Pixiv

Pixiv is a Japanese online community for artists. It was first launched as a beta test on 10 September 2007, by Takahiro Kamitani and Takanori Katagiri. Pixiv Inc. is headquartered in Sendagaya, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. As of January 2024, the site consists of over 100 million members, over 115 million illustration and manga and over 21 million novel work posted. Pixiv aims to provide a place for artists to exhibit their illustrations and get feedback via a rating system and user comments. Works are organized in an extensive tag structure which forms the backbone of the website.

Starting as the idea of the programmer Takahiro Kamitani, who is himself an artist known as Bakotsu on the website, Pixiv was launched on 10 September 2007, as a beta test. When the number of users exceeded 10,000 only nineteen days after launch, it became difficult for Kamitani to maintain Pixiv on his own, leading him to establish Crooc Inc. on 1 October 2007. The website underwent a major upgrade on 18 December 2007, into what is similar to the current version of the website. While the website was originally only available in Japanese, Chinese was the first additional language offered due to an increasing tendency of international registrants from Taiwan and China; there is also an increasing number of registrants from the United States and South Korea. In 2009, an English-language version was considered to be the lowest in terms of priority, but was later established in early 2011. Internationalization of the website continued with the addition of French, Korean, Russian and Thai. Certain European countries with a high number of hits on the website such as Germany, Italy and France will also be considered. The management company Crooc changed its name to Pixiv Inc. on 1 November 2008. The CEO of Pixiv Inc. is Takanori Katagiri.

Pixiv introduced a redesigned logo in 2025, replacing the existing logo used since 2008.

A free membership is required in order to browse the website. Pixiv's main concept is for users to submit their own art illustrations, which excludes most forms of photography; creative writing can also be submitted. Users can participate in a social network where one can rate contributions, leave comments on art pieces, and change tags on any entry. Due to the flexibility of tags, users can start impromptu user-generated participation events where users submit art related to a common specific subject. Each user has a personal bulletin board system where other users can leave messages. One can also respond to images with another image, known as an "image response". Pixiv differentiates itself from its most notable American counterpart, DeviantArt, in that it permits hardcore pornography to be posted on the site, albeit with genitals censored so as to conform with Japanese obscenity laws. Images such as these, or other images not suitable for children such as grotesque images, are separated from the other content through two filters which can be turned on or off via the user's profile. Both of these filters, the first preventing the user from seeing any adult content and the second hiding grotesque ("R18-G") content, are enabled by default and as such unregistered users cannot view adult works. The majority of contributions are of anime, manga, and video game fan art, or of original art which resembles these art forms. The website's global policy includes protecting the privacy of all Pixiv users, and refraining from posting others' works, reprinting others' works without permission, and advertising for commerce. The current English slogan is "It's fun drawing!" but earlier versions used a literal translation of the Japanese slogan Oekaki ga motto tanoshiku naru basho (お絵かきがもっと楽しくなる場所) as "A place where drawing becomes more enjoyable." This explains the subtitle "Pixiv, the online artist's community, aims to be that place."

Formal events are periodically held on Pixiv to gather participation in formal events revolving around a common theme depending on the time of year; these events revolve around the user-submitted artwork. Throughout the year, seasonal events occur, such as tie-ins with the holidays Halloween, Christmas, New Years, and Tanabata. For a fixed period of time, a section of the website is dedicated to these seasonal submissions, and aspects of the website such as the logo design and star-rating system are altered; for example, the stars are pumpkins during the Halloween-tie in event. On and thereafter the Tanabata event in mid-2008, prizes are offered by either sponsors or from Pixiv itself for participants in the event whose art proves to be popular with the community. Other than during seasonal events, sponsors can also work with Pixiv on PR events, again offering prizes to the users with the most popular works. Pixiv has held an event called "Doodle 4 Pixiv", an event inspired by Google's Doodle4Google competition where participating members take the Pixiv logo and modify it in some way.

Before the Comiket 73 convention in December 2007, users set up a "Pixiv Edition C73 Catalog" on the website via the tags on the images, and following this Pixiv began setting up a section of the website for members participating at Comiket starting in preparation for Comiket 74 in August 2008. This enables users to search through a catalog by dōjin circles and by username which also includes information on where in the convention center a user's circle is located. Along the same lines, due to the high level of Touhou Project fan art contributions to the website (about 3.9% of all submissions), Pixiv also sets up a similar catalog for the annual Reitaisai Touhou convention.

When the top page of Pixiv is viewed when not logged in, a random selection of the newest highly rated contributions to the website are previewed as thumbnails. A set of tags from the most recent submissions is shown in a tag cloud under the illustrations. When logged in, six of the newest illustrations are previewed at the top, and several top-three rankings are shown including daily, popular among men, rookie, and original for illustrations, and a daily ranking for written contributions. Other rankings not on the top page include weekly, monthly, and popular among women. Tag clouds are displayed, as well as official events and new illustrations from favorited artists. A random selection of a user's favorite artists, linking to their user pages, can be viewed under the user's profile image on the left. Two links are available to a user to review their past evaluations and comments left on images. A link to go to the adult version of the top page is available as well, if enabled in the settings.

On a given user's user page, the user's three most-recent submissions are previewed as thumbnails, along with the user's three most recently bookmarked images, and the three most-recent image responses by the user who responded to another user's submissions. A selection of a user's favorite artists is available, with links to the full lists of artists divided between "favorite users" and "my picks". A short profile detailing the artist's basic information, such as nickname, birthday, sex, and location, is available, along with a short self-introduction. An additional profile detailing an artist's computer workspace is also available. Each user has a profile image used to distinguish the artist which appears above their username on their user page. Each user is given a simple, personal BBS which the user, or anyone else, can write comments on with a limit of 140 characters, and only the 60 most-recent entries are available for viewing.