We fell in love with AI-Ghibli but, where are India's own animated stories?

The obsession with the AI-Studio Ghibli trend can be attributed to a mix of nostalgia, escapism, and the bandwagon effect—but it also makes one wonder: If Indians are this emotionally and aesthetically connected to animated art, why hasn’t our own animation industry managed to capture that same imagination?

Anime posters, keychains, action figures, T-shirts—and people sifting through them to get hold of items related to their favourite series. Such scenes are common at MG Road Metro station and Church Street every weekend.

It goes without saying that India has become a massive market for Japanese anime. In fact, animation in general—be it cartoons, animated American sitcoms, or even Chinese donghua—has built its own audience in the country.

But the love for animation isn't just limited to hardcore fans. During the recent ChatGPT-Studio Ghibli trend, even non-anime watchers—many completely unaware of Hayao Miyazaki—joined the frenzy, turning their favourite memories into soft, dreamlike anime-style portraits using AI tools.

The virality of the trend is clear from the fact that many people still use their AI-generated avatars as display pictures on WhatsApp and other social media platfroms. Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman noted around the same time that India is among the fastest adopters of AI globally.

The obsession can be attributed to a mix of nostalgia, escapism, and the bandwagon effect—but it also makes one wonder if Indians are this emotionally and aesthetically connected to animated art, why hasn’t our own animation industry managed to capture that same imagination? 

Lack of a strong domestic audience, financial constraints and lack of systemic government support are some of the common factors that renowned animation creators Suresh Eriyat and Kireet Khurana pointed out in conversation with DH.

Born in Kerala, three time National Film Award winner and co-founder of Studio Eeksaurus Suresh Eriyat was drawn towards animation because it “allows to bring the unimaginable to life.”

“Animation offers complete creative freedom to craft stories that transcend the boundaries of reality, often empowering an individual or a team to create entire worlds from scratch,” he says. The vision comes through in Desi Oon—a stop-motion tale spun entirely from wool, where woollen balls rise as storytellers, championing the cause of India’s wool economy and sustainability.

On the other hand, for Khurana, the road to animation was rather straightforward. The six-time National Film Award winner, and son of filmmaker, screenwriter, and animator Bhimsain, drew early inspiration from his father to step into the world of animation.

He has worked as the animation director on several Bollywood films and is also the writer of The Storyteller, based on a short story by Satyajit Ray.

For Gen Z readers, and as a trip down memory lane for Gen X or Doordarshan-era kids—Bhimsain, often hailed alongside Ram Mohan as the 'Father of Indian Animation', was the creative force behind Ek Anek Aur Ekta. This traditionally animated short, released on the public broadcaster in 1974, became iconic for its catchy title song and is fondly remembered as Ek Chidiya, Anek Chidiyan.

Remembering the journey of Indian animation back from the 70s to the advent of computers, Khurana says, “Everything was hand drawn and a very laborious process, then the computers came in the late 80s and early 90s and things got easy without taking out the creative process.” 

Fast forward to the digital age, Khurana, who is also the co-founder of The Animation Society of India, views the rise of AI in animation not as a threat, but as the next logical leap. “So what computers did to animation, a lot of people who used to do manual painting, inking and colouring got laid off after it became a digital process. There were Disney buildings filled with inkers and painters. The number of people was cut down drastically but the quality went up."

Taking a liberal stand on the use of AI in animation he added that while the overall quality of the job will improve, “the real beneficiaries of AI will be the people who know their job.”

As excited as he is about AI, Khurana is mindful of the ethical grey areas of using Artificial Intelligence. “It’s absolutely unethical,” he says bluntly about the AI-Ghibli trend, “when AI trains on someone else’s artwork. It’s a clear violation of copyright.”

While Khurana sees AI as a force multiplier, Eriyat is more cautious. His concerns are rooted in the current job-work model that much of India’s animation and VFX industry depends on—one that could be severely disrupted by automation.

“I do have concerns—especially when it comes to the job-work model that a large part of the Indian animation and VFX industry depends on. AI is rapidly developing tools that can potentially replace the kind of manual, labour-intensive work that forms the backbone of this sector,” he tells DH.

“If international studios—particularly in the US and Europe—begin using these tools in-house to speed up or automate production processes, the outsourced work that has been sustaining much of our industry could quickly dry up.”

Eriyat’s concern goes beyond just technology—it’s about livelihoods, creative ecosystems, and the long-term survival of a service-based industry. His hope, however, lies in shifting the focus toward original storytelling rooted in local culture.

AI, however, is last in the list of the things India needs to worry about to boost its animation industry.

"The real challenge", says Suresh Eriyat, “is convincing the distributors, theatre owners, and the powerful live-action cinema lobby in our country.” 

His critique isn’t aimed at talent or technical skill but at the lack of vision. “If you look at countries like the UK or France, their animated content thrives not just because of talent, but because the government takes art seriously. They invest in animation as they would any cultural product. In India, art is still seen as a luxury, not as something central to our national identity.”

Kireet Khurana echoes this sentiment, citing Europe’s robust funding models. “Europe does not make animation films, it cannot afford to make animation films. The only reason it is making animation is because it is getting government subsidy and funding from international bodies like the Doha Film Institute.”

Case in point: Bombay Rose, an animated feature directed by Gitanjali Rao, took years to complete. It was largely supported by international funders before being picked up by an Indian producer and eventually landing on Netflix.

Meanwhile, India continues to operate largely as a backend. 

“Dracarys”—remember the fierce and mighty dragons of Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones? They were actually brought to life in Goregaon, Mumbai—just like several other VFX and animation sequences of popular Hollywood films that quietly take shape in Indian studios.

“We have the talent and the ability,” Khurana says, “but not the market for our own IPs. We’re doing service contracts for others because it pays—but it means we’re always executing someone else’s vision.”

Eriyat agrees, and sees this outsourcing model as a double-edged sword. “Yes, it’s brought in jobs and built technical expertise. But it’s also created an ecosystem geared toward job-work. Most people learn animation in these studios, on the job. They gain technical skills, but rarely storytelling—and storytelling is what makes animation powerful.”

He adds, “The few places that do teach storytelling—our design schools—aren’t animation film schools. There’s a big gap. Most of the successful animation filmmakers today are self-taught.”

That disconnect between art and commerce, training and vision, has meant that original content remains sporadic and underfunded. While franchises like Chhota Bheem have found commercial success, they remain exceptions rather than signs of a thriving industry. “It’s an 18-year-old phenomenon,” Eriyat points out. “It’s not enough. We need repeated success—financial and cultural—for people to take animation seriously here.”

And while we are at it, a question rises in every animation lover’s mind—why only Chhota Bheem or Bal Hanuman? The Indian animation industry has been largely dominated by content aimed at children and mythological retellings, while Indians sob silently after watching something as serious and emotional as Grave of the Fireflies or laugh their hearts out at the dark humour served in Family Guy.

Eriyat, who had the rare chance to visit Studio Ghibli, calls it the “ultimate temple of animation.” He recalls a surreal, “God-sent moment” when the elusive Hayao Miyazaki-san smiled at him and reached out to shake his hand. And yes, Eriyat never forgets to add the respectful “-san” every time he mentions him—a small but telling sign of the deep admiration he holds for the master storyteller. For Eriyat, Ghibli's emotionally rich, grounded narratives are the gold standard—something he aspires to emulate through Indian stories. His own film Fisherwoman and Tuk Tuk, which crossed 45 million views on YouTube organically, is a case in point. “It proves that when we share something sincere—something that’s not just silly or made purely for laughs—people are willing to absorb it,” he says. Indian audiences, he believes, are more than ready for animated films that explore mature, complex themes.

This willingness of Indian creators to tell their own stories is visible in animation festivals like Animela, India's first Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics festival, in collaboration with Annecy International Animation Film Festival, France.

“I’ve seen young creators eager to tell deeply Indian stories,” says Khurana, who is the festival director of Animela. “A woman running her own football team, a child rights narrative, an oceanographer having a conversation about human-nature conflicts with her niece. The stories are there. They just need support.”

For Eriyat, the answer lies in shifting from service to self-expression. “If even 25 per cent of India’s population begins watching animated content, we’d be a bigger market than the whole of Europe. Imagine that. The world would want to create animation for India.”

Until then, the few who persist in original storytelling often do so by funding their own films with earnings from commercial work. “That’s the only way to keep going,” Eriyat says. “We hope that, one day, this effort builds a market that can sustain us.”

Both continue to build quietly—Khurana with an animated feature and two short films in the pipeline, and Eriyat with a series of shorts for a platform.

For now, the animation journey in India moves forward—quietly, independently, one woollen frame, hand-drawn scene, or self-funded film at a time.