Have you ever wondered what the most popular anime in your country is? Being the curious person that I am, I have.
After finding out that Pokémon was the most popular anime series in the UK (where I live), that piece of information didn’t quite satisfy me.
I wanted to find the most watched anime in every country around the world so I could then compare popularity and interest.
Taking inspiration from our previous worldwide study, I knew exactly how to approach this and present it in an interesting and easy to consume manner.
I conducted way too much anime research and analysis whilst putting this together, which I then put into visual graphics that you can see below.
Check out our anime popularity findings below. Click to enlarge each image.
On first look at the world map, it’s evident that Naruto and Pokémon are the absolute leaders in the anime scene – with Pokémon being the most popular anime in the world. However, the anime statistics get a lot more interesting as take a closer look at each of the seven continents alone.
Whilst Pokémon comes out on top in some of the larger countries on this planet, it’s Naruto that’s most popular in by far the most countries.
In fact, Naruto’s ‘World Domination’ score (yes, we made that up) came in at 43.3%, topping the list in 81 of the 187 countries we could obtain data for. Pokémon, in comparison, was way back at 18.2%.
My colleagues tell me they were rooting for Pokémon — I’m not old enough to play with the same levels of nostalgia.
When designing the North & South American map, we noticed a pattern; the more north you go, the more prominent Pokémon becomes. On the flip side, the more you travel south, the more countries you will find that represent Naruto.
When it comes to the European continent, the pattern is quite evident. Pokémon dominates to the north while One Piece dominates the majority of the south. Naruto on the other hand is most popular to the east and central Europe. Naruto represents 18 out of 43 countries, which is 41.86% of the anime scene in Europe.
Though One Punch Man appears to be the most popular on the map in terms of color spread, that is far from the truth. In reality, it represents just 2.17% of the anime scene in countries across Asia. If we dig deeper and take a look at the details, Attack on Titan is the most popular anime in 18 out of 46 countries, representing 39.13% of the anime scene.
In second and third place are Naruto and One Piece, which are the most popular anime series in 13 and 7 out of 46 countries representing 28.26% and 15.21% of the anime scene in Asia respectively.
Naruto is the clear winner for being the most popular anime by country in Africa. It spreads throughout central, northern, and southern Africa.
During the design of the African continent, I noticed a very interesting pattern stemming down from Europe. Though completely different countries, languages, and cultures, we can see how One Piece, which we saw was most popular amongst southern European countries goes over the Mediterranean Sea and dominates all northern African countries bar Egypt.
With a total of 11 countries in the Oceania continent, Pokémon is by far the most popular anime, representing 7 out of the 11 countries including Australia, which totals 63.63% domination. The remaining four go to Naruto, which represents 18.18% of Oceania, and Attack on Titan & One Punch Man, which each represent 9.09% of the Oceanian anime scene.
Methodology
This experiment aimed to analyze anime popularity data and used Google search volume and Google Trends as measuring tools for popularity to discover the most popular anime in each country from around the world.
Before I started any kind of research, I first had to make sure that I am not missing out on any anime series that are only popular in any singular country.
To do that, I collected an extensive list of nearly 100 anime series and put them head to head into the SEO tool Ahrefs to determine their global search volume.
Then, I narrowed my extensive list to the 20 anime titles with the highest global search volume over the last 90 days. Why 20? 20 seemed like a fair and round number that provided enough variety to my research.
In no particular order, the 20 anime titles include: Bleach, One Piece, Naruto, Kimetsu No Yaiba, Attack On Titan, One Punch Man, Pokémon, Death Note, Haikyuu, Shingeki No Kyojin, Hunter X Hunter, Boku No Hero Academia, YuGiOh, No Game No Life, Code Geass, Tokyo Ghoul, Dragon Ball Z, Toradora, Noragami, and Swort Art Online.
I compared every single one of the above against each other for every country in the world. The anime series with the highest average search volume over the last 90 days would then represent the given country.
Some of the titles within my top 20 list were the same anime series under different names. I merged the findings and used the main English name of the series on the maps. You can also see their alternative name right beneath the main name on the map.
For some countries from around the world, Ahrefs didn’t have any data. To ensure that I get as much relevant data for as many countries as possible, I compared the top 5 anime series with the highest global search volume over the last 90 days and used Google Trends to determine what the most popular anime was over the last 90 days in the countries that I didn’t have data for from Ahrefs.
The data was compiled in June 2021.
Attribution & Fair Use
If you wish to share, re-use or repurpose our anime data and images in any shape or form, you are completely free to do so in whatever way you see fit. We’d love our work to be seen by as many people as possible. All we ask is that you link to DiamondLobby.com‘s original findings so that we are fairly recognized for our work.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
