Author Bio: Who is your favorite non-MC anime character? For Chidi, it’s Lemillion from My Hero Academia. They share a common goal: to help at least a million people. Chidi, an anime fan and tech enthusiast, is tackling that goal through AniBrain, an anime and manga recommendation engine. With the motto, “A recommendation a day keeps the boredom away,” Chidi has set out to help anime watchers and manga readers get the most out of what they love.
OK, infinite recommendations are impossible because there are only so many anime and manga, but the list is so long that it might as well be infinite! Let me introduce you to AniBrain, an AI-based anime and manga recommendation engine. AniBrain uses core features that all anime and manga have, like plot, genres, etc., to generate amazing recommendations for any title you search for. The UI of the recommender pages is reminiscent of Google or Bing; it is simply a search bar.
You type in something you’re interested in, and voilà–you have an “infinite” list of recommended titles you can check out with similarity scores assigned to each. Let’s take a look at what happens when we search for Jujutsu Kaisen, one of the most enjoyable anime I’ve seen in a while.
I have seen Blue Exorcist and completely get why it has a 93% similarity score to Jujutsu Kaisen. Without giving away too much, both are action anime where the MC gains access to an evil spirit’s power (Jujutsu Kaisen is about curses; Blue Exorcist is about Satan) but uses that power with the goal of ending those evil spirits. What makes the recommendation engine so great is that it compares the searched title to every other title to get similarity scores without taking into account popularity. This means that you can find hidden gems! Before AniBrain, I had never heard of “Beyond the Boundary”, but there it goes with an apparent 91% similarity score. I can say after watching it that it is indeed similar to Jujutsu Kaisen!
AniBrain’s goal is to help people find something new to watch or read. It doesn’t matter how popular the title is. If it’s in our database, you’ll be able to get endless recommendations for it! Also, since the engine does not take into account the general popularity of the titles, you can be sure that you won’t just get the same recommendations you always get when looking for something similar to what you love. Furthermore, the site offers a wide array of filtering functionality to help you sift through and find the type of content you’re looking for.
For those of you who are new to anime or manga and don’t know what to search for, there’s also a random generator!
Here, recommendations are a single click away! You can adjust the settings and filters to decide what kind of random content you get. Click the “Generate Random” button, and voilà–random recommendations!
If you’re ever in need of an anime to watch or manga to read, check out AniBrain! Without a doubt, you’ll find something new and exciting!
This is pretty neat. Thanks for sharing Irina and Mx Chidi! This is actually quite perfect for those days when I want to pick up something absolutely random and unexpected. 🙂
Happy to hear you’re finding the site useful! Let me know if there’s anything I can do to improve your experience 😊
Definitely, will do. Thank you. 🙂
I hope you have fun with it
AniBrain… Was this a paid advertisement? No? Ok.
I’m sure that’s fine. So why don’t I use sites like AniBrain? Because it’s a collective of Animes you can watch. That’s fine. But just telling me what the Animes are won’t answer my real question… Do I care enough about what this brings to the table to invest my budget into its acquisition and review. Yes. I could get it digitally. But let’s talk about ALL the digital content I lost over the years, including comics and Anime, on devices like the Nintendo Wii, the 3DS, the Sony PSP… Far too much to remember them all.
My philosophy is that if it’s good enough to review then it’s good enough to own. And yes. Even the Chinese Bootlegs. Sorry Japan, but that’s on you. You want to stop the bootleggers? You have to make people find more value and worth in investing in you and your product over them. You need to beat them in the marketplace. When you do that? I’ll be around with my budget to buy your wares. Until then…
AniBrain is fine. But telling me Series 1 does this while Series 2 does that doesn’t tell me if I’d love Series 1, 2, or maybe 3 or 4 better. I need that personal touch you can only get from fellow content reviewers. Not just from a service that might have paid for its advertising. I liked the article, but this is not for me. Sorry.
No – This guy just really loves anime and made a site. He wanted to share it folks so I let him use my blog. I like anime as well and enjoy sharing the platform.
China has mostly outlawed Japanese anime in China and is very actively trying to disrupt the market. That’s why I’m not a big fan of those bootlegs. And of course, I think animators are already underpaid. The intellectual property of anime is just horribly undervalued. It’s one of the worse out there. Hopefully, they’ll find a way to get around the constant pirating soon.
I do like your philosophy of if anime is good enough to review, it’s good enough to own but not actually pay for. That is pretty funny.
First off I’m sure he’s not going to do a paid ad on your site. If he does I expect him to share the sponsorship like a responsible human.
As for Japanese Anime being horribly undervalued? That’s only the tip of the iceberg. Consider how they sell in their own country. Here they sell manga at full markup and maybe extra. In Japan… You can buy manga out of vending machines if you so desired. Or buy ongoing anthology publications that print cheap and pay likewise. Say what you will of how horribly run America’s comics are… They used to do better by their creators. Some still do. Kinda.
The best way to put it is Japan, pop culture wise, is the budget country. Preferring quantity over quality, which sadly translates to how they’re paid. Look at their film industry. Even with today’s SFX technology? Movies like Shin Godzilla are outliers more than industry norm. More likely you’ll see lower effort put into a movie to bring it under a tight budget. Like Kikis Delivery Service 25th Anniversary movie.
With that said… Yeah. Japan wants to beat Malaysia and other bootleggers? They need to undercut them in the marketplace. Sell directly to the world, and make buying from them the better investment. Once sales for inferior products dry up, bootleggers will be banished to dollar bins forgotten. However with Japan’s present Import Export tax, and their entertainment execs at times having attitudes bordering on cultural xenophobia? No. Chinese Bootleggers are not going anywhere, until Japan puts in the honest effort to make them give up.
He’s actually the programmer of the site. It’s his. And since it’s a free site he probably can’t afford to do paid advertising. I love it when fans actually create something like that. Cool right?
This is a bit off topic but you know that it’s the distributors that set the price. Those distributors are American companies for the most part. Japan had no say in it. You can buy anime directly from Japanese distributors if you want. The Japanese export tax since 2019 on anime is around 3% which seems reasonable to me. But I live in a country that taxes me 15% on everything I buy and takes 60% of my income so my perspective may be skewed.
As for undercutting the market, they would have to not pay animators anymore. I mean there is tons of pirated anime that is free so to undercut that they would have to pay us to watch. Considering that new animators are already paid below living wage I think it would be not only difficult but just wrong to pay them even less. Especially as they are never going to be able to give their product away for free.
Personally, I do believe that a lot of anime fans find it worth contributing to the industry through subscriptions and that is helping out. I also know a lot of anime fans that think it’s worth putting in 100$ for a single mass manufactured figure so I’m sure it wouldn’t be unthinkable to shift market consciousness to make consumers believe that the anime that figure is from is worth 60$ considering all the work that goes into creating it.
Some people are always going to want to get something for nothing or for as cheap as possible no matter what. And there are people that simply can’t afford the products. That’s true in every industry. But I have a lot of optimism that anime fans are getting more and more aware of market issues and I see that a lot of people will shell out for Crunchyroll even though they could find a site for free. Or wait to get an official series when it goes on sale instead of fake.
This said, there are internal policies that might make the industry crumble. Generally speaking labour laws in Japan could use a bit of updating in certain areas. And I do think the contracts with distributors are problematic. Partly because the industry is at a huge negotiation disadvantage for several reasons, including pirating. It’s a complex issue and there are many problems. Hopefully a bit of fresh resources will help the industry start looking at and fixing some of those issues.
Yes. However distributors have to take into account several factors. Licensing fees if they’re working with other companies, the taxes plied by local state or federal governments, and so on. Japan has so much red tape it’s a wonder they don’t sell directly to the world, and must rely on outside companies to shower them with licensing fees and affirmation to sell to the world. Malaysia requires neither affirmation or licensing fees. Just willing customers and small businesses eager to do business with them.
As much as I sympathize with Japan? Their lack of will to do better isn’t in my budget plans. They want my budget? They need to put in the effort to earn it. It’s not my job to chase after them, and affirm their greatness. They want it, they have yo want it badly enough to make my budget worth spending directly with them. Only then will they overcome Malaysia.
Sitting around complaining If Only doesn’t get the job done.
I actually looked into licensing fees lately. On they are sad. That’s what I mean that there’s an issue there. Even triple-A anime like Demon Slayer or MHA that get huge views don’t command half the licensing prices of random American made live action shows. We won’t even get into premium series. It’s sad how little the market value of the IP is but considering the history.
Are you saying that you can distribute Intellectual Property of Malaysian nationals without licensing fees. Cause I’m pretty sure that’s not true. I work with Malaysian clients to secure their IP occasionally and they definitely have infringement provisions.
By the way, I still have no idea what you expect Japan to do? I don’t think they can force US distributors not to tax you and that’s the only thing you mentioned. If your stance is you should sell your product for less just because, it might not be all that convincing.
Honest;y, if you personally don’t really care that much about supporting the industry or the legality of it, which is your business, why don’t you just download anime for free? Why pay bootleggers? That seems like a complete waste of money.
Eh. The Chinese Bootleggers are not above bootlegging from themselves. China, probably Malaysia too if they had products people want. The one bootlegger I found in Malaysia loots Japan, South Korea and China. Some bootleggers even chase after harder to come North Korean propaganda bootlegs. And if I went to a different bootlegger they’ll be hitting up India and Russia. Of course China always bootlegs American stuff.
Anyway the app is probably a good place to research series info and find out what other series might appeal to you if you like certain titles. So that’s good I would think.
Hey Irina,
Thanks so much for giving me the exposure to post and discuss AniBrian. I hope to partner with you again in the future.
A fun timewaster. I realise I’ve watched too much anime. I usually have to scroll down quite far to get to a show I’ve never heard of, and then it’s usually not even available illegally…
Also, for some reason, the site really wants me to watch the new Fruits Basket. Only two shows didn’t get me that recommendation in the first few pages: Monster Musume and Shinsekai Yori.
The recommendations are quite good actually. Most of the stuff recommended was actually something I really enjoyed, though some were a little puzzling (why does Uchouten Kazoku get me Papakiki? Sure, there’s a family theme, but that’s about all, I can see. By the way, the top recommendation for Uchouten Kazoku was Natsume’s Book of Friends.)
Interestingly, most of the pv videos the random recommendations played had Italian subtitles. Is this an Italian page?
Yeah, I think it’s a great page for getting recommendations. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Somehow now I really want to make Sin Sekai Yori = Fruits Baskets work somehow. I’ll figure it out. Both made me uncomfortable at times…
Hey Dawnstorm,
Thanks for the useful feedback. I’m working on the recommendation engine every day, so improvements are on the way! And there’s no such thing as watching too much anime!