Studio Durga, the first Indian anime studio, has launched the first episode of Karmachakra: Mini Series recently and it has been gathering appreciations all around.

The studio has been attracting eyeballs for some time now owing to the trailer of Karmachakra, the first Indian anime movie (80 minutes) independent of any foreign collaboration. The team decided to release the first 20 minutes as a mini-series for free to watch for the Indian anime admirers.

The story of this anime series is of an orphan girl who tries to find her roots, revolving around mysteries about her past and present. The mystery drama is set in a fictional present-day India that draws inspiration from psychology, mythology, and cyber technology.

The first episode of Karmachakra opens mysteriously and sets the mood of the film. It intentionally leaves loose ends of the story that you want to know what happens next. The tone is delightful as the frames play with light and shade, colours of hair – shades of black and grey, unlike the usual blonde or red or others and with the quality of animation. What also attractive is that despite having an enviable voice cast, the first episode is silent and emphasises on the emotions.

Studio Durga founder and CEO Rajorshi Basu said, “It is a mystery drama after all. It’s a sort of intro sequence that shows a small but important point in some of the main characters’ past. This may be something the viewer can connect with later on in the show, as so much of the fun of watching a mystery plot is to connect the dots as time goes by. In the intro, there are expressions of emotion but no dialogues since we felt it would be more intense in terms of context, and more effective because of its universal relatability. Absence of dialogue for this sequence was an artistic decision, long before we knew what the languages for the dub would be.”

Helmed by Basu himself, the pilot series took roughly five months to make with a smaller team than now, while the film is currently under production and is expected to be completed by mid-2020.

Karmachakra can quite aptly be termed as the first Indian anime that tells a story beyond cultural typifications and produces a globally relatable content.