I'm sure many people are familiar with Rule 34, which also covers anime,
but here's a question:
What makes an anime popular among adult H-Works, and what makes a particular anime appealing to the anime cosplay community?
In this observational study, we chose 50 popular anime titles and compared the number of H-Works and officially published cosplay photos for sale.
This investigation could help us identify the key elements that contribute to a title's popularity in pornography and cosplay.
The comparison method is to use a popular hentai website; we chose ExHentai aka (Sad Panda) for several reasons:
- It has a reasonably large collection of H-works.
- It allows lolicon/shotacon H-materials.
- It also has official professional cosplay works that have been published.
- It has filtering capabilities (*see below).
- There are adult western parody comics in it.
* Filters: We included all kinds of H-works, such as Japanese doujins, CG from parody games, cosplays, and western comics.
We have not excluded any tags; for example, certain works are popular among yaoi fans. The only filters we used were to exclude non-english translated works and rewrites, so only works in Japanese, English translations, or originally non-japanese works are included. This filter is used to limit the display of duplicated works.

Here are the results (click for large image) or press CTRL+

Fate Grand Order has the most H-works and official cosplay works among these 50 popular anime titles, followed by Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Deadman Wonderland has the least, followed by Elfen Lied. Naruto ranked first among the "big three" shounen anime, followed by One Piece and Bleach.
We are aware that F/GO is based on a free-to-play Japanese mobile game, which explains why it contains so many advertisements. While the popularity of anime helps to increase the number of H-works published and gain popularity in the anime cosplaying community. There are other factors to consider, such as the fact that it is not the anime as a whole that popularises H-works and cosplaying, but rather the characters themselves within the anime. For example, in One Punch Man, most of the H-materials and cosplay publications are based on Tatsumaki, who is a popular among lolicons, and the same is true for Ai Haibara from Detective Conan. Neon Genesis Evangelion is extremely popular, largely because of the "bodysuit fetish".
Some anime with Bishnen-like casts, such as Code Geass, Tokyo Ghoul, and Death Note, as well as anime with predominantly male casts, such as HunterxHunter, Berserk, and Psycho Pass, are popular among yaoi fans. Characters such as Nagisa Shiota and Astolfo are well-liked by "trap" fans.
Character design, in my opinion, is the most important factor in attracting attention and thus selling published H-works or cosplay photos. However, some sexual fetishes or body preferences are more popular than others. Due to her over-the-top gimmicky personality, a character like Yuno from Future Diary is very popular on the internet and in the anime community; she is arguably the most popular iconic "yandere" character.

Nonetheless, her character design is generic; she wears an ugly boring generic school uniform, her pink hair is unimpressive, she is slim, and she has small breasts and buttocks.
Another factor is the advertising's strength; while it certainly helps in terms of general popularity, sexual fanservice is a supporting tool to make the advertisement more appealing. The first episode of the anime may also serve as an advertisement; a common technique in manga is to include fanservice as soon as possible so that the audience will continue to read/watch that title expecting more of it. At that point, the series is typically mainstream while it is currently airing, as are H-works and cosplay publications.
Disclaimer: The goal of this topic is not to criticise specific titles or fanbase communities for the aforementioned titles. Feel free to leave a respectful comment or engage in a discussion.
|