AniList Roadmap & Changelog

Changelog - 19/09/2022 - Subscribe to the forum thread for automatic notifications.

• Added new “System Theme” site theme option. This will automatically switch to the light or dark theme depending on your current system settings.
• Updated apps on Apps page.
• Added some additional spam prevention techniques.
• Fix some titles or names overflowing their containers.
• Fixed excessive amounts of media link embeds causing rate limiting issues.
• Accounted for repeat reads/watched for on-hold and dropped series in user stats.

Changelog - 20/02/2023 - Subscribe to the forum thread for automatic notifications.

• We are now including the "Editing" role for written media. For Japanese editors, we will use only the role Editing, and for editors in other languages we will be using Editing (Language).

New tags:

• Desert (Prominently features a desert environment.)
• Fairy (Prominently features a character who is a fairy.)
• Femboy (Features a boy who exhibits characteristics or behaviors considered in many cultures to be typical of girls.)
• Marriage (Centers around marriage between two or more characters.)
• Prison (Partly or completely set in a prison.)

<br>

New 18+ tag:

Zoophilia (Features a character who has a sexual attraction for non-human animals.)

Changelog - 11/02/2024 - Subscribe to the forum thread for automatic notifications.

We added some new tags to the site.

New tags:
Acrobatics (The art of jumping, tumbling, and balancing. Often paired with trapeze, trampolining, tightropes, or general gymnastics.)
Ancient China (Setting in ancient china, does not apply to fantasy settings.)
Arranged Marriage (Features two characters made to marry each other, usually by their family.)
Board Game (Centers around characters playing board games.)
Boarding School (Features characters attending a boarding school.)
Class Struggle (Contains conflict born between the different social classes. Generally between an dominant elite and a suffering opressed group.)
Coastal (Story prominently takes place near the beach or around a coastal area/town. Setting is near the ocean.)
Criminal Organization (Prominently features a group of people who commit crimes for illicit or violent purposes.)
Estranged Family (At least one family member of the MC intentionally distances themselves or a family distances themselves from a person related to the MC.)
Filmmaking (Centers around the art of filmmaking.)
Horticulture (The story prominently features plant care and gardening. )
Kingdom Management (Characters in these series take on the responsibility of running a town or kingdom, whether they take control of an existing one, or build their own from the ground up.)
Inn (Partially or completely set in an Inn or Hotel.)
Konbini (Predominantly features a convenience store.)
Matriarchy (Prominently features a country that is ruled by a Queen or a society that is dominated by female inheritance.)
Mountaineering (Prominently features characters discussing or hiking mountains.)
Natural Disaster (It focuses on catastrophic events of natural origin, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and severe storms. These works often present situations of extreme danger in which the characters struggle to survive and overcome the adversity.)
Office (Features people who work in a business office.)
Polyamorous (Features a character who is in a consenting relationship with multiple people at one time.)
Primarily Animal Cast (Main cast is mostly composed animal or animal-like characters.)
Proxy Battle (A proxy battle is a battle where humans use creatures/robots to do the fighting for them, either by commanding those creatures/robots or by simply evolving them/changing them into battle mode.)
Royal Affairs (Features nobility, alliances, arranged marriage, succession disputes, religious orders and other elements of royal politics)
Time Loop (A character is stuck in a repetitive cycle that they are attempting to break out of. This is distinct from a manipulating time of their own choice.)
Unrequited Love (One or more characters are experiencing an unrequited love that may or may not be reciprocated.)
Veterinarian (Prominently features a veterinarian or one of the main characters is a veterinarian.)

New Adult (18+) tags:
Cervix Penetration (A sexual act in which the cervix is visibly penetrated.)
Double Penetration (A sexual act in which the vagina/anus are penetrated by two penises/toys.)
Hair Pulling (A sexual act in which the giver will grab the receivers hair and tug whilst giving pleasure from behind.)
Male Pregnancy (Features pregnant male characters in a sexual context.)
Pet Play (Treating a participant as though they were a pet animal. Often involves a collar and possibly BDSM.)

Changelog - 15/02/2024 - Subscribe to the forum thread for automatic notifications.

I meant to include this with the tag post a few days ago but forgot, oops

As an FYI, while this has been in the submission manual for proper descriptions for a long while, we are starting to more strictly enforce the following policy:

We have decided to begin to actively trim down character entries that are bloated with superfluous, irrelevant, and/or overly spoilery information. Our goal is to provide basic information/description of the character. We are not a character wiki, nor do we strive to be. Character entries should not be an entire plot summary for that character. Here is an example that is pretty much ideal in our eyes: https://anilist.co/character/129090/Ririka-Kenzaki. As an example of what we do not want to have as a profile (spoilering to reduce the size, not for spoiler reasons):
There will undoubtedly be unique cases for some characters, but overall this is how the mod team feels.

Changelog - 05/04/2024 - Subscribe to the forum thread for automatic notifications.

We have updated the rules to include the following additions:
- If you share fanart of any kind, make sure you post the source of the art. An exception to this is that a source does not need to be stated for user’s avatars or banners. In the event that the source is no longer available please state such when posting. Reverse image search engines, such as https://saucenao.com/ can be helpful in finding an original upload. Some examples where users typically share fanart on the site:
- Status posts and replies
- Forum threads and forum posts
- A user’s ‘About Me’
- In ‘Event Badges’
- AI generated images are not permitted to be shared on the site. If AI imagery is shared with the intent of commentary of some sort then this will typically be allowed at moderator's discretion.

Please refer to this thread for further details

Changelog - 13/06/2024 - Subscribe to the forum thread for automatic notifications.

We added some new tags to the site.

New Tags:
Aromantic (Features a character who experiences little to no romantic attraction.)
Bowling (Centers around the sport of Bowling.)
Classical Music (Centers on the musical style of classical, not to be applied to anime that use classical in its soundtrack.)
Cowboys (Features Western or Western-inspired cowboys.)
Eco-Horror (Utilizes a horrifying depiction of ecology to explore man and it's relationship with nature.)
Elderly Protagonist (The protagonist is either over 60 years of age, has an elderly appearance, or, in the case of non-humans, is considered elderly for their species.)
Fake Relationship (When two characters enter a fake relationship that mutually benefits one or both involved.)
Hip-hop Music (Centers on the musical style of hip-hop, not to be applied to anime that use hip-hop in its soundtrack.)
Jazz Music (Centers on the musical style of jazz, not to be applied to anime that use jazz in its soundtrack.)
Matchmaking (Prominently features either a matchmaker or events with the intent of matchmaking with eventual marriage in sight.)
Metal Music (Centers on the musical style of metal, not to be applied to anime that use metal in its soundtrack.)
Parenthood (Centers around the experience of raising a child.)
Psychosexual (Work that involves the psychological aspects of sexual impulses.)
Restaurant (Features a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Also encompasses cafes and bistros.)
Rock Music (Centers on the musical style of rock, not to be applied to anime that use rock in its soundtrack.)
Snowscape (Prominently or partially set in a snowy environment.)

New Adult (18+) tags:
Fisting (A sexual activity that involves inserting one or more hands into the vagina or rectum.)
Mating Press (Features the sex position in which two partners face each other, with one of them thrusting downwards and the other's legs tucked up towards their head.)

Tag name change:
Musical changed to Musical Theater.

Tag definition changes (18+):
Incest (Features sexual or romantic relations between characters who are related by blood.)
Inseki (Features sexual or romantic relations among step, adopted, and other non-blood related family members.)

Changelog - 19/08/2024 - Subscribe to the forum thread for automatic notifications.

• A Fequently Asked Question (FAQ) forum thread was created
• A bug thread was created.

- For transparency, posts will be made in reply to the bug thread when its been updated to list a new bug or identified workaround. Please use the Subscribe button at the bottom of that thread for notifications of new bugs.

Changelog - 18/11/2024 - Subscribe to the forum thread for automatic notifications.

• Add extra response caching for API requests
• Display forum search more prominently
• Update API documentation links
• Add bsky link to the site footer
• Fix social embeds display when there is no description
• Fix a few small miscellaneous errors

Changelog - 23/03/2025

• Default to system theme (Why wasn't it already like this?)
• Fixed seasonal rankings being calculated with date ranges instead of their assigned season.
• Added missing Taiwan filter on user lists
• A number of changes on our moderation dashboard to make our team's lives easier.

New Tags:
Camping (Features the recreational activity of camping, either in a tent, vehicle, or simply sleeping outdoors.)
Cohabitation (Features two or more people who live in the same household and develop a romantic or sexual relationship.)
Creature Taming (Features the taming of animals, monsters, or other creatures.)
Curses (Features a character, object or area that has been cursed, usually by a malevolent supernatural force.)
Exorcism (Involving religious methods of vanquishing youkai, demons, or other supernatural entities.)
Medieval (Partially or completely set in the Middle Ages or a Middle Ages-inspired setting. Commonly features elements such as European castles and knights.)
Mixed Media (Features a combination of different media and animation techniques. Often seen with puppetry, textiles, live action footage, stop motion, and more. This does not include works with normal usage of CGI in their production.)
Rescue (Centers around operations that carry out urgent treatment of injuries, remove people from danger, or save lives. This includes series that are about search-and-rescue teams, trauma surgeons, firefighters, and more.)
Vocal synth (Features one or more singers or characters that are products of a synthesize singing program. Popular examples are Vocaloids, Megpoids or UTAUloids.)
Wilderness (Predominantly features a location with little to no human activity, such as a deserted island, a jungle, or a snowy mountain range.)

New Adult (18+) tags:
Cheating (Features a character with a partner shown being intimate with someone else consensually.)
Erotic Piercings (Features a type of body modification designed to enhance sexual pleasure and intimacy, and/or decoratively adorns portions of the body considered sexual in nature.)
Shimaidon (Features a character who gets their way with two sisters.)

Tag name changes:
Outdoor changed to Outdoor Activities

Tag definition changes (18+):
Netorare (Netorare is what happens when the protagonist gets their partner stolen from them by someone else. It is a sexual fetish designed to cause sexual jealousy by way of having the partner indulge in sexual activity with someone other than the protagonist.)

Changelog - 04/04/2025 - Subscribe to the forum thread for automatic notifications.

The review rules were revised slightly to clarify that, under most circumstances, users have to complete a work before reviewing it. This change supersedes the “Dropped Works” rule.

Old version:

• Dropped Works

- Reviews of works that users have dropped are permitted, in the event that they have seen/read at least 75% of it, rounding up. Reviews of dropped works must follow the other rules with regards to currently releasing titles.

New version:

• Partial Reviews: Reviews should only be published for works that were marked as completed by the user or comply with the “Completed Works” rule, with the following exception:

- Reviews of works that users have dropped are permitted in the event that they have seen/read at least 75%. These reviews must still follow the other rules regarding currently releasing titles.

Changelog - 11/02/2026 - Subscribe to the forum thread for automatic notifications.

General tag changes, including new tags and changes to existing tags.

New Tags:
Ballet (Prominently features the dance art of ballet. Both traditional and contemporary styles.)
Body Image (Features themes of self-esteem concerning perceived defects or flaws in appearance, such as body weight or disfigurement, and may discuss topics such as eating disorders, fatphobia, and body dysmorphia.)
Indigenous Cultures (Prominently features real-life indigenous cultures.)
Kabuki (Prominently features the traditional Japanese theater art of kabuki.)
Long Strip (Manga originally published in a vertical, long-strip format, designed for viewing on smartphones. Also known as webtoons.)
Manzai (Prominently features an act of traditional Japanese comedy that involves two performers.)
Modeling (Features a line of work with the purpose of displaying and advertising products such as makeup, clothing, and jewelry. Also includes posing artistically for figure drawing, painting, sculpting, and photography.)
Reverse Isekai (Features a character from a fantasy world who is transported into a modern day setting.)
Vertical Video (Animated works originally created in a vertical aspect ratio (such as 9:16), intended for viewing on smartphones.)

New Adult (18+) tags:
Fingering (Features vaginal or anal insertion of fingers)
Oyakodon Features a character who has sexual relations with both the mother and her daughter.)
Swapping (Features consensual partner swapping between couples during sexual activities.)

Tag Category Change:
Bisexual moved from the Themes / Romantic category to the Cast / Traits category

Tag Definition Changes:
Cultivation (Features characters using training, often martial arts-related, and other special methods to cultivate qi (a component of traditional Chinese philosophy, described as "life force") and gain strength or immortality.)
Full Color (Manga that were initially published in full color.)
Vocal Synth (Features one or more singers or characters that are products of a synthesize singing program. Popular examples are Vocaloids, UTAUloids, and CeVIOs.)

Tag Name Change:
Pregnant changed to Pregnancy

Tag Definition Changes and Removed from Sexual Content Category:
Blackmail (Features a character blackmailing another.)
Pregnancy (Features pregnant female characters or discusses the topic of pregnancy.)

Changelog - 13/02/2026

As much as this thread makes it seem like we haven't, we have actually been pushing out updates. Some of the changes require some full downtime so I've been holding off on the changelog, but I'll just omit those for now.

• Google's reCAPTCHA has been dropped in favor of Cloudflare Turnstile. If you notice any issues logging in due to captcha validation, please reach out.

Backlog of changes

• The OpenSearch standard has been implemented.
• Added filters to the activity feed on media pages social tab. You can now filter for all activity (old behavior), the people you follow, or just yourself. The self feed is slow, we have a fix but it's one of those downtime things.
• Swapped your followers and the thread list on the media page social tab. More people care about their followers than the forum activity. We will soon be making the follower list require an interaction before it starts auto loading.
• We no longer directly embed YouTube videos. This stops Google from tracking you immediately upon loading a media page that has a trailer. Instead, the player will only load in once you've interacted with it.
• Announcements have been overhauled and we now work with community groups to spread the word about their events.
• Fixed dark mode not applying to some drop-down menus. We missed a couple, those will also be fixed soon.
• You can now change your username casing without doing a username shuffle.
• Improved thread sanitization for the preview cards.
• Mod icons on the badges have been fixed to be consistently sized.
• Y'all wouldn't stop reporting the AniList account so now you just can't do it.

There's probably a few things I've forgotten that one of my fellow devs will likely reply with.

We have quite a few changes that still need internal review, expect those soon. We also have a few larger scale projects in progress. Including:

• Magazine data
• Expanded studio data
• New UI (will post previews on my account soon:tm:)
• Another attempt at a new backing search engine

Changelog - 15/03/2026

Today we check off a long requested feature, submission notifications.

H0

No longer will you need to stalk the submissions tab on your profile to see if or when your submission has been handled. As with all other notifications, you can disable these in your settings if you so wish. (If it's not there, your settings have not migrated yet, this will happen automatically)

The visual design of these may be tweaked in the future. I am not 100% happy with it, but I think it's Good Enough(tm) to get it out there.

Depending on how much more time I can dedicate to this today, there might be a follow up with more changes. This particular one took a bit longer than I had planned.

Changelog - 27/04/2026 - Subscribe to the forum thread for automatic notifications.

(includes several changes that have been live for a couple of weeks now)

• The forum's performance has been fixed. As far as we can tell, this affects new comments, large threads, thread category filtering, a bug that made comments appear out of order, and an issue that resulted in links to comments pointing to entirely different comments. However, this is not a retroactive fix.
• The MAL importer can now handle exports that roughly resemble the MAL format but aren't directly from MAL.
• The login speed has been improved. Newer accounts no longer have to wait up to 10 seconds to enter the site.
• The number of the "All" tab in the anime and manga lists now accurately reflects the number of entries visible to you in real time.
• There should no longer be any random light mode dropdowns if you set your theme to dark mode (not sure who actually uses that theme, but you do you).
• There should no longer be duplicate data addition or submission notifications.
• Episode countdowns now count down without you having to refresh the site and no longer display an empty number once they hit zero.
• The series review editor no longer counts images, etc., towards the minimum character count and makes it clearer that cheesing the minimum character count is not allowed.
• English external links now have an "EN" text right next to them, though it might take a while for the data team to take full advantage of this feature.
• Character & Staff submissions now explicitly require a source.
• Certain options in the settings now give more helpful error messages.
• The Markdown editor now accepts .webp images. More changes coming soon.
• Fixed a bug where impossibly high rewatch counts could make your list inaccessible.
• The GDPR export tool and user reports should be a bit faster now.
• There's now a warning on signup against a number of email providers (Outlook, w2.pl) that are known to regularly reject our verification emails. If anyone reading this uses these as your AniList email, you might want to consider switching to a different provider.

As already mentioned in the last bigger changelog, we're having a number of more exciting changes that we'll hopefully get to release sooner rather than later.

Changelog - 6/7/2026 - Subscribe to the forum thread for automatic notifications.

• A previous change aiming to simplify the character requirement for reviews unintentionally allowed for reviews noticeably shorter than previously, which is why the minimum character count was now raised from 2200 to 2600. Since the new minimum includes spaces and punctuation, it should effectively be a tiny bit easier to get a review published than before these revisions, while also streamlining the publication process by removing invisible restrictions.
• YouTube embeds across the site are now no longer stretched horizontally, which also means that media pages display up to five of your friends next to the trailers.
• When filtering user activity feeds by "List" activities, messages are no longer included.
• The quick search (magnifying glass icon on desktop) now shows moderator and donator badges.
• The moderator overview now looks nicer and outlines the basic responsibilities of each role.
• The link dialogue in the Markdown editor should now be more intuitive to use.
• The process for requesting inactive usernames has been made clearer and more reliable.
• If you set your preferred media language to "Native", titles will now have the name of the show displayed in the URL. Please note that the slug after "https://anilist.co/anime/123/" is optional, so you can just omit the Japanese name if you're bothered by this change.
• Site announcement banners now look good across all screen sizes.
• Forum threads with fully uppercase words are now displayed as-is on the website. Please note that needlessly capitalized titles are still not allowed.
• Bug report threads now show a quick disclaimer to prevent false reports.
• The "One Shot" manga format is now called "One-Shot" across the site. (Edit: Looks like we somehow missed at least one place. Expect a revision.)
• Fixed a bug that showed custom anime lists in the manga list and vice-versa.
• Resolved an issue that left forum comments in an unexpected state after their corresponding threads were deleted.
• Addressed a problem with media entry timestamps after using the MAL importer.
• Fixed a bug that allowed the notification count to exceed 99.

API Changes:

• When GraphQL mutation arguments have min/max value constraints, they are now mentioned in their respective description.
• The Media query now has a countryOfOriginin and countryOfOriginnot_in argument.
• The documentation for UserActivityHistory has been clarified.

Changelog - 09/07/2026 - Subscribe to the forum thread for automatic notifications.

Small update fixing issues introduced in the last deployment and adding a couple of new tags.

• The "List" activity filter on the home page is working again.
• One-Shots are now called "One-Shot" everywhere.
• Trending anime calculations have been resumed.
• Retired moderators now have a donator badge in the quick search.

New Tags:

Brainwashing (Centers on one or more characters who are mentally manipulated by others to behave abnormally or act against their own will.)
Gekiga (An alternative comics movement of mature manga with stylized and cinematic visuals predominantly from the late 1950s through 1970s.)
Graduation Project (A work made by students in place of an exam, typically at higher levels of education, either as a work for the entire course or as a work for a specific year of a course.)
Human Experimentation (Features experiments that use human and humanoid beings as test subjects.)
Interspecies (Romance between characters of different species.)
Prophecy (Features characters or plot elements that revolve around predicting the future.)
Short-Form Chapter (Manga which consists of the chapters being up to two pages long.)

New Adult (18+) tags:

Sixty-Nine (Features two characters partaking in oral sex simultaneously.)

Changelog - 23/7/2026 - Subscribe to the forum thread for automatic notifications.

• You can now filter your anime and manga list by tags in a newly combined "Genres & Tags" dropdown. The label of the "Genre" filter on the browse page has likewise been renamed to "Genres & Tags" to emphasize that it supports both.
• There's now a media relation called "Same Universe" for entries set in the same universe but with completely independent plots (previously included in "Other"), though it will take a while for the data moderation team to take full advantage of this.
• Increasing the rewatch/reread count of a completed entry now creates a rewatch/reread activity, so you no longer have to make multiple changes to the status and progress to achieve this.
• <u>Underlined text is now supported</u> via <u>Text</u> and <ins>Text</ins>. The Markdown editor now also includes this formatting option.
• The submission UI now respects your preferred language option for characters and staff instead of defaulting to the romaji versions.
• Notifications for deleted forum comments now look less buggy.
• Further improved the forum performance in certain edge cases.
• Resolved an issue where scrolling on certain submission date input fields could unintentionally update the value on Chromium browsers.
• The "Tagalog" language option for staff members has been merged into "Filipino".

API Changes:

• Media relations have been updated to version 3. Update your respective queries to see the new SAME_UNIVERSE relation. Until then, it will be reported as OTHER.
• Fixed certain sort options on the MediaList and MediaListCollection queries yielding unrelated data. This category of issue likely requires additional work, but we've addressed all problems we're aware of.