The Most Popular Anime Series According to Netflix's Data Drop

Last week, Netflix dropped that treasure trove of the streaming services' viewing data, calculating views from January to June 2023. There were lots of data nerds who started drooling… especially me.

But first and foremost, before we dive headfirst into what the data drop shows us about anime specifically, I need to lay down a few ground rules about the data I am going to discuss here. First, this is very likely going to be an incomplete list. Second, this will be only the data from between January 2023 and June 2023, which is all the data we have been given from Netflix in this data drop. And third, please don't get cranky if I accidentally omitted a favorite anime of yours; the data Netflix provided does not even come close to being in any way comprehensive, and there is no genre filter on the data drop worksheet. Netflix, please fix that for the next data drop for July to December 2023!

So, for those that ARE available worldwide on Netflix, some interesting anime made the top 20 most viewed, including four seasons of Jojos (including Stone Ocean at 20,500,000 hours viewed, Diamond is Unbreakable at 12,600,000, Stardust Crusaders at an even 15,000,000 and Battle Tendency at 10,100,000), Cyberpunk: Edgerunners scoring a respectable 18,100,000 hours viewed in total, and there was a lot of Baki on the charts too, the most viewed was Baki Season 1 Part 1 with 18,800,000 hours viewed and the other Baki entries on the list were The Great Raitai Tournament Saga with 13,500,000 hours viewed, Baki Hanma Season 1 with 13,300,000 and Baki Season 1 Part 2 with 13,100,000 hours viewed.

But the most interesting two anime are #1 and #2 on this Top 20 list, #2 is The Seven Deadly Sins: Dragon's Judgement with a respectable 22,000,000 hours viewed, but #1 is Vinland Saga Season 1 and it more than doubles #2 with an eye-popping 49,300,000 hours viewed.

And for those that are NOT available worldwide on Netflix, here's that top 20. Demon Slayer unsurprisingly tops the chart with 95,800,000 hours on the Unwavering Resolve Arc while Record of Ragnarok Season 2 is not all that far behind at 78,200,000 hours viewed (Season 1 of Record of Ragnarok also made the top 20 with a respectable 35,500,000 hours viewed), and three entries from The Seven Deadly Sins franchise made the chart: The Seven Deadly Sins at 31,900,000 hours viewed, Seven Deadly Sins: Revival of The Commandments at 27,300,000 hours viewed and The Seven Deadly Sins: Imperial Wrath of The Gods at an even 24,000,000 hours viewed.

And what about franchise numbers for those franchises that just have multiple seasons on Netflix? Here are some I found.

Attack on Titan has 59,400,000 hours viewed in total across the entire franchise, and the average hours viewed is an astonishing 5,940,000. Attack on Titan Season 1 has an astonishing 23,300,000 hours viewed just on its own! That is insane for a show that is not available worldwide on Netflix!

One Piece as a franchise is just as much of a juggernaut as you would expect, with a whopping 238,600,000 total hours viewed across the entire franchise and an average of 5,680,952 hours viewed across the entire franchise. (I tried to make a chart for this, but there is no way it would work for such a massive franchise!)

Pokémon acquits itself admirably as a franchise with a total of 260,700,000 hours viewed across the entire franchise and an average of 8,989,655 hours viewed across the entire franchise. Incredible for a franchise where not everything is available to view worldwide on Netflix.

Other high-performing franchises are:

• Slam Dunk with a total of 23,900,000 hours viewed across the entire franchise and an average of 2,987,500 hours viewed across the entire franchise.
• Sailor Moon with a total of 7,700,000 hours viewed across the entire franchise and 855,556 hours viewed on average across the entire franchise. Not too bad for a franchise with only Sailor Moon Eternal being available worldwide on Netflix.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure with 64,700,000 total hours viewed in total across the entire franchise and 10,783,333 hours viewed on average across the entire franchise. That is incredible, considering how much JoJo's is available worldwide on Netflix.
• Detective Conan with 18,200,000 hours viewed total across the entire franchise and 2,275,000 hours viewed on average across the entire franchise.
• Crayon Shin-chan with 23,500,000 hours viewed in total across the entire franchise and 783,333 hours viewed on average across the entire franchise.
• Doraemon with 29,600,000 hours viewed in total across the entire franchise and 758,974 hours viewed on average across the entire franchise.
• My Hero Academia with 45,100,000 hours viewed in total across the entire franchise and 5,101,111 hours viewed on average across the entire franchise.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba with 186,800,000 hours viewed in total across the entire franchise and 37,360,000 hours viewed on average across the entire franchise.

And as far as intriguing outliers on both sides (either available worldwide or not), that one gets super interesting. It includes the first season of Touch (likely only in Japan), the first two seasons of Ranma ½, some scattered City Hunter (including a Nicky Larson thing, “Nicky Larson et le Parfum de Cupidon”, that may or may not be the final piece of City Hunter that needs licensing by Discotek), two Lupin III series (part 5 and part 6), two Lupin III specials (TV specials 23 and 24, Record of Observations of the East and Princess of the Breeze respectively), and the CG Saint Seiya series did far more admirably between January and June 2023 than people suspected, with a total of 5,900,000 hours viewed total for the series, and 2,950,000 hours viewed on average for the series. Plus, there are places in the world where you can watch Fist of the North Star on Netflix. And BASTARD!! -Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy- Season 1 did quite well for itself, with 11,900,000 total hours viewed for the first season.

As a data dork, I have to rant and give some feedback that I hope Netflix, as well as other streamers, take away from this. First and foremost, for the love of all things Kentaro, PLEASE at least give us a Genre column next time for Excel nerds like me who simply love to use filters (and some of us who use it every day in our day jobs)! Adding to that, this particular drop had far too little information in it. No hours viewed total to date tab (i.e. encompassing all of the data that you have going back to the beginning)? Really?

This ‘data drop’ had the absolute bare minimum of data (that being the ‘Nielsen ratings’ for Netflix), and that's being kind. Future data drops need way more data included to help us data dorks out here. Four usable columns on one sheet, with two blank columns on each side to “make the data look pretty,” is pretty lame, Netflix. Data doesn't always need to look pretty to be useful.

Is there a way we can have tabs for Year-To-Date Engagement, All-Time Engagement (which would be so much more usable as a bit of information it's not even funny), Social Media Engagement, and even maybe something that shows how much the audiences liked the piece of media? That would open up the doors for a lot more analysis of the streaming business, because, as of right now, nobody except for the streamers themselves knows anything about how much money there is in streaming, and it would open up so much discussion of whether we are at “peak streaming” or whether or not we need more niche streaming services.

Having one piece of simple engagement from January to June is one thing, but what about year-to-date for future data drops and all-time engagement? What if we wanted to dig deep into the data to try and figure out if something did well for Netflix (or other streamers) in a way that would help us be better consumers of your streaming services? Because, as a Netflix user, that interface and the algorithm can be… a bit trying and frustrating to find what you're looking for, to be fair. It leaves one with too much ‘analysis paralysis’ as far as deciding on what you want to watch on Netflix, or any other streaming services for that matter.

To wrap up, what can we, as anime fans (and streaming consumers at large), take away from this new Netflix data drop? One is that other streamers (especially anime-centric streamers like HIDIVE, Crunchyroll, and RetroCrush) absolutely should take a huge page from what Netflix has done (and possibly improve upon it). It would significantly reduce concerns about what the streamers know that we do not (which was a major issue for the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes over the summer of 2023), plus it would increase transparency on the part of the streamers as far as which exclusive anime would get canceled if they didn't get enough views, and which anime would get renewed for getting more views than the streamer expected.