When The Legend of Hanuman premiered in 2021, it carried the fingerprints of a comics publisher: a co-creator who had spent years putting Indian gods into graphic novels, and an animation pipeline built around storyboarded panels brought to life.
The Legend of Hanuman premiered on Disney+ Hotstar on 29 January 2021 with thirteen episodes. The Indian animated series was created by Sharad Devarajan, Jeevan J. Kang and Charuvi Agrawal, and produced by Graphic India. It dramatises Hanuman's transformation from a mighty warrior into a god as he serves Rama, narrated by actor Sharad Kelkar.
The series matters to graphic storytelling because of who made it. Co-creator Sharad Devarajan is best known as a comics entrepreneur, and Graphic India is a media company built on developing Indian characters and stories first through comics and graphic novels before moving them into screen formats. The Legend of Hanuman is, in effect, that pipeline reaching its largest audience.
Its production approach borrowed directly from sequential-art and storyboarding practice. The team used animatics, a storyboard-driven technique, to let voice actors perform against the planned shots rather than simply dubbing finished animation. Character design was led by co-creator Charuvi Agrawal, giving the show a distinct illustrated look anchored in a single visual authorship.
The series proved durable enough to keep returning. After the first season, a second thirteen-episode run was confirmed on 27 July 2021 and released that August. A six-episode third season followed on 12 January 2024, a fourth season aired from 5 June to 11 July 2024, a fifth premiered on 25 October 2024, and a sixth arrived on 11 April 2025, several of them timed to coincide with Hanuman Jayanti.
Across those six seasons the show built a deep ensemble of voice talent drawn from Indian film and dubbing. Sanket Mhatre voices Shree Ram, Surbhi Pandey plays Sita, Damandeep Singh Baggan voices Hanuman, and narrator Sharad Kelkar doubles as the demon king Ravana, with actors including Sahil Vaid, Toshi Sinha and Gireesh Sahdev rounding out the Ramayana's cast of allies and antagonists.
Structurally, the series treats the Ramayana the way a long-form comic treats a sprawling saga: as serialised arcs rather than a single film. Episodes continue threads across a season, allowing the source epic to unfold in chapters, a rhythm closer to monthly comic issues than to a self-contained feature.
The platform choice was significant too. By launching on Disney+ Hotstar, one of India's largest streaming services, The Legend of Hanuman placed a premium, locally produced mythological animation alongside global franchises, signalling that Indian comics-rooted IP could compete for marquee streaming slots rather than only children's broadcast windows.
For an industry long defined by service work, the series stands as a case study in originating and scaling Indian-owned characters. It took a god from the page, applied a comics house's character-driven development model, and sustained it across multiple seasons on a major streaming platform.
Reported from Wikipedia and Disney+ Hotstar public listings.
