Terms of Service

Plain-English terms. By using animecodex.io(“Anime Codex,” “the Service”), you agree to these terms. If you don't, don't use the Service.

1. What you're buying

A one-time payment of the Founding Member price shown at checkout unlocks the full catalogue of 208 ranked anime across five demographics (shonen, seinen, shoujo, josei, and kodomomuke), criterion-by-criterion justifications, filters (streaming, dub, status, decade), side-by-side comparison, and the design studio. Access is delivered via a magic link sent to your purchase email. There is no recurring charge and no subscription.

Parts of the Service are free to everyone — browsing the preview catalogue, the analysis and insights tools, the written Codex (blog), and the creator embeds. Physical merchandise sold through the store is purchased separately (see §5).

2. Allowed use

Personal, non-commercial use only. You may:

• Read, sort, filter, and compare the rankings privately.
• Quote individual rankings or justifications in social posts, articles, or videos, with attribution to Anime Codex and a link to the relevant page.
• Disagree publicly with any ranking.

3. What you may not do

• Resell, sublicense, or redistribute the catalogue in bulk (more than ~10 show breakdowns in a single context).
• Scrape the Service or use automated tools to extract content at scale.
• Share your magic link, cookie, or session token with others. Each access link is single-use and tied to your purchase email; sharing the URL with another person consumes the link without granting them access.
• Use the Service to train competing models or build derivative ranking products without written permission.
• Misrepresent Anime Codex's rankings as your own work.

4. Intellectual property

The rubric, criterion definitions, weights, scoring scale, and per-show justifications are original editorial work and remain the property of Anime Codex. Cover art, episode counts, MAL scores, and similar third-party metadata are sourced from the Jikan API / MyAnimeList under fair use for editorial commentary; rights to that material remain with the original owners (Shueisha, Kodansha, Shogakukan, and the respective studios).

Quote-with-attribution use of our justifications is permitted under fair use for criticism and review. Bulk copying is not.

5. Store & physical goods

The store sells physical merchandise (apparel, prints, wall scrolls, and similar) printed on demand and fulfilled by a third-party print-on-demand provider. When you place an order you provide a shipping name and address, which we share with that provider and with Stripe solely to produce and deliver your order. Prices, shipping costs, and delivery estimates are shown at checkout. Production and shipping times are estimates, not guarantees, and title and risk of loss pass to you once the order is handed to the carrier.

6. Designs you create

The design studio lets you build graphics from the rankings and, optionally, upload your own images. You keep ownership of anything you upload. By saving a design and ordering it on a product, you grant Anime Codex and its print provider a limited license to reproduce that design solely to produce your order. You are responsible for what you upload: you confirm you hold the rights to use it, and you agree not to upload content that infringes another party's copyright or trademark, or that is unlawful, hateful, or sexually explicit. We may refuse or cancel any order, and remove any saved design, that breaches this.

7. Payment and refunds

Payment is processed by Stripe. We don't see or store your card details. The digital unlock is non-refundable except for delivery failure; physical orders follow the merchandise terms in the refund policy.

8. Disclaimers

Anime Codex is one critic's structured opinion applied consistently across the catalogue. It is provided “as is” for editorial and entertainment purposes. The rankings reflect the published rubric — they are not objective measurements of show quality. We make no warranty that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that any specific ranking will match your personal taste. We do not warrant the accuracy of third-party metadata.

9. Liability

To the maximum extent allowed by law, Anime Codex's total liability to you for any claim is capped at the amount you paid for access. We are not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages.

10. Termination

We can terminate your access if you breach these terms (e.g., scraping, sharing tokens, abuse of the service). In that case no refund is due, and any cached comparison or session data may be deleted.

You can stop using the Service at any time. Email [email protected] to request deletion of your account data.

11. Changes

We may update these terms. The “last updated” date at the top reflects the current version. Material changes will be announced via email to active customers when reasonable.

12. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York and the United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Any dispute arising from these terms or your use of the Service will be resolved in the state or federal courts located in New York.

13. Contact

Questions about these terms: [email protected].