The ‘miracle’ of Japanese anime based on Hindu epic Ramayana, now digitally remastered to attract a new audience
- In an era before mobile phones, fax and email, Ram Mohan in India, the country’s ‘father of animation’, coordinated with filmmakers in Japan to make the anime
- They had to convince Indians anime could tell a serious story, but succeeded and it became a TV hit. Now a 4K digitally remastered version has been released
A Japanese anime based on the Hindu epic Ramayana released almost 30 years ago recently received a new lease of life in a 4K digitally remastered version.
Yoshii, along with Atsushi Matsuo, a director at TEM Co. (which owns the rights to the production) says Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama was made by a Japanese-Indian team at a time when international productions were uncommon in the Japanese animation industry.
“There were no mobile phones, fax or emails, and we were discussing images that we received via courier,” says Yoshii, adding that even telephone calls had to be kept brief because of the quality of the phone lines between the two countries in the 1980s.
Matsuo, who is also the executive producer, says it was “really a miracle” that the animation was completed under the circumstances.
