Regulating Japan: The Role of Indian Broadcast Censorship in Shaping Anime Narratives for Domestic Viewers

Japanese anime continues to gain popularity with global audiences, including India. At the same time, its reception and glocalisation in India reveal crucial insights into the mechanisms of cultural mediation and institutional control. This paper examines Indian broadcasting censorship and regulatory practices that change and redefine Japanese anime stories, visuals, and thematic elements during their official adaptation, with a special focus on popular titles such as Doraemon and Crayon Shinchan. It will also analyse how Indian television networks, such as Disney Channel India, Sony YAY!, and Hungama TV, exercise content moderation to align anime with Indian domestic cultural values and broadcasting regulations, and the result of such sanitization on the final glocalised product.