Why and how Kancolle has got

the wide range of popularity?

Text-mining approach

Yuhsuke KOYAMA

Shibaura Institute of Technology

Kantai Collection (Kancolle)

Free to play web browser game

Developed by DMM.com & Kadokawa Games

Player: teitoku(admiral) of Japanese imperial navy

Command the fleets to beat the enemies

All fleet members(ships) are called Kan-musu(艦娘)

Moe-anthropomorophised cute girls

One of the most active online games in Japan

Daily active user: half million

Started on April 23,2013

This presentation:

How had Kancolle become popular?

Kan-musu examples

Akagi

Aircraft carrier

Kongo

Battleship

Nagato

Battleship

More than 100 Kan-musus

How getting popular at beginning?

2 core routes: BBS(2 channel) and twitter&pixiv

BBS: military fans and early players community

Average PC bowser game players are older than those

of other device players in Japan.

30’s and 40’s are majority

Their familiar online media is BBS: 2 channel

Many of them use 2 channel for 10 years or longer

Twitter: Eshi(絵師)=illustrators and fan community

Many of Kan-musu designers are posted their

illustrations to pixiv.net and twitter.

Kancolle threads in 2 channel BBS

2 channel(2ch) ni-channel

https://www.2ch.net/

Largest BBS in Japan

Admirals in 2 channel

shared the hints and tips of

game strategies

only chatted

Kancolle theread

20000 write-ins/day in peak

One of the most active

thread in 2 channel

Number of write-ins per day

in 2 channel Kancolle threads

Starting Period Maturity Period Declining Period

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2

2013 2014

10000/day

Today’s

presentation

2ch officials

prohibited to

copy write-

ins to blogs

Text mining approach

Collect the logs of Kancolle threads in 2channel

Using web-crawling system

Analised them Using some text mining techniques

Using KHCoder free text-mining software

Developed by Higuchi lab, Ritsumeikan University

# Kan-musu name appeared in Kancolle threads2nd week

(total 3481)

10th week

(total 13026)

18th week

(total 48515)

26th week

(total 61510)

1 Akagi(342) Akagi(920) Akagi(2526) Nagato(3136)

2 Kongo(297) Kongo(695) Kongo(2311) Kongo(2263)

3 Fuso Shimakaze Nagato Yamato

4 Kaga Kaga Yamato Akagi

5 Chiyoda Haruna Kitagami Mutsu

6 Ise Yukikaze Shimakaze Kaga

7 Yamashiro Fuso Kaga Shimakaze

8 Isuzu Isuzu I 58 Yukikaze

9 Sendai Ise Mutsu Naka

10 Shimakaze Nagato Naka Shokaku

2週目 6週目 10週目 14週目 18週目 22週目 26週目 30週目1位 赤城 赤城 赤城 赤城 赤城 長門 長門 金剛2位 金剛 金剛 金剛 金剛 金剛 金剛 金剛 阿賀野3位 扶桑 島風 加賀 那珂 長門 赤城 大和 初風4位 加賀 加賀 島風 長門 大和 加賀 赤城 長門5位 千代田 榛名 長門 加賀 北上 大和 陸奥 武蔵6位 伊勢 雪風 五十鈴 島風 島風 陸奥 加賀 北上7位 山城 扶桑 榛名 愛宕 加賀 島風 島風 榛名8位 五十鈴 五十鈴 瑞鶴 扶桑 伊58 北上 雪風 大井9位 川内 伊勢 川内 龍驤 陸奥 瑞鶴 那珂 雪風10位 島風 長門 扶桑 榛名 那珂 雪風 翔鶴 大和

Popularity of Kan-musu Rank is relatively stable.

However, share in total appearance of Kan-musunames is not high.

Every Kan-musu has its own fans.

For Some Kan-musu…

It seems someone suddenly appeared in top 10 and soon disappeared She debut in the game this week.

special personality are created and granted by admirals Akagi: heavy eating

Nagato: bullish but love to cute things

Player-created personality often has become trigger that some Kan-musu become popular

Hirfindahl Hirschmann Index

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

2nd 6th 10th 14th 18th 22th 30th

𝐻𝐻𝐼 = Σ𝑠𝑖2

si: (%) share of Kan-musu

i‘s name in all appeared

Kan-musu name in thread

Used to estimate the

degree of monopoly in

economics

Very alike to Japanese

idle groups

HHI of AKB48

elections(2013) is 277.18

Topics are decentralized

For what admirals pay?

co-occurred words with “Kakin（課金）” Starting 2-3 weeks: to solve resource constraint for

continuing game play materials(資材), fuels(燃料), bullets(弾薬)

During some event periods, Kakin was also co-occuerdwith “event(イベント)” or “materials(資源)”

“dock(ドック)” keeps high rank It has permanent for playing game comfortably

After starting resource constraint periods are over, admirals have no necessity to pay.

“furniture（家具）” No “pay to win” game design

But, low ranking …“fast repair medicine(バケツ)”

Heavy payers are called “米帝(U.S. imperialism)”

Very active fan activity

2272

1138

930

422

354

0 1000 2000

Toho project

Kancolle

idlemaster

BASARA

Fate

# Dojin Circles in Comiket 2013 winter

Kancolle fan activity is very

active

Comic market 2013 winter:

only 8 months after

released

Kancolle is the second largest

dojin genre in game area.

3rd in all areas

Kadokawa games allowed

Kancolle fans for dojin

movement

Summary

We analyzed why and how Kancolle has got the

wide range of popularity.

Through text mining of 2 channel threads

Very primitive analysis, but collect more than 100,000 threads

Kancolle boom is bottom-up movement.

Free to play, not competitive game

DAU is kept half million

Popularity to characters are widely distributed

It is very alike to Japanese Idle groups

Fan activity is very active

cosplay, doujinshi comics, anthology comics …

anime? What’s that?