FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

aniSearch is a community-based project, which started back in 2006 and is constantly evolving and growing together with its community. Here you will find copious amounts of information on anime, manga and Asian live-action, along with the possibility to rate and comment on those and discuss them with other members in our forums.

Every registered member has the opportunity to contribute information to our database. You can make changes to any detail affiliated with any entry in our database or fill in missing information. We’re grateful for any help and we reward such help with points which we call “cookies”. By collecting said cookies you can gain new user ranks and unlock achievements for your profile.

REWARD: If you’re diligently collecting our cookies and, by doing so, supporting aniSearch you may be rewarded with a free Premium Membership.

In every entry you will find the link “Edit” in the “Controls” box below the title. Using this you can fill in missing information or correct any details you think are incorrect.

All descriptions on aniSearch are subject to our copyright, unless they are explicitly marked as a description from an external source. Our descriptions may be copied and used on third-party websites under the condition that aniSearch is credited as the source and a hyperlink to the corresponding database entry is included. According to section 13 of the German Copyright Act (UrhG), the author is entitled to have his authorship of the work recognised; he may determine whether the work is to be provided with an authorship designation and which designation is to be used. A violation of the requirement to indicate the source of the work, as described here, will result in a liability for damages if the use of the work is within the limits of the German Copyright Act (§§ 44aff. UrhG; KG Berlin, ruling of 21 March 2012 – 24 U 130/10).

We emphasise, in particular, that for the use of our description texts, i.e. synopses for anime, manga, and other entries on our website, within other media, such as live streams, videos, or podcasts, we have to be referenced as the source for each individual description. This may be done for instance via a viva voce mention, such as “synopsis from anisearch.com,” or a clearly visible overlay of the URL “www.anisearch.com” at the corresponding spot in the video, as well as via providing the complete URL of the referenced entry within our database within any commentary, description, or list of references for your video. We particularly emphasise that a simple footnote, such “source: anisearch.com,” is not sufficient! To ensure the integrity and comprehensibility of the reference, it is mandatory to provide the complete URL in text.

aniSearch used to fund itself via advertisements alone, however, due to more and more people using ad blockers, we’ve reached a point where aniSearch can no longer be funded by only advertisements. Using the new optional Premium Membership we wish to ensure the project’s funding as well as the realisation of new features.

If you noticed an error on aniSearch you have the following options to report this error to us, so we can fix it as soon as possible:

• Please report technical errors/bugs in our Support Forums.
• Grammatical mistakes or flaws in the translation may be put into our Localisation Forums.
• You can correct mistakes in our database yourself and you’ll even collect cookies in the process.

We offer a huge and extensive “Advanced Search,” which also contains an ample amount of genres and tags to scan for. The Advanced Search is e.g. accessible via the Index using the “Search Filter” button, located at the top left.

On the Site Notice page you will find a list of all our staff members. We’re always looking for diligent and motivated members for our team. Naturally, as a voluntary staff member, you decide how much time you wish to spend on aniSearch—we do not expect you to meet a quota. If you are interested in one of our fields of work and you have further questions, just write us informally via our support form and we will try to answer your questions as soon as possible. We look forward to hearing from you!

Certain images are unacceptable to our advertisement partners, due to the showing of provocative or suggestive poses. That aside, it is also in our own interest to ensure sufficient youth protection so that everyone can browse aniSearch without fear of any negative surprises. To access all images you can purchase a Premium Membership or our free verification page, thus verifying that you’re at least 18 years of age.

“Safe for Work” or simply “SFW” is way of classifying page contents. This classification helps you decide whether a website or certain pages of a website are safe to be viewed at work or in public areas, as “SFW” content does not contain any explicit—i.e. sexual or crudely violent—material. Any material that falls into the sexual or violent categories is disabled when using this setting. “Safe for Work” is aniSearch’s default setting for visitors and new members. This setting can be changed any time in your Profile Management.

“Not Safe for Work” or simply “NSFW” is the exact opposite of “Safe for Work”. This classification of page contents tells you that all explicit contents on the website are visible. As the name implies, it is not recommended to use this setting when browsing a website at work or in public areas.

aniSearch is an open database that allows for the participation of every registered member at their own discretion. Register via and become a part of our community of contributors! you may either edit existing entries to correct and supplement data or add entirely new entries. For entering and correcting data you will receive points, which we here call “Cookies”. The more you participate in the database, the more Cookies you collect and the more you will rise through the user ranks. An overview on the user ranks, on current promotions, and on which members have collected the most Cookies can be found here.

However, Cookies not only increase your user rank and thus your reputation in the community! Just a modest amount of activity is enough for you to receive a free and automatic Premium Membership for one month. Once you have reached the user rank “Cookie Hero,” this free Premium Membership will then be permanently available to you.

By collecting Cookies in one section of the database, you can also earn achievements. There are achievements for subsections and main sections; each of which has 12 levels. One possible subsection, for example, would be anime descriptions. Participating there, you will, at the same time, also collect Cookies for the main section anime. The individual achievement main sections and subsections as well as a list of who has received which achievement can be found here. Also worth mentioning is the activity overview on the contributors of the previous month and on the top contributors in the respective main section. Also worthy of mention is the “Top Contributors” list within each database entry. This list shows the five members who have contributed the most to this specific entry.

Where can I find the database entry form?

For one thing, it can be found directly in any entry itself: to the right of the main title of the entry you will find the “edit” button. You can, however, also click on your avatar at the top of the page and select the menu item “Database”. There you will find an overview on your previous entries, which allows you to manage them and see their current processing status. At the top, among the tabs, you can select “Anime” for example and then either create an entirely new entry or search for an existing title, select it, edit it, and finally send it in.

If you are particularly diligent and collect a substantial amount of Cookies, you have the chance to obtain the additional special rank of “DB Helper”. It is also possible to join our team—either as a Supervisor or as a contributor for special tasks. However, regardless of whether you enter data as a team member or just for fun, the activity is completely voluntary and has no obligations whatsoever—you decide how much time and effort you are willing to invest in aniSearch and we are very grateful for any help!

If you have any further questions about entering data, you can either ask them in our support forums or create a ticket via our support form. We will try to answer them as quickly as possible.

User ranks are automatically awarded for collecting a certain amount of Cookies. The following ranks are available on aniSearch:

Achievements, as you might know them from gaming, are little rewards that are awarded to our members for certain successes, i.e. continuous contributions to our database or being an otherwise very active member of our community.

Which Kinds of Achievements Can I Earn?

The database-specific achievements are a way for us to reward the patience and diligence our contributors show when filling our database with information. Other than the cookies one earns for entering information, which only show the overall activity of the respective member, the achievements are supposed to show and honour their efforts in the respective fields. As such, we divided our achievements into two main sections:

- Main Fields: News, Anime, Manga, Live-Action, Characters, Companies, Creators, Articles
- Sub Fields: Basic Information, Descriptions, Covers, Genres, Screenshots, Episodes Lists, Productions, Voice Actors, Streams, Music
The database-specific achievements (all in all 12 achievements per field, meaning an overall of 216 achievements) are awarded automatically once the necessary amount of cookies has been gained.

Are there any other achievements besides the database achievements for other participations in the community or for the use of the list functions ?

Currently this is not the case, but we are open to further additions to the achievements! Ideas from the community for new achievements, their icons, and requirements are always welcome and can be posted as a new topic in the Feature Request subforum in the support area. Good ideas will be added to the Achievement repertoire after sufficient consideration.

We are looking forward to your suggestions!

You can rate a title either by using the quick rating option or directly on the detail page of each entry. To do so you can hit the “Rate” button in the control panel below the title. You will be shown the rating form on which you should notice the following options:

The overall rating requires a uniform measurement to be used by all members on aniSearch to calculate reasonable results. Our 5 star rating system, which is the basis for the overall rating, is used as this uniform measurement, as it offers a good approximation to the personalised rating systems. However, we want our members to be able to rate any title and thus sort their lists any way they wish. This is what the personalised rating systems are meant for. They are not taken into consideration when calculating a title’s overall rating, but they offer our members an individual scale to rate what they’ve seen/read.

You can find an overview on your own ratings by using either your public lists or your private lists within the Control Panel. The difference between both is that the public list will show only those titles which you rated publicly, whereas your private lists will show you ‒ and only you ‒ every title you ever rated. In addition to those lists you will notice that every title you rated is highlighted by a coloured frame anywhere on aniSearch.

You can access the quick rating option via different approaches. For one, it’s possible to open the quick rating form via your own private and public lists or via the public lists of other members. Within these lists you will notice a small button next to the stars with a plus sign on it, which will open the quick rating form. Another way is to access the quick rating form in all gallery views or on the public profiles of other members. There as well you can find the small plus sign next to the stars (below the cover image of the title). The quick rating option is meant to give you a means of quickly adding titles to your lists or adjusting existing ratings.

The Control Panel contains just about all the important settings regarding your account. Here’s the syllabus on the most important functions:

• Managing your private anime, manga and live-action lists, including your comments and reviews
• Managing your favourites in anime, manga, live-action, characters, et cetera
• Here you have direct access to our database and you’re able to edit existing information or add new titles
• Adding friends to your friendlist and accept pending friend requests
• Ignoring members to whom you wish no contact
• Managing your club memberships or even establishing your own clubs
• Filling in any missing information to your public profile
• Adding an avatar to your profile
• Creating your own personal layout and customise aniSearch to suit your individual tastes
• Setting your privacy preferences for your public profile: “Who may see what information?”
• Uploading images for your comments, forum posts or your profile description
• Setting general preferances regarding timezone, types of notification, spoiler warnings or your preferred language settings
• Changing your email address
• Changing your password
• Changing your username