Many anime websites that look like they’re independent, or that you know that were independent, are no longer independent in a literal sense.
Many have been bought out, invested in by outside investors, are now part of a larger company or firm, or have a lot of financial backing in general.
This includes:
- Anime news websites.
- Recommendation style sites.
- Anime websites cover a bit of everything.
And things of that nature.
Let’s talk about anime websites that are still independently owned regardless of what level they’re at, have reached, and so on.
I’ve had conversations with some owners on this list, personally.
Non Ranking Order:
1. Anime Motivation
animemotivation.com goes without saying.
Since 2016 it has made waves in the industry especially when it comes to setting the trends for anime quotes with images, life lessons content, statistical content, and influencing the trend of so-called “Motivational anime quote” content seen today.
Theo J Ellis is the founder of Anime Motivation, which has a reach of 10-20M+ across platforms despite being suppressed or censored from Pinterest, Quora, Facebook Ads, etc.
2. Anime Corner
In their own words:
“Anime Corner was founded in 2012 and has since grown to become a global community with millions of followers across its social media profiles.”
One common form of content with Anime Corner is polls, which they share on their social networks.
News is also the main driver of their website which is published a few times a day at least and is of course, an independent website as far as it looks.
3. Anitrendz
Founded in 2013 by Deiru, Anitrendz has been running for almost 10+ years technically speaking.
In their own words:
“Anime Trending is a go-to site for any anime fan, whether they’re looking for the best new anime, an exciting community to join, or industry news about upcoming releases.”
Charts, polls, and things of that nature are common here besides the consistent news content pushed out on the website.
It appears to be independently run without outside investors.
4. Sakuga Blog
According to Sakuga Blog’s about page:
“Sakugabooru is a site dedicated to animation, with an emphasis on Japanese anime but also open to creators from around the world.”
Their style of content differs from the average anime website. They do deep dives of content and don’t follow the typical “top 10” or “episode review”.
They think about their content and do a lot of analysis posts.
5. Anime Herald
Anime Herald started as early as 2010 and is another independent anime website.
Their description is a bit more personal than others:
“Anime Herald began as a bit of a dream, founded in 2010 as editor-in-chief Samantha Ferreira was helping to turn the lights off at Anime Dream (RIP). At the time, she was working full-time while going to college for a computer science degree.”
Interviews, analysis, opinion pieces, and news looks to be their main focus. Especially interviews and analysis.
6. Anime Diet
In their own words:
“You’re looking at Anime Diet, a lean, mean, mostly spam-free anime media platform. We do everything from the usual episode reviews and commentaries and editorials to a popular podcast Anime Diet Radio, and individual audio columns.”
Anime Diet is essentially one of the OG’s of anime blogs specifically. They wrote their first post in December 2006, which speaks for itself.
They go into massive detail on their About page.
7. Anime Hunch
In their own words:
“Animehunch was founded in 2020 and has grown into a thriving website for anime and manga enthusiasts. The website came into being when 4 weeb friends decided to take their love for anime & manga and do something about it.”
Unlike other sites on this list, AnimeHunch’s main purpose is sharing news in the anime industry. Especially news that other sites like the ANN’s of the world won’t share.
News makes up the majority of their content and is their “one thing”.
8. angryanimebitches.com
In their own words:
“This blog was launched on September 28th, 2010 by Eva, our Team Leader who created this blog with the hopes of creating a community and platform for passionate fans to share their love for anime with the world. Blogging has not only been a way of making connections with others, but it offers the opportunity to express ourselves.”
This is another anime website that can be put into the OG status as they’ve been published since 2010.
Unlike the name of the website, the content is really about anime reviews, episode breakdowns, and everything in between.
9. Otaku Kart
In their own words:
“OtakuKart is a news and media website that was founded in 2015 by Jerika Moldharia and Sohel Moldharia. As one of the leading websites in the otaku community, OtakuKart provides its readers with reliable, well-researched, and up-to-date information on all things Anime, Manga, Kpop, Kdrama, Japanese Drama, US TV Shows, Gaming News, Dating & Gossip.”
In the beginning, Otaku Kart used to cover everything about anime from a news standpoint. That was their main focus.
These days they may cover other elements of entertainment besides anime, but that’s still what the site is at its core.
They’re consistent more than most.
10. Anime Senpai
They don’t offer much by explanation, but in their own words:
“Anime Senpai is a news website where we cover everything related to anime, manga, manhwa, and live action adaptations. Mr. Muhammad Hassan Ali founded Anime Senpai Ltd in 2020.”
Anime Senpai started on social media long before the website came into play (before 2020). They were posting on their Facebook page, where they built a pre-following.
They specialize in anime news content tailored to social networks.
J-List called them out for clickbait some years back, and many have pointed out their clickbait tactics on Twitter, but regardless of how people feel they’re one of the relevant anime websites still around today (mostly on social media rather than their website).
This can’t be said for many independent anime websites or brands which remain relatively small and too niche.
11. starcrossedanime.com
In their own words:
“The site originally started out on Blogsome in 2005 by Psgels, where he gained a dedicated following that allowed him to grow the site into what it is today, and move the site into his own domain.
In 2014, the site expanded into a multi-author blog made up of previous fans-turned-writers who carry their own perspectives on the medium we all know and love.”
Similar to other independent anime websites with a particular style, they do episode by episode breakdowns, reviews, and synopsis for plenty of airing anime series.
This applies to all seasons.
12. 9TailedKitsune
In the words of Mia on her blog:
“9 Tailed Kitsune’s purposeis to entertain and provide useful information for anime fans all around the world.
I love to contribute to the anime community by sharing helpful information about the topics I am passionate about, plus I really appreciate the whole anime community, whether it’s anime fans, bloggers, or YouTubers, so this is a perfect opportunity for self-realization and interaction.”
9TailedKitsune came out during a time when many other anime websites started to pop up in the space (2019).
Their focus is recommendations, top 10,20, anime character birthdays, and “anime like” posts.
13. wrongeverytime.com
In their own words:
“Hey all! I’m Bobduh, founder of this here anime blog. I like anime, character writing, Big Ideas, and pretty much everything else wrapped up in the wonderful world of storytelling. I’ve been at this anime-writing thing for a good few years now, moving from rants on forums to formal essays, writing positions at Anime News Network and Crunchyroll, and eventually a Patreon where readers commission me to write about pretty much anything. It’s been quite a ride!”
From what I gather, they’ve been around since 2013.
Their main focus is episodic reviews whether it be certain anime of the season they’re into, or anime they’re watching and are reviewing as they go along.
14. Yu Alexius
In their own words:
“Yu Alexius first started as an anime blog on August 17, 2015 – dedicated to sharing random anime news, updates and editorials. It has then evolved as a place for the author to share his views and opinions about anime series and movies, and beyond that, his discovery of donghua (Chinese animation).”
Started a little earlier than Anime Motivation – Yu Alexius, at least these days, is the go to anime website if you want to know specifically about anime anime or Donghua.
No other anime or manga site covers this type of content more than Yu Alexius.
You can also find content surrounding recommendations, lists, and others.
15. Frog Kun
In their own words about themselves and the site:
“My name is Kim Morrissy, also known as Frog-kun on the Internet. My writings about anime have appeared on Anime News Network, Crunchyroll News, Anime Feminist, and other places. I’m also a Japanese-English translator.”
Their main type of content is analysis, opinions, and lists. Maybe in that order.
They’ve been publishing anime related content since 2011, making Frog Kun another anime site that’s been around longer than many.
16. Anime News & Facts
Anime News And Facts is about as straightforward as a website name can get.
But in their own words, they say:
“AnimeNewsAndFacts is an online community created by Weebs and for Weebs. As a leading source in the industry, we cover everything related to anime, manga, manhwa, and manhua, and occasionally provide updates on gaming, music, and live-action adaptations.”
I remember when this website was much smaller back in the day before the growth it later saw.
No BS, no nonsense, just a website dedicated to anime news and facts (more than anything else), making them more specialized in this sense.
17. Beneath The Tangles
I describe this independent anime website as anime from a religious perspective.
In their own words from the About page:
“We invite you to join us on our journey as we discuss anime, manga, light novels, and other Japanese media through the experiences that form us. We hope to create a safe community at Beneath the Tangles, one where we can explore and question all sorts of topics, and where people of all faiths (or none at all) feel welcomed and are eager to engage in discussion.”
A lot of other content seems more theme related, for example, “fanart Friday”, or a breakdown of their thoughts on a certain anime, and similar types of anime content.
It’s more intimate in a way.
18. Randomc.net
Randomc might be a site you know about, depending on which side of the industry you’re on (for anime content sites).
They post daily content involving reviews of various airing anime, episode by episode, and have been doing this for years.
In their own words:
“This blog was originally started by Omni in late 2004 on Blogger in hopes of having a place to write about what he watched. Unfortunately, a lack of interest and time basically put a temporary stop to that. He eventually revived this blog with the intent of keeping up with the latest series around early May 2005. After he got fed up with the set of features that Blogger had, Maestro offered to host the blog as part of the AnimeBlogger Community, where it remained for five years. Over that period of time, it has grown tremendously and has featured many different writers.”
2004 means the site started 20 years ago, which speaks for itself.
Triple OG status.
19. animeeverything.online
Unsurprisingly, the main content of the site is all in the name. Quite literally in this case.
As the owner puts it on their about page:
“I had a huge goal right from the beginning (okay, that’s a lie… I didn’t even know the site would actually grow this big)—to be a major source for all things anime.
This is exactly why I named the site “Anime Everything” (more like, I couldn’t think of a cool name and just put together the two words that made sense to me).”
The website covers top 10 lists (or more than 10), recommendation style posts, and less often quizzes and opinion driven pieces.
This independent anime site was started in 2019.
20. Recommend Me Anime
There is something I can appreciate to this day about websites that laser focus on a specific topic. Recommend Me Anime is one of those sites, of which there aren’t many these days it feels like.
Their content is about “anime like” style posts, which makes up the overwhelming majority of their content.
In their own words:
“There are a lot of ways to get anime recommendations.
You could see a cool clip on YouTube and decide to check out a series. You could use sites that let a large variety of users add recommendations, like MyAnimeList of Anilist. You could ask on Reddit and get a fun variety of answers. However, I have always found the best way to get anime recommendations is by getting them from someone who has watched the same show as you.
That is what Recommend Me Anime is about – Offering you a list of anime recommendations based on the anime you just watched or the things you like about a series in general.”
Their About page is also detailed, highlighting how it started in 2016 as a hobby site.
It’s one of the few independent anime sites that can be considered medium to large and one of the few that is consistent in this small category.
21. Animation.net
Animation.net may be an anime site, but unlike most “independent” anime sites they have content going back as far as 1999 which is crazy.
Their main content seems to be John, the owner, pushing out personal content, box openings, interviews, reviews, and opinion pieces.
The amount of content on the site is a library’s worth.
22. lostinanime.com
Lost in Anime has been publishing content independently since 2010. Similar to angryanimebitches and other sites, they post episodic reviews of airing anime in each season,
As a result, you can expect to see anime content on a daily basis without fail, making it the type of anime site you can read up on every day.
23. Draggles anime blog
Draggle’s anime blog does things slightly differently as far as review style anime websites go.
Instead of episodic reviews which is typical, they do an entire review of an anime series. Presumanly after they’ve watched it in full.
They also share their thoughts during each anime season, highlighting anime that will or are airing, and giving a quick breakdown.
24. AnmoSugoi
Lastly is AnmoSugoi, the Spanish anime website that is popular in the Spanish community.
They appear to be independently run, started in 20217 and currently reaching millions of anime fans.
In their own words:
“Anmo Sugoi is a media outlet focused on news from the world of anime, manga, video games and Japanese culture that began in 2017.
In our desire to continue creating, sharing and expanding our content, we managed to position ourselves, in less than a year, among the main anime-themed information media in Latam; and we started new projects together with creatives and experienced people who want to contribute content to the community.”
