Rewind back a few million years ago. Lord Hanuman is ready to attack Ashok Vatika, where Sita is held hostage. And suddenly, he is ambushed by Ravana’s youngest son Akshay Kumara. To the readers’ relief, the vanar sena is present to back their hero. But this vanar sena is actually a bunch of cute, but lethal monkey-type pokémons namely darmanitan, aipom, primeape, infernape and rillaboom. In the tense battle between the two commanders and their pokémons, Akshay Kumara aims a spear at Lord Hanuman, but darmanitan takes the hit by stepping in front of his Lord. Seeing a dear friend die in front of his eyes irks Lord Hanuman. This is when his body blazes bright blue and morphs into his full avatar of Pawan Putra Hanuman — furious and set on avenging his friend’s demise.

Collaboration of cultures

“I have always been a huge fan of cartoons when I was a child, and anime, while growing up,” reveals Jazyl Homavazir, the artist behind the episode of Pokémon x Hanuman. Every Sunday, Homavazir posts one of his artworks wherein he displays anime characters either fighting alongside or just enjoying the companionship of famous characters from Hindu mythology. One of his most recent artworks displays Lord Krishna helping Naruto generate his rasengan — a compressed form of chakra — while training together.