Doraemon: Castle Of The Undersea Devil has quietly become the talk of the Indian box office. By day three, it’s already the fourth highest-grossing anime film in the country — a feat that no one saw coming. Not with the release timing. Not with the marketing. Not even with the fanbase’s usual quiet loyalty. This isn’t just a win for Doraemon. It’s proof that anime can still surprise us, if you let it breathe. 

The numbers are real: 7.1 crore net, 8.38 crore gross. On Sunday alone, it pulled in 3 crore, a 39.53% jump from Saturday’s 2.15 crore. That kind of momentum? Rare. Especially for a film that didn’t come with a big launch campaign or a star-studded premiere. 

It beat Jujutsu Kaisen 0 (4.85 crore) to claim the fourth spot. Now, it’s gunning for Suzume (8.45 crore) and Shinchan: Our Dinosaur Diary (8.83 crore). The gap is closing fast. And the audience? They’re not just kids. Parents came too. Grandparents showed up. The nostalgia wasn’t just for Nobita. It was for the sound of a plastic robot beeping through a childhood summer. 

BookMyShow says 9.2 out of 10. Over 5,500 votes. No red flags. No backlash. Just steady love. Directed by Tetsuo Yajima, this remake of the 1983 classic didn’t need a global name to land. It needed a story. A memory. And a theatre seat. 

What happens next? The film’s run is still young. If the trend holds, it’ll cross the 10-crore mark before the week ends. And then? The real question: will studios finally stop treating anime like a niche experiment? Or will this be another flash in the pan, a moment remembered only because it broke the rules?