Happy early 4th of July for those in the US! Web3 doesn’t stop though 🫡

Although I’m not a huge anime fan (I did grow up on Naruto and Bleach, and have watched Attack on Titan, all very good!), it’s hard to ignore the massive global fan base and cultural movement:

• Crunchyroll, an anime streaming service and Sony subsidiary, has 17 million paid subscribers as of May

• There are an estimated 1 billion anime fans globally outside of Japan and China

• The anime industry grew to $23 billion in 2023 and more than half of that revenue is from outside Japan

As web3’s premier NFT collection, Azuki has focused on this industry and announced that it acquired the anime.com domain last September.

This week they opened up the Beta version of the website, showing how they plan to grow awareness of Azuki, integrate their ANIME token, and provide value to anime fans and broader industry.

The feed brings a sense of familiarity that we’re used to with other social platforms, with the ability to follow specific shows, characters, and actors. Content can be filtered by topic, summarized by AI, and sourced from X.

The Discover section reminds me of IMDB, providing details on anime shows and movies including character, content, and cast details.

As with all platforms with a feed, this is a step towards becoming a social platform. For now, users can only like and share content and comments are coming soon.

Depending on where the Azuki team plans to take anime.com, I can easily see profiles becoming discoverable with tastemakers sharing their preferences. Select content can be promoted, especially to users who like particular types of shows or characters. I expect a mobile app will be released in the future as well.

The feature that caught my eye was tier lists, a viral content template that incites debate and engagement. Because the tier list creator is specific to anime.com (as opposed to the whitelabeled tiermaker), options are pre-populated and categorized by characters and shows/movies. No need to upload your own images, and the database is always up-to-date.

Tier lists are shareable on other platforms and also show up on the website too. Creativity is the only limitation for this feature and it’s only a matter of time until a tier list goes viral and brings a spike in traffic.

The profile section provides another good idea of Azuki’s vision for anime.com.

Character profile

Users can customize their own profile through an avatar, which opens the door for a lot of features as the userbase grows:

• There can be milestone-based traits that are unlocked (eg: follow a specific character, engage with X posts, create X tier lists, etc.)

• Limited-edition traits in partnership with specific shows, characters, and studios

• Traits bought in the shop

• Integrating Azuki NFT collection traits. If you connect your wallet that hold an Azuki, you automatically get those traits which are scarce by default

• A marketplace or trading post for traits, possibly onchain?

There is also a leveling system which could eventually unlock access, perks, and more.

Shop + Stickers

Speaking of purchasable traits, it’s already happening! There is a Fractured Reflections (named after Episode 2 of the Azuki anime series) mystery can, resembling the gacha mechanic.

Stickers can only be purchased with ANIME token, with card purchases available in the future. The shop is also embedded as content block in the show’s about page, showing how this can be replicated across other shows and expanded to physical merch.

Events

There is also an events section highlighting various industry and fan events, starting with Los Angeles’ Anime Expo happening this weekend (there were 407k attendees last year 🤯)

Watch

This section is focused on Azuki’s Enter the Garden anime, and I can easily see this become a content hub featuring other shows and exclusive content. For now, the page directs curious people to Enter The Garden’s show page.

Although there are plenty of alternative content or streaming platforms, the watch section can become a hub for behind the scenes content, exclusive AMA’s, or other activations gated by a user’s level, what they’re following, and their engagement.

Azuki is one of the few NFT projects that has grown into a full-blown company and the evolution in their approach over the past year, particularly with anime.com has been interesting to observe, especially as the most casual of casual fans.

Unlike pretty much any other industry, anime is interesting in the sense that it’s still overwhelmingly produced in Japan and exported to the rest of the world. That contrasts with the globalized society that we now live in, but gives anime the authenticity, cultural richness, and community that is lacking everywhere else. This richness has led to a diverse fanbase spanning across the globe cracking the billions.

For all the pros, this has led to a gap that Azuki is looking to fill through anime.com: connecting the dots of modern fandom’s multi-dimensionality.

location tba, one of the Azuki co-founders, describes the vision and purpose (emphasis is mine):

From talking to people within the industry to speaking with many hardcore fans over the past few months, what became clear to us is that there is a massive gap between the anime industry and global fans. What started as Japanese media and a niche subculture for the rest of the world, has become a global medium loved by many. Global anime fans want to consume all sorts of content related to anime outside of the literal animated content itself, but have a difficult time finding it. There is a gap between the industry and its global fans. By the time a global fan consumes content related to anime, it has likely gone through layers of aggregators and this is very lossy. This actively throttles fandom and the industry’s TAM. When you read about what goes into the craft and see the BTS artwork/animation, your fandom deepens. When you can better discover merch and events accessible to you, you participate and spend money. While we all know anime is huge and growing, I believe it’s not growing as much as it could be. Our goal is to provide fans with value that they love using every day. While there are a ton of improvements and optimization work to be done, this release is our first step in plugging the gap that exists between the industry and its fans. It is the culmination of the team’s hard work over the past two months, and I’m proud of the effort, thoughtfulness, and craft that has gone into it. Hope yall enjoy using it as much as we have these past few weeks. This isn’t even close to Anime[dot]com’s final form

And if anime.com lives up to its potential, that attention, engagement, and monetization can be thoughtfully directed to Azuki as well.

Have you watched anime before? If so, share or subscribe!

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Pudgy Penguins has been on a tear, partnering with NASCAR, collaborating with PEZ, filing an ETF, publishing a children’s book, and ringing the NASDAQ stock exchange opening bell, approaching 1B daily GIF views by EOY, and more.

One of my favorite marketing tactics from the team is how their social team leverages newsjacking on X to create additional awareness.

Newsjacking is a marketing tactic that leverages news to promote a brand or product, with the most common form of this coming from meme accounts.

Pudgy’s newsjacking strategy has been by replying to or creating memes related to geopolitical headlines with financial implications with cute penguins and meme templates.

When the US announced tariffs on other countries, Heard and McDonald Islands stuck out like a sore thumb because there is no human population and are inhabited by penguins.

The Pudgy social team made the most of this by perpetuating the meme that they were involved in the trade war with the US, even creating some viral memes of their own.

Jerome Powell of the Federal Reserve has everyone playing the game of will he/won’t he when it comes to rate cuts, and Pudgy isn’t shy about inserting itself in the conversation.

I’m sure there are plenty I missed, but I found this one particularly amusing

After successfully negotiating trade deals, Pudgy is now helping the most powerful man in the world make amends with the richest man in the world.

Pudgy’s newsjacking efforts isn’t just limited to social media. They’re doing it IRL with institutions like the asset manager VanEck, ringing the NASDAQ opening bell.

In all these examples, Pudgy Penguins is comedic relief for topics and situations that are serious or have significant implications. This cute penguin is posting memes is sorta like if a young kid at a family dinner blurts out a swear word. It’s cute, generally harmless, and if the timing is good, hilarious.

Easy to copy, difficult to master.

See you next week!