Ecuador’s Otavalo Indigenous people use anime to inspire pride in their ancient culture and language

Yarik Sisa, an artist with Yay Animación, works on "Aya Somos," the first Quichua animated short, blending Otavalo culture with Japanese-style anime, in Hatun Rumi, Ecuador, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)

JATUN RUMI, Ecuador — High in the mountains of the Ecuadorian Andes, a group of young Otavalo Indigenous people is using anime to inspire pride in their ancient culture and language, especially among Otavalo children.

They produced an animated short film titled “We’re Aya” that follows the adventures of Aya, a mythical Otavalo warrior, and other characters who interact under the watchful eye of a condor — an iconic bird for Andean Indigenous cultures that symbolizes power and energy.

Inspired by the work of legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, the story takes place in the mountains of Imbabura, a province in the northern Andes that is home to the Otavalo people, known for their handicrafts and textiles.

Tupac Amaru, director and producer of the 9-minute film, said the movie is part of an effort to maintain Otavalo customs and language, which began to erode as globalization created a more interconnected world and influenced their culture.

His people faced two options, “lock ourselves out (from the world) and defend our culture, language, spirituality and clothing or stand tall and fight back,” Amaru said.

The film with 12 Quichua-speaking characters is a first step in trying to get Otavalo children to appreciate their heritage, he said. Indigenous themes have been explored before in short and feature-length films produced in Peru and Ecuador but most of those films have had Spanish-speaking characters.

“Quichua is the vibration that gives meaning to existence and without the language, the meaning of life and our energy comes to an end,” Amaru said.

“Our children no longer know Quichua,” which means they have lost a communication tool and “are losing their sense of belonging, their energy,” he added.

Quichua, an Indigenous language that is part of the Quechua language family, is primarily spoken in Ecuador.

Yarik Sisa, creative manager for the film, said the story is inspired by ancestral practices that have survived the passage of time, including taking musical instruments to energetic points of the land the night before a celebration so that the instruments are endowed with “soul.”

The film also includes characters such as Ayaruku, which represents an indomitable spirit; Ayawa, a representation of the sublime and the feminine; and Ayaku, a child symbolizing tenderness.

These characters play their traditional instruments and stomp their feet as part of a rhythmic dance as they enter a dark cavern, which symbolizes globalization, where the spirits give them the mission of becoming new seeds of their people.

The film then shows an Indigenous grandfather talking to his granddaughter who promises her elder she will become a woman strong as a rock and a defender of their culture. Her grandfather then asks her to never stray from that path.

The team behind “We’re Aya” hopes to release more films and even video games in Quichua in the coming years and even enter the international video game market with games “made by Quichuas in a Quichua environment,” said Malkik Anrango, the film’s creative director.

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This version has been updated to correct the name of the film’s creative director to Malkik Anrango.

Gonzalo Solano, The Associated Press