Otaku war: JoJo dethrones Frieren and unleashes fans' fury

Fans of the famous elf attacked JoJo's premiere for stealing the top world spot on the internet.

Mateo Henríquez·22/03/2026 15:49 2 min read 0 comments

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run© Kanehito Yamada / Tsukasa Abe / Hirohiko Araki

Crying because your favorite cartoon dropped to second place on a website is the ultimate level of toxicity. This Friday, within the anime fan community, followers of the series Frieren started a completely ridiculous and envious rating war in an attempt to ruin the successful television premiere of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run.

The robbery of the global crown

To understand this virtual tantrum, you have to look at the numbers. For a very long time, the series about the elf mage sat comfortably in first place on MyAnimeList, the world's largest site where otakus rate their series. The problem exploded this week when the new horse-racing anime from JoJo premiered its first episode. Fans loved it so much that they gave it perfect scores and sent it straight to the very top spot, pushing Frieren down to second place.

An attack of envy and a lot of karma

Upon seeing their favorite series lose the crown, international fans of the elf went crazy. They organized to go to the JoJo page and intentionally give it zero ratings to lower its average—a dirty trick known on the internet as review bombing. But the plan backfired miserably. Fans of the fighting shonen noticed the trap and retaliated by doing exactly the same thing. The result? The overall rating for Frieren ended up dropping even further because of its own rowdy fans.

A senseless fight over numbers

In Japan, everyone is laughing at this overseas drama. Let's be realistic: fighting over a number on a site where anyone can create fake accounts to vote is pointless. Furthermore, if we talk about real success, the entire JoJo franchise has sold over a billion copies throughout its history, while Frieren has barely reached 35 million. At the end of the day, both are incredible series that don't need fighting fans to prove their immense quality.

Seeing how toxic internet fans can become while defending their favorite series, do you think these rating sites should ban new users from voting to prevent this type of cheating?