15 July,2023 08:16 AM IST | Mumbai | Devanshi Doshi
The series tries to pick anime characters whose arc runs parellel either to the narrative or characteristics of characters in Hindu mythology
Rewind back a few million years ago. Lord Hanuman is ready to attack Ashok Vatika, where Sita is held hostage. And suddenly, he is ambushed by Ravana's youngest son Akshay Kumara. To the readers' relief, the vanar sena is present to back their hero. But this vanar sena is actually a bunch of cute, but lethal monkey-type pokémons namely darmanitan, aipom, primeape, infernape and rillaboom. In the tense battle between the two commanders and their pokémons, Akshay Kumara aims a spear at Lord Hanuman, but darmanitan takes the hit by stepping in front of his Lord. Seeing a dear friend die in front of his eyes irks Lord Hanuman. This is when his body blazes bright blue and morphs into his full avatar of Pawan Putra Hanuman - furious and set on avenging his friend's demise.
"I have always been a huge fan of cartoons when I was a child, and anime, while growing up," reveals Jazyl Homavazir, the artist behind the episode of Pokémon x Hanuman. Every Sunday, Homavazir posts one of his artworks wherein he displays anime characters either fighting alongside or just enjoying the companionship of famous characters from Hindu mythology. One of his most recent artworks displays Lord Krishna helping Naruto generate his rasengan - a compressed form of chakra - while training together.
"My grand aunt introduced me to Indian mythology. She would read out stories to us at bedtime. These stories have stayed with me," the 37-year-old shares. As for becoming an anime artist, he gives the entire credit to Naruto. In 2005, when he first watched the anime series, he was drawn in enough to never stop obsessing over it. The similarities between his favourite Hindu mythological character Krishna and the anime character Naruto were too evident to go unnoticed. "Both are extremely good-natured characters, who have this innate power that they do not fully understand. Naruto was an orphan, and Krishna too grew up away from his real family. And most importantly, both use chakras as their weapon - Lord Krishna's Sudarshana Chakra and Naruto has the rasengan."
With his weekly Anime X Indian mythology collection, the artist shares that he aims to connect the global audience with famous Indian narratives. But does his take on these narratives ever cause him trouble, we ask. No, he responds. "The key is to be true to your original source material. I am very careful of not hurting any sentiments while bringing out these stories. There will always be some who object to the mixing and matching of these two forms, but I know in my heart that I am not doing anything wrong because I never stray from the source."
The Byculla-based anime artist began his journey in 2009. He calls his first project, The Beast Legion, a passion project. It also happens to be one of the longest running anime webcomics from India. Towards the end of 2010, he went public with the series. Within a year's time, he had won the Comic Con India Award for best Webcomic 2011. Since then, it has only been onward and upward. "Much of the credit goes to my parents who have been supportive and patient. Today, after many accolades, The Beast Legion is 16 chapters [over 1,200 pages] long," he beams, adding that it doesn't stop here. He continues to post a chapter every Monday and hopes it will become a full-fledged anime series with a well-established OTT platform in the near future.
"In my opinion, there is still a lot of time before India starts catering to the anime industry. The long-form project is something that the producers still haven't completely accepted here. It's very tough to get into the industry.
But if you're really good, you will get a lot of work. You have to just make sure that you are original and put your work out there as much as possible," Homavazir, whose clients are mostly from the USA, explains. He adds that when it comes to being an anime artist, his mantra is to practise, persevere and promote.
Giving us a peek into what this weekend's Anime X Mythology will feature, he tells us that Monkey D Luffy from One Piece will team up with Arjuna from Mahabharata in a battle. We will be looking forward to seeing how this quirky pair will play out in the final look.
Log on to @jazylhdraws (Instagram, for Anime X Mythology posts); thebeastlegion.com
