Presented in Replaying Japan: Japanese game conference at Ritsumeikan University, 22 May,2015

1. Why and how Kancolle has got
the wide range of popularity?
Text-mining approach
Yuhsuke KOYAMA
Shibaura Institute of Technology

3. 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?

4. Kan-musu examples
Akagi
Aircraft carrier
Kongo
Battleship
Nagato
Battleship
More than 100 Kan-musus

5. 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.

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. # Kan-musu name appeared in Kancolle threads
2nd 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

10. 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

11. Popularity of Kan-musu
 Rank is relatively stable.
 However, share in total appearance of Kan-musu
names 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

12. Hirfindahl Hirschmann Index
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
2nd 6th 10th 14th 18th 22th 30th
 𝐻𝐻𝐼 = Σ𝑠𝑖
2
 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

13. 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-occuerd
with “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)”

14. 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

15. 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?