I'm in Akihabara
The center of the OTAKU Kingdom
and this seems like a fitting place to start this episode
Japanese culture in India
and help me out is KUSHAL, who just recently came to
Japan from Banglore
How you doing
Hey,guys
So what's your impression of Akihabara?
What can I say?
Look at the poster there. ANIME girls all over the place
People dressed like maids. What more can I ask for?
So what we're gonna do is take a look at OTAKU culture
India is growing really rapidly
Welcome to Mumbai
The fifth biggest metropolitan area in the world
Leaping windows is the cafe that not only caters to young coffee drinkers
But also to a growing OTAKU fan base
The real magic is in the basement
Watch your head
Hey,guys
This
is the place
This is our kids section... consisting of stuff like Calvin and Hobbes
Asterix and Tin Tin.
This is
wide range collection of the US comics
and this is our independence section of
Eceletic mix of comics that you've never really heard about before
and this shelf is our real treasure
Japanese MANGA
They've got ONE PIECE
and even DRAGON BALL Z
and yes
They're in English
If you're a leaping windows library member
you can relax here and read your favorite MANGA
or check it out and read it at home
The collection is always expanding
and I really want you guys to see
The one which is my favorite
and that is Fullmetal Alchemist
I mean a read.... not a lot of MANGA but
whatever I have read I think full metal alchemist
is one of the best MANGA ever written because first,
It's written by a woman
and second because
I can't believe it generalizes with
any other genre because it's got the perfect amount of romance
action and emotion and it's got such
deep round characters that I absolutely love so
yeah you guys should read it
I was really stoked to see such an OTAKU movement
here in India
and to get a better idea of the growing impact of Japanese culture here
I sat down with Mac Mumbai ANIME Club
for an exciting discussion
MAC was established in
2010 , just to promote on MANGA and ANIME culture in India and
Get the fans in the city and
in the long run in the country together for more ANIME related events and online competitions as well
Let's meet the members of Mac
Cosplaying is a big part of their experience
and they have their own take on this part of Japanese subculture
Hey
Lolita is not a costume
This is not a costume
It's elegant
The amusing thing is that
every time we have an event
We still find new people
Who are interested in ANIME and who feel that we were the only
ones in the country
knew about ANIME and you know I've been following MANGAculture
So how do Indians break into Japanese ANIME?
For the past 10 years I've been a huge VISUAL-KEI fan..
I'll I stared out ANIME when I was
9 years old... I think it was DRAGONBALL Z
and SAILOR MOON followed by..when I shifted to INDIA,
I started watching ANIMAX
on...in 2004 or something
and that's why .....I start learning about J-POP
and bands like ARASHI and stuff.... eventually I sort of...
evolved into VISUAL-KEI and started
listening to bands like GAZETTE and X JAPAN and
of course MALICE MIZER , the best
ever gothic band in Japan
MAC attended a cool Japan event in Delhi recently where Indians interested in Japanese
subculture converged from
all over the country
Such events are becoming more frequent
Indians have their own original take on cosplay
and the events have a local flare to them
I ask MAC what was fueling the increased interest in Japan
Is it food or J-POP?
What's the biggest influence in India?
food, food
The food is the most biggest impact?
I would say it's a mixture of a lot of things
because ANIME and MANGA have become the
connection for a lot Indians to Japan
It this language that there I'll
lot of Mac members who have started learning Japanese because they don't want to watch
their favorite ANIME with subtitles
and most of us do that. And, most of us picked up everyday words
We know how to say good morning good afternoon & thank you
Read normal sentence can have a normal colloquial conversation
You grew up watching cartoon net and now you see CARD CAPTOR SAKURA, POKEMON
You see all these shows, and you get curiosity
you go on the net, you see on-line..you all see fashion from JAPAN
you actually see that you've been watching Japanese cartoon,
and a whole new world opens up for you, and you
go into more. You see episodes on-line, you go into MANGA...which originates from...
and then you know from there it becomes
you know, a thing you are part of.
And the brilliant thing about ANIME is
they have everything for every age group. Its not, it'snot like you know
American sitcom which are only meant for teens or adults...
ANIME is something that you can watch
Something everyone can watch. YEAH
I think ANIME is still an insight into the Japanese culture
Cosplaying is still new to India
There aren't shops selling ANIME costumes yet so
cosplayers here improvise
and create their own unique Japanese-style
Just say my entire costume has been stitched by me and
hand embroiled
Becuse the first thing is that it it not only
expensive at times to get certain costumes but it's difficult for many people to get
what you want
and and how you need your cosplay done
Indians have this concept called JAGAR
It's basically putting all sorts of nick nacks
Your mother may have something lying around and you put it together...and oh you have a pretty potpourri
and it hardly cost you anything
ANKUR is a specialist who makes every prop out of household items and
Make just...phenomenal things
But in 2012
with the first Cool Japan festival and MAC became a part of it
from there we were part of the subcultural festivals
This year was a third year of it, and every year we've grown
The goal has always been the same.
To get more people together and have more Japanese stuff
We just didn't expect to grow so fast...to be honest...but...oh well, we're not complaining
I asked the Mac members where's the one place in Japan that they have to
visit
AKIHABARA!!
Akihabara I'm not surprised
On my last day in India I met up with the distant cousin of mine who wanted to
show me his MANGA artwork
How deep has MANGA culture penetrated India???
Ganesh artwork is definitely influenced by Japan
He is interested in the details and emotions in the art work
Dragon Ball Z is his favorite
The poses are super cool and bring out his
own emotions which is why teens and India increasingly feel a connection
with the Japanese MANGA style
Wow! OTAKU in India
and the place "Leaping Wndows" it's pretty cool
Yeah
It's a different kinda job cafe
compared to the ones in TOKYO though..it's more like
just a regular cafe with MANGA
Right
But here (in JAPAN) It's only FOR Manga
Yeah, that's right
That's definitely the main focus
So I mean...the themes for MANGA & ANIME I think has become really popular in India
Do you think that's the catalyst or is it the artwork or what is it??
Some people they really like the art work and read the MANGA
But a lot of people prefer the ANIME
and the themes that are not seen in
other TV shows are...
anywhere else in India have become really popular up to the point where
even if the ANIME really sucks, they would still watch it
just because it's different
So I guess in maybe
5 or 10 years time OTAKU population in India's just going to explode
Oh,yeah
I definitely think it's already started
yeah as we've seen!
So I guess we could see lots of SUSHI bar on the corner in now
Bangalore and Mumbai filled with OTAKU?
Everyone's praying for that. So is my brother for that matter.
That'll be cool!
I guess we have it only in Japan
in India then, right?
yep. It's gonna happen some day