remains central. “Anime is a uniquely Japanese medium of storytelling and preserving that authenticity is central to our mission. Our focus is on localising access, not altering the stories.”