Sleeper Hit / Anime & Manga

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• act-age was on its way to becoming this; it slowly but surely gained popularity during its first year of publication in 2018, and the first few volumes eventually got heavy reprints with the fifth selling over 50,000 copies in a few days. This baffled even the fans, who didn't expect a series that's neither action-, nor romance- or comedy-focused to survive long in Shonen Jump, much less a series so focused on grounded showbiz having an impact at all outside of shoujo manga. Instead it was regularly put forward with color pages and often stood near the top of Jump's table of contents. Sadly, the series' status as this trope would never be fully realized as it was Cut Short in August 2020 due to writer Tatsuya Matsuki's arrest for sexual misconduct; print and digital volumes of the manga were immediately pulled from distribution, a planned stage play adaptation was canned, and artist Shiro Usazaki removed all mentions of the series from her social media.
• Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Ars Nova was not expected to become one of the more acclaimed manga adaptations to come out in the fall of 2013, as its source manga filled a rather niche readership. However, it gathered so much critical acclaim that, in the following year, famed magazine Newtype handed out fan-selected prizes to various shows, and among them Ars Nova won several top prizes (as well as many runner ups), lining it up along hit shows like Kill la Kill.^note For reference, here's a list of awards handed out after Newtype's web voting.
• Attack on Titan. The mangaka originally sent the manuscript to Weekly Shōnen Jump, but was rejected, and the manga ended up in Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine, a monthly offshoot of Weekly Shōnen Magazine. At the time, it was a new magazine that was in need of a real hit. It soon became one of the best selling manga in Japan, triggering a high budget anime adaptation that boosted its sales even further, to the point of having all ten previously released volumes making to list of best sellers for some weeks.
• Beastars: You wouldn't think an older teen-skewing anthropomorphic animal manga (in itself a relatively niche genre in Japan) would be so popular, especially under its label, but it ranked in the top 10 for Shonen manga in the yearly Kono Manga wa Sugoi! rankings, as well as winning an award from Kodansha the same year. The anime adaptation in 2019 gathered even more fans to the series thanks to its quite unique animation style and became one of Netflix's most popular anime.
• Bocchi the Rock! is a comedic slice-of-life Yonkoma series whose animated adaptation people weren't expecting much from (especially with its studio's mixed reception in past years and a season packed with awaited adaptations of heavy hitters such as SPY×FAMILY, Bleach, Chainsaw Man and Mob Psycho 100). However, against all odds, the anime quickly became one of the breakout hits of the season thanks to its relatable protagonists, creative animation direction, and frequent use of different art and animation mediums for comedy. It was even announced that pre-orders of the first Blu-Ray sold out on Amazon.
• Bofuri: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense. was a relatively unknown light novel prior to it receiving an anime adaptation, and even once it did, it didn't garner much attention due to its premise as a VRMMO-centered series, which there were plenty of. Once it did start airing, the series quickly gained a strong community following for its light-hearted take on the VRMMO genre, consistently clean animation, and many entertaining scenarios courtesy of its protagonist, to the point where a second season was immediately announced at the end of Season 1.
• CLANNAD's anime adaptation first appeared in the U.S. only in a subbed version.^note Because the U.S. anime industry was going through a rough patch. The anime became known as a modern classic, and Sentai Filmworks released dubs for both seasons. This ended up leading to a very successful Kickstarter campaign to license the original visual novel for an official English release.
• The anime adaptation of Deadman Wonderland certainly qualifies, albeit in the United States. After a lukewarm reception in Japan, the series got cancelled and the rights were practically given away to FUNimation. When it became part of [adult swim]'s revival of Toonami, however, the series became an unexpected hit for the new block, with later episodes topping one million viewers.
• Demon King Daimao had a very average reception in Japan, where it was written off as an action and fanservice show. In the U.S., however, it got good ratings on the Anime Network, only rivaling Highschool of the Dead. As a result, it was able to get an English dub, and its DVDs were able to sell just as well as HOTD, CLANNAD and Angel Beats!. Was it the fanservice or the action that got its attention? Regardless, it's a rather odd example of this, seeing as there doesn't seem to be much of a fanbase compared with the other series.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba:
  • The series as a whole is a particularly extreme example. When the manga began in 2016, it had good but not particularly outstanding sales numbers (by Shonen Jump standards, at least) and didn't garner much conversation until its anime adaptation was announced. But near the end of the anime's run around August-September 2019, the manga's sales exploded, every single volume making it to the top 50 of the Oricon sales ranking for more than a year straight. In November 2019, Demon Slayer became the first manga in more than a decade to outsell One Piece during the year (12 million copies against 10 million for One Piece). By May 2020, just as the series ended, it had sold 45 million more copies, obliterating One Piece's yearly sales record of 38 million… in only half-a-year, and with only 19 volumes at that point. Theories abound about what caused such an unprecedented boost, but many point towards episode 19 of the anime, which was praised for its stunning production and music, even more so than the rest of the anime, and trended on social networks.
  • Given the manga and anime's popularity, the Mugen Train film being a success wasn't a surprise — less expected was just how much of a smash hit it was. Released in 2020 amid a dearth of blockbusters during the COVID-19 Pandemic, it blew past all expectations and swiftly dethroned records long held by Spirited Away as the highest-grossing film ever in Japan and the biggest anime film worldwide. It then dethroned the Chinese blockbuster The Eight Hundred to become the highest-grossing film of 2020, becoming the first Japanese film ever to top the worldwide yearly box office. When the film was released in the United States in April 2021, it crushed the past non-Pokémon anime opening record set by Dragon Ball Super: Broly, in spite of the pandemic, and gave Mortal Kombat, released the same day, a shockingly close run for the weekend box office championship — and then won the US box office the following weekend, an extreme rarity for a non-English language film. Combining the box office revenue from its domestic revenue and international revenue, Mugen Train is the highest grossing film released in 2020.
• Hear now the tale of Elfen Lied, a show that was so drenched in blood and nudity that even in Japan it could only air on satellite TV as an advertisement. It was cancelled after one season... and purely by word of mouth, nearly every anime club in America heard about it and it became one of the top-selling anime of 2005, much to everyone's surprise (but too late to get it Un-Cancelled in Japan).
• For an anime initially expected to cater to a small niche, Girls und Panzer was a breakout hit in Japan. Its Blu-rays have been selling about 28,000 copies each, where a typical successful series does well to sell 6,000. And thanks to its popularity, it managed to help out another sleeper hit in the process: World of Tanks.
• The Gridman Universe franchise has practically become famous for this, with both the Anime/SSSSGRIDMAN and Anime/SSSSDYNAZENON animes alongside the self-titled film well exceeding expectations from the series. While all three featured low-key promotional stints prior to their debuts, they drew in far more viewers once they hit the screens, winning them over due to high production values, well-rounded characters, and introspective Aesops that don't intrude rudely on the main story.
• This happened when Kyoto Animation adapted the Haruhi Suzumiya Light Novels, which had limited underground success up to that point. Thanks to the anime adaptation, it became one of the most popular anime franchises of the 2000s and a huge Cash-Cow Franchise.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers began as an online webcomic back in 2003. Since then, it's gotten expanded manga volumes, an anime series (with currently five seasons) and even a movie. That it also garnered an international fanbase of sorts, if not a vibrant online presence, definitely helps.
• K-On! went from being an unknown Yonkoma to a marketing juggernaut when it was adapted into a 12-Episode Anime by Kyoto Animation. The first season was popular enough to spawn a second season, which was given a 26 episode run, and a movie sidestory, which became the highest grossing film to be based from a late night series until Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion topped its record.
• Kaguya-sama: Love Is War managed to become one of the best selling romance manga in the world (#2 at the end of 2019, and the only one to outsell it ended shortly afterwards) despite lacking the fanservice and harem elements that most of its contemporaries have, and coming from an author who never found success with any of their previous works. And that's without factoring in how insanely popular its anime adaptation is.
• Kemono Friends is an incredible example. As a conspicuously low-budget CG anime based on a failing franchise, it wasn't on anyone's radar. Even the creators expected it to flop — the mobile game it was meant to promote was cancelled before the anime aired, its manga wasn't talked about at all when it premiered, and they hadn't planned to sell any merchandise. As it turned out, the generally decent writing, solid character designs and surprisingly compelling Ontological Mystery made for a solid watch, and it ultimately became extremely popular through internet word-of-mouth. Its first episode became the most-watched anime episode on Nico Nico Douga; disc sets and merch quickly sold out, and the "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune reached #3 on Japan's iTunes rankings. People began reading the manga in earnest to see the connections between it and the show, and eventually the clamor to bring back the mobile game became so great that Nexon backtracked and said they were considering reviving it while another company created two of them in its place.
• Initially, many wrote the anime adaptation for KonoSuba off as yet another generic harem series and the fact that Studio DEEN was working on it didn't help matters either, not to mention that it was only scheduled to have 10 episodes rather than the usual 12. However, after the first episode aired, people were surprised at how funny the show actually ended up being and loved its charming brand of self-aware parody humor especially when many "trapped in a video game" anime usually take themselves far more seriously. It was one of the most well-received anime in the Winter 2016 season and it absolutely dominated the sales charts in Japan, and a second season was announced at the end of the final episode.
• Many people didn't give much thought to Kotoura-san when it was first released since they believed it was just another standard Romantic Comedy. However, when word about the Break the Cutie Downer Beginning that was the first ten minutes of the first episode and Kotoura's Woobie status began to spread, the popularity of the show immediately spiked and there was a sudden interest in the original 4koma material.
• Love Live! began as a small project within Dengeki G's Magazine and wasn't popular at first, with the first CD for the franchise only selling 434 copies during its first year. It wasn't until the release of the first anime series and Love Live! School idol festival that the franchise became one of the most popular among otaku.
• Mobile Suit Gundam, as noted in Gundam Sousei and in the page quote. Other entries in the franchise have also experienced a similar trend, gaining popularity after they're first aired.
• My Hero Academia became an unexpected hit. The mangaka, Kōhei Horikoshi, had two previous short-lived attempts, and the one-shot the series was based on wasn't that well-received. In America, Naruto fans looked to it as a series that could fill the void after it ended.
• My Dress-Up Darling's anime adaptation had little promotion, in contrast to the much-hyped releases of the second season of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba and Attack on Titan The Final Season Part 2. But it won over critics with the unusual relationship dynamic between its lead couple and beautiful animation, becoming the frontrunner of the Winter 2022 season. The two lead characters, Marin Kitagawa and Wakana Gojo topped popularity polls, and the show did a clean sweep of the majority of seasonal awards in AniTrendz — including #1 Winter 2022 Show, Best Ending Theme, Best Male and Best Female Character, Best Main Couple, Best Romance Show and Best Slice of Life Show.
• When My Neighbor Totoro was first released in its native Japan in 1988, it took two years in theaters before it became profitable. It technically made only $45 million at the box office, with about half of that coming from a 2018 release in China. However, once it hit home release and started selling merchandise, it took on a new life, especially once Fox distributed a VHS version in the U.S. in the early '90s. By the end of 2019, it made a total of $1.5 billion in revenue across theatrical releases, home releases, and merchandise.
• My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! came out of nowhere to become the smash hit of the Spring 2020 season. At first, many people who read the synopsis before release dismissed it as just another Isekai with a really silly premise. However, after the show was released, fans began to fall in love with the wholesomeness and cuteness of Catarina's character, and word-of-mouth quickly spread about its rare mixed-gender harem premise. It became so popular that her ships won 5 of the 10 'best couples' of Spring 2020 in survey by Anime Trending. A second season was thus announced before the first had even finished airing.
• Odd Taxi originally didn't have any plans to make any Blurays at all due to low projected sales. As the series slowly grew in popularity, they eventually promised to make a Bluray box set as long as they got at least 300 preorders. In the end, they ended up gathering over 6000 preorders (and since it was a set, this is about the equivalent of 24,000 normal BD sales), surpassing all the goals they listed on their website. On December 26th, the series was even greenlit for a movie.
• Omamori Himari is a fairly obscure manga in Japan, but became incredibly popular in North America, with multiple books on best-seller lists for manga and even topping long runners like One Piece, Fairy Tail and (almost) even Sailor Moon.
• Osomatsu-san is a sequel to and was based on the older Fujio Akatsuka work Osomatsu-kun, but it was only expected to have moderate success thanks to nostalgia. However, the series was one of the breakout hits of the fall 2015 season. Even the staff has no idea how it became so radically successful.
• A Place Further than the Universe is definitely this. At first, many audiences wrote this anime off as a standard fare of "cute girls doing cute things", albeit with a slightly different premise.^note Cute girls making true of their dreams to go to... Antarctica? But from the first episode to the last, many were shocked by its surprisingly good writing, strong characterizations, well-made animations and some truly well-earned tearjerking moments, so much so that they gave unanimous praise for these qualities. After the raw emotional impact of episode 12, preorders of the Blu-Rays jumped to #9 on Amazon.jp's preorder list—not 9th anime, but 9th overall. Notably, The New York Times even included it on their list of the Best TV Shows of 2018, specifically eighth in the Best International category.
• Pokémon: The Series, Dragon Ball Z, and Sailor Moon were this in the West. Anime was still proving its viability to an international audience in the late '90s, and both Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon had done poorly in U.S. syndication before finally finding their audience on Toonami in 1998. The mainstream success of all three shows in North America took almost everyone involved with them by surprise. In addition, shows like Tenchi Muyo!, Ranma ½, Slayers, and Neon Genesis Evangelion were among the first anime to find wide audiences and fanbases in North America, far exceeding any expectations.
• Pretty Cure:
  • Despite being one of the biggest modern day cash cow franchises in Japan today (rivaling even its much older contemporaries in Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, and even One Piece), the original Pretty Cure series started off as one. Many anime fans initially wrote it off as just another Magical Girl series, but when word spread that it had high octane action you would normally find in the likes of a shounen action series than a show aimed at girls, the popularity kicked off, increasing the episode length from its original 26 episodes to 49, and then a second season, while having higher ratings as it went on, and the rest is history. It also allowed series like My-HiME and especially Lyrical Nanoha to be accepted as good shows in their own right and not just normal magical girl shows, probably because of how Pretty Cure defied the idea, and them following in its footsteps allowed them to become popular as well, reviving a genre then almost dead in Japan.
  • Maho Girls Pretty Cure! itself was this. Before its release, the Pretty Cure franchise had declining ratings and merchandise sales due to the surprise successes of Frozen, Aikatsu!, and PriPara amongst the target audience. Then Maho Girls Pretty Cure came, with a storyline many young kids could relate to, the main characters being able to use magic to do anything they wanted, from changing their clothes to making food for their friends, a mascot who is treated as a main character, and beautiful, collectible stone charms as the key item for the series. This surprise success led to the show gaining ratings that hadn't been seen since Smile Pretty Cure!, sales for the franchise being recovered, a movie that became the highest-grossing Pretty Cure film to date, and Cure Miracle and Cure Magical becoming two of the official anime ambassadors of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
• PriPara was Takara Tomy's attempt at cashing in on Aikatsu! after their previous girls' multimedia franchise, Pretty Rhythm, bombed, so many people didn't expect it to do well. But the series' message of "Anyone can become an idol!", the simple gameplay of the arcade version, the idol group i☆Ris being a part of it, and it being a mix of the Magical Girl and Idol Singer genres made it a major success. It even extends to Pretty Rhythm: Rainbow Live's own male-focused spin-off film, KING OF PRISM by PrettyRhythm. Though the series it was based on did not so hot in ratings, KING OF PRISM proved explosively popular with the teenaged girl audience, netting it a nearly one year long box office run. By the end of the run of the film, a second was greenlit to air the very next year.
• The Promised Neverland started during a transition period in Weekly Shonen Jump, after many big hitters of the magazine ended. In that time where many new series were launched and swiftly cancelled, came two authors no one had ever heard about with a horror-mystery series that seemed completely out of place in the magazine's catalogue. Then word about its chapter 1 twist and its intense psychological battles spread and the series' popularity quickly skyrocketed. After two years, its volume sales already started rivaling long-established series like Food Wars! or Haikyuu!!, and that was before its anime adaptation was even announced.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica was initially pitched as a 13 episode series before it became a 12 episode series. It became a breakout hit thanks to the mind screw, the dark brooding storyline, and the playing of common magical girl tropes. It's now among the most profitable franchises, raking in over 40 billion yen in merchandising.
• Believe it or not, one of the series which drawed most attention from anime viewers, at least in Asia, during the heated-up Winter 2021 season is Pui Pui Molcar. The series remains largely unknown in the West, but watching a bunch of unbelievably cute vehicles that look and act like giant guinea pigs doing things for 3 minutes surely doesn't hurt much. In fact, its official Twitter account has the highest numbers of followers among all the new titles aired that season (sitting over 300k which is at least three times that of the next contender Idoly Pride) and ranked 5th overall (as of early February it's just behind four sequel titles aired), with numerous fan art with different Molcars spread around the Internet. Even the producers are surprised about its popularity.
• Ranking of Kings is authored by Sousuke Tooka, a man who decided that at 41-years old in 2017 he should quit his office job and draw manga because he wanted a little more excitement in his life by fulfilling a dream; the guy's art had the clear beginner's crude look but he pushed forward in a relatively small underground anthology called Manga Hack, Ranking of Kings became a dark horse in the online anthology, scoring dozens of thousands hits per chapter as the years went by which prompted the publisher Creative Entertainment to partner with fellow publisher Enterbrain to produce physical manga volumes in 2019. In 2021, the series received an anime adaptation by WIT Studio which opened the gates for a worldwide audience that embraced the fantasy tale quite easily, more than the manga ever reached at first; that all became quite the unexpected tale of success of a salaryman becoming a mangaka at such a late time, for this is a profession where people are expected to start in their younger years.
• Rage of Bahamut: Genesis was on almost nobody's radars before it aired. An Animated Adaptation of a moderately successful fantasy card game is not what most people think of when they hear the words 'compelling story pitch', and even the impressive staff and shiny trailers weren't enough to stoke serious interest for what was assumed to be a cheap, plot-devoid cash-grab. Then the show actually aired, and phrases like "anime Pirates of the Caribbean" started getting thrown around as reviewers were drawn in by its swashbuckling charm and stellar production values.
• Re:Zero's anime adaptation was initially dismissed for being yet another isekai series that revolved around an otaku being summoned to another world with a harem following him around. It was somewhat more anticipated in Japan as the original light novels had already gained some popularity there. However, there were no official English translations of the light novels at the time the anime first aired, and the manga adaptation covered less than three episodes' worth of material; as a result, it was not very anticipated among foreign viewers. To add on to this, the initial reviews were So Okay, It's Average, praising the technical merits but criticizing the overdone plot. However, the series quickly reworked itself, adding in expansive world building, interesting characters, and a heavy mix of archetype deconstruction of the stereotypical isekai which culminated in a major Wham Episode in episode 7, finally putting on equal footing with the other established major hits like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, My Hero Academia, and Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress. It continued the tone until it hit an even greater Wham Episode in Episode 15, drawing comparisons with End of Evangelion, Puella Magi Madoka Magica episode 3, or the Eclipse from Berserk, making it one of the biggest contenders for Anime of the Year for 2016.
• Robotech began as a very obscure show that many TV stations bought only because they assumed that due to the title, it would be just like other "robot shows" of the time such as The Transformers and Challenge of the GoBots. Despite probably knowing that it was a Japanese import, they also assumed that it would most likely follow the same route as Voltron by removing graphic violence, death, and mature themes. When it was realized that Robotech was a serious show, many stations immediately relegated it to unusual early morning timeslots, sometimes as early as 6:00 am. Some stations truncated the show's run. Word of mouth spread about how this show was different from other cartoons at the time. The show became the crest of the first wave of anime fandom outside of Japan as well as being a science fiction franchise in its own right, inspiring a series of bestselling novelizations and numerous comic book series. While many purists consider the show to be the original example of Macekre, Robotech retains a historical significance due to the fact that it was Fair for Its Day.
• The animated adaptation of School-Live! became the hit anime of Summer 2015 during its airing despite it not being hyped as one of the most anticipated anime before that thanks to its misleading premise. Its success led to a very high rise in manga sales as a result, becoming one of the best-selling manga at the time.
• The Shinkalion franchise has been more well known as TakaraTomy's attempt to revitalize their Plarail toyline outside of their usual fares, and as such, most didn't take much notice of the obviously Merchandise-Driven anime series. However, upon finally debuting, the anime absolutely exploded in terms of popularity for reasons beyond its most obvious draws (real-life shinkansen trains that transform into humongous mecha), primarily engaging characters (including unexpected crossovers), a focus on the personal lives of many, education on the history and operations of Japan's railways, and interpersonal relationships, which considering Japanese society is not something to sneeze at. Sure enough, the anime excelled in prompting viewers to buy the blatantly plugged products, and has since made similar levels of character and world-building mandatory for future installments in the franchise.
• In spite of a very quiet release on Jump's digital service and being from an almost completely unknown author, SPY×FAMILY absolutely shattered expectations by quickly becoming one of the most popular series on Manga Plus, and the most popular series on Jump+ in the span of just four months, before then becoming not just the best selling new series of the year, but also one of the best selling debuts for a Shueisha manga for that entire decade − volume 2 sold over 100,000 copies in its first week alone, something not even modern Jump hits like My Hero Academia or The Promised Neverland managed in their early days. This quickly led to the series getting licensed by Viz for a physical release despite not even being a year old.
  • The anime follows this as the most popular anime of Spring 2022 in Japan, North America, Europe and Southeast Asia, getting the highest ratings for a new anime in a while since Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — even exceeding that show in some respects. It's even gotten higher ratings than Long Runner One Piece. On the day episode 1 aired, "Spy X Family" was the #1 trending topic on Twitter...worldwide!
• Tiger & Bunny. According to several articles, T&B was an unexpected success in both ratings and DVD/Blu-ray sales — and this put a lot of pressure on Sunrise's next projects.
• WorldEnd: What Do You Do at the End of the World? Are You Busy? Will You Save Us? was originally only supposed to last two or three volumes due to poor sales. However, the series received an enormous amount of critical praise and earned a top spot on the yearly light novel rankings. This boosted the series enough to receive a sequel and anime adaptation. At first, many in the West dismissed the anime as yet another light novel adaptation in a crowded season. It had a ridiculous name and seemingly cliché plot. Yet in spite of this, it managed to became one of the most talked about anime of the season. Much like with Re:Zero, the initial look was deceiving. Rather than the typical light novel power fantasy, we were given a Failure Hero protagonist who behaved like an actual adult. The well developed romance between Willem and Chtholly was another pleasant surprise. Finally its heartrendingly tragic ending left many watchers in tears. Suffice to say, many fans went straight to the light novel following the anime's conclusion.
• While the aforementioned Spy X Family was always expected to be the top Anime of the Spring 2022 Season; no one expected Ya Boy Kongming!, an Anime about a Three Kingdoms-era tactician reincarnating in to modern-day Shibuya and becoming The Strategist for an aspiring singer, to be one of the big contenders for its follow-up spot.
• Yo-kai Watch went from an unknown video game to a marketing juggernaut when the anime came out. At one point, the merchandise sold out and was scarce to find, mostly the medals and the watch, until nearly a year after the show premiered.
• While Makoto Shinkai was already a fairly known animator even in the eyes of mainstream Japan, Your Name was not expected to do as well as it did. The anime movie was slated to hit theaters on the last weekend of August, with the general expectation being that it would cater mainly to the otaku audience and not have a wide appeal to the average Joe. The movie topped Japanese box office for 9 weeks straight (its streak was broken by Death Note: Light Up the New World, which bumped it to number 2 for a week, before resuming the number 1 spot for several more weeks) and earned over 150 billion yen (about $148 million), handily defeating Shin Godzilla and Zootopia as the highest grossing movie of 2016 in Japan and became the first non-Hayao Miyazaki anime film to cross over the 100 billion yen threshold. Likewise, its novelization also has topped Japanese paperback book chart for 8 weeks straight and has sold over a million copies, making it the 34th book to do so in history. By early 2017, the movie achieved huge successes overseas, making it the highest grossing anime film in China, South Korea and eventually becoming the highest grossing anime film of all time worldwide. As of July 2017, its box office had surpassed Spirited Away, becoming the highest grossing anime movie in Japan of all time, earning over $225 million domestically and over $350 million internationally.
• Yuri!!! on Ice was this for the fall 2016 season, both in Japan and abroad. Many assumed it would only be a modest success, since it was an original anime that focused on the not-very-mainstream sport of figure skating. However, it steadily grew in popularity, which exploded when the seventh episode aired and both the Yaoi Fangirl crowd and the LGBT Fanbase caught wind that the main character really did end up with his coach rather than it just being Ship Tease with the rug pulled out from under the shippers later. In the West, all you have to do is look at Crunchyroll at the beginning and end of the season; at the start, the only thing they were promoting besides Naruto was the fanservice romp Keijo!!!!!!!!. By the time the last episode of Yuri!!!! on Ice aired, it had supplanted Keijo!!!!!!!! and every other show on the site as the most popular and most advertised series of Fall 2016. It was also hugely successful in Japanese Blu-ray and DVD sales, surpassing fifty thousand copies in the first week and becoming the fourth best-selling anime of all time less than a year after its release.
• Zombie Land Saga: Up until its first episode released, it looked like it would be a straightforward zombie horror anime in the likes of High School Of The Dead or School-Live!. Absolutely nobody expected it to be an Idol Singer Horror Comedy, and that shock value, combined with lovable characters and rather unorthodox musical numbers, lead it to being one of the most popular anime of the Fall 2018 season.

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