What is Project Maya?

Project Maya is a short-form anime series created by Otaku Bharat, an Indian animation studio, for Canvas — an Indian microdrama and vertical-entertainment app. A team of 30 Indian animators and creators spent 12 months building it, and it is being described as India’s first original short-form anime series (The Hindu).

The story explores a big question: what did independence and freedom mean to Indians nearly a century ago, and what do they mean to young Indians today? It tells that story through Indian characters, Indian landscapes and Indian cultural references — drawn in anime’s visual style and storytelling language (MediaNews4U). It is designed specifically for mobile viewing: short episodes in vertical format, made for phone screens rather than TV.

One important distinction: this is not Japanese anime. It is Indian-made, anime-style content — original stories from Indian creators, voiced by Indian artists, rooted in Indian themes. That is exactly what makes it interesting: until now, the anime Indian audiences watch has been made almost entirely outside India.

Project Maya release date in India

Project Maya is scheduled to premiere in the first week of October 2026 on the Canvas app (The Hindu).

One honesty note: no exact premiere day was specified in the announcements — only “the first week of October.” If you don’t see it on the app yet, check Canvas directly for the latest. We’ll update this page when an exact date or episode schedule is confirmed.

Where to watch Project Maya in India

At launch, Project Maya is a Canvas exclusive — it streams on the Canvas mobile app, not on Crunchyroll, Netflix, or any other anime platform. Here’s the full picture:

Bottom line: if you want to watch Project Maya, download the Canvas app — that is the only confirmed way to watch it right now. For the wider landscape of legal anime streaming in India, our where to watch anime in India guide covers every platform that actually works here.

The team behind Project Maya

The credits read like a bridge between Indian entertainment and global anime:

Canvas CEO Abhinav Singla put the motivation plainly: “India has one of the most passionate anime audiences in the world, but the stories watched here are still largely created outside the country.” (MediaNews4U) — Project Maya is Canvas’s answer to that gap: developed by Indian animators, voiced by Indian artists, and built around a question deeply relevant to India.

Why Project Maya matters for Indian anime fans

India’s anime audience keeps growing — but almost everything it watches is Japanese, dubbed or subtitled into Hindi months later. Project Maya flips that: a Hindi-first series, made by Indians, about Indian themes, in a format built for how Indians actually watch (on phones, in short bursts).

If it works, it opens a door — more Indian studios making anime-style originals, more Hindi-first animation, and eventually the English and regional-language versions Canvas has already said are planned. Even if short-form vertical anime isn’t your usual thing, this one is worth watching as a milestone: the first serious attempt at homegrown Indian anime.

For fans tracking Hindi-language anime more broadly, our anime Hindi-dubbed guide covers every confirmed Hindi dub across the major platforms.

What we don’t know yet

Being straight with you, as always — these are still unconfirmed as of 16 October 2026: the exact premiere day within the first week of October; the episode count and episode length; the timeline for the English and regional-language versions; and whether Project Maya will ever come to other platforms beyond Canvas. We’ll update this page as each one gets an official answer.

Where to watch anime in India →