Hungama’s hopes high on Japanese animation

Japanese animation might have failed to tickle Indian viewers in the form of Animax, but that hasn’t stopped another kids’ channel, Hungama, from banking on it.

Hungama is all set to add three new Japanese shows to its line-up from April 10. The channel has categorised these shows in three time bands: Pre-School, Toon Blast and Ha Ha Ha Hungama.

According to Zarina Mehta, COO, Hungama TV, “Japan has had a history of good cultural values, which is a more perfect match for Indian kids than American animation, which might not fit in with the environment prevalent in Indian homes. Besides, the Japanese are great masters at good animation and building good stories, so why should we not bring them to Indian children?”

However, in actual fact, Indian audiences haven’t been too appreciative of Japanese animation, a reason why channels such as Animax haven’t been successful. If one goes deeper into this, Indian viewers have grown up with American animation. American animation figures such as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck have universal appeal, so much so that if one dubs a film into a local language, one cannot define the region to which these characters belong. The Japanese animated characters, on the other hand, generally have South East Asian features, to which the Indian audiences aren’t quite used.

But Hungama is quite confident about the success of these shows. Mehta says, “Our recently launched Japanese animated shows like ‘FiFi and the Flower Tots’ and ‘Dragon’ have been doing very well in the pre-school band. Action packed animated shows like ‘Yu-Gi-Oh!’ and ‘Sonix X’ have also been well received. So, we thought of adding some more shows.”

The current band of introduced shows on weekdays include ‘Amdriver’ in the Toon Blast Band at 6 pm and ‘Peep and the Big Wide World’ at 3 pm and ‘Kochikame’ at 2:30 pm in the Ha Ha Ha Hungama Band. While ‘Amdriver’ has a futuristic storyline of good soldiers with the latest devices for fighting evil, ‘Kochikame’ is a slapstick comedy about a cop who is good for nothing.

‘Peep and the Big Wide World’, featuring three birds, is a story revolving around close friends and their fun and adventures in their neighbourhood.

Besides the Japanese animated shows, the ‘Fireman Sam Safety Show’ will also be introduced. This programme has been locally produced in Mumbai for pre-school kids. The channel will feature new episodes of ‘Yu-Gi-Oh!’ and ‘Sonix X’ as well.

But does Hungama TV need outsourced animations when it has revamped its own animation studio? Mehta says, “UTV Toons will be producing two original movies over the next two years, which will be telecast on the channel after their theatrical release.”

On the promotion front, Mehta says, “The shows will be promoted heavily on the channel. Besides, we will pick one show every quarter and promote it across all media, but we still have to decide on which show it will be this time.”

© 2006 agencyfaqs!