Basic terms
The meaning of all the basic terms are covered in torrenting glossary. Read those first, you will need them.
Categories
Anime
| Subcategory | Icon | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Anime Music Video |  | Anime OP/ED, fansubbed or fanmade MVs. It can have non-anime stuff too (e.g. vtubers, live action MVs). |
| English-translated |  | Anime with English sub/dub. By default, it contains English subtitles and Japanese audio. English dub can be found in Dual-audio or Multi-dub / Multi-audio releases. You will find more file name details here. |
| Non-English-translated |  | Anime with non-english subs/dubs. Non-english content can be found in previous category too, if that torrent has Multi-sub / Multi-audio in the name, for example rips from Varyg and Erai-raws. |
| Raw |  | Anime with the Japanese audio and no subs or Japanese subs or bilingual. A lot of releases in this section are made by Chinese uploaders, so you could find releases that have Japanese and Chinese subs in the same file. |
Audio
| Subcategory | Icon | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Lossless |  | It has almost every kind of music. Anime OP/ED, OST, discography and others. The audio files are mostly WEB-DL (and some are CD release). Almost everything is in PCM (i.e. FLAC, ALAC, WAV), rarely some are DSD. |
| Lossy |  | Lossy encodes of the audio releases. |
Audio glossary
If you want to learn more about the audio basics, read our audio glossary. You will find almost all the terms there.
Literature
| Subcategory | Icon | Description |
|---|---|---|
| English-translated |  | Has comics, novels and general books. Comics and novels have set naming schemes, which you can find here. Most uploads are official digitals or scans, but there are fan-translations too. Most audiobooks are also uploaded in this category, and some in Audio. |
| Non-English-translated |  | Comics, novels and general books in other languages. |
| Raw |  | Japanese comics, magazines, novels and general books. The upload quality varies a lot. You can find uploads from websites that only offer slow file hosts, so you will get faster and hassle-free download. |
Live Action
| Subcategory | Icon | Description |
|---|---|---|
| English-translated |  | Movies, dramas, tokusatsu or other random tv shows in English subs/dubs (with or without Japanese subs). |
| Idol / Promotional Video |  | MV / concert / live shows / tours of idols / vtubers / normal artists, or interviews and other types of compilations. Can be WEB-DL or DVD / BD-rip. |
| Non-English-translated |  | Similar to "English-translated" section, but with non-english subs. |
| Raw |  | Raw section can have way more random things alongside normal stuff like above, for example news reports. |
Pictures
| Subcategory | Icon | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Graphics |  | Art-based materials, either scanned or digital. Anime production materials (e.g. artbook, concept arts etc), poster, icons, wallpapers or other kinds of books. |
| Photos |  | Booklets, photobook & cosplay are generally uploaded here, sometimes art-based materials too. |
Software
| Subcategory | Icon | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Applications |  | Japaese software and japaense learning software materials. |
| Games |  | Visual novels, Japanese games (PC, Android and console games). |
Color Codes
| Color | Meaning & Example |
|---|---|
| Green | The uploader is trusted by staff, a profile-based tag rather than upload-based. |
Subsplease's upload of Frieren WEB-dl in x264 without transcoding.  | |
Erai-raw's upload was transcoded from x264 but marked as green since the account is marked as trusted.  | |
| Red | This mainly indicates it's a modified version of the source (doesn't mean it's bad by default). For anime, it indicates a re-encoded video. For manga, it indicates that an edit of someone else's release, usually for the purposes of joining spread pages. It's added by the uploader (rarely by staff), so not every qualifying torrent will have it. Sometimes it's indicated with "ED" tag instead. |
Here, ASW has transcoded the original WEB-dl from x264 to x265.  | |
Here, Raze has transcoded the video to x265 as well as interpolated it from 24fps to 144fps.  | |
In this case, Shellshock has just merged the spreads and repacked the volumes.  | |
| Blue | Rated best by Seadex, visible with their script.  |
| Uncoded | Most of the torrents are uncoded, which means you have to judge by the title and description. |
Varyg's WEB-DL upload of frieren in x264.  | |
Interpolated upload of Bang Dream  | |
1r0n's Kingdom manga upload with color leveling and spread joined.  | |
Modified version of tronboy's upload. | |
0v3r's upscalled manga upload.  |
File Naming
README
File naming schemes are kind of optional, not every upload has to follow the same sequence of tags. There will be variations on writing style and placement, with the schemes below being the most standard way to do it.
Anime
| Part | Description |
|---|---|
| Release group | The individual or team behind the release, also called Encoder in the case of encodes. Example: SubsPlease, Erai-raws, EMBER, Yameii, etc. Sometimes, the release group name is mentioned at the end. |
| Source | WEB-DL: Untouched videos, downloaded from streaming sites without encoding. |
| WEB-Rip: Videos sourced from streaming sites that went through screen-capture and/or encoding methods. | |
| BDISO: A disk image of a Blu-ray disc, needs to be mounted in order to be played (like other ISOs) and is used for making encodes or remuxes. | |
| BDMV: Short for “Blu-ray Disc Movie”, a container format used to store high-definition video, audio, and other related content on Blu-ray discs. | |
| Remux: Videos sourced from disc releases without encoding, making them have very high quality and file sizes. | |
| Encode: A video that has gone through lossless or lossy compression processes in order to save file size, also called a DVDRip or BDRip. | |
| Re-Encode: An encode that has gone through the process of further encoding, thus degrading in quality. | |
| Mini-Encode: A video where the priority is the smallest possible file size, even if the quality would greatly suffer as a result. | |
| Resolution | The number of pixels contained in each frame. Most anime nowadays are made in 1080p. Very few anime are made in 2160p because of the budget constraints without adding much value. So most 2160p are upscales (Bilibili One Piece uploads) or rescans of old anime (GKIDS & IMAX Ghibli movies restoration project). The quality depends on how the process is handled. Most fanmade upscales are bad/lazy, so ignoring them is the better choice. |
| Upper limits on video resolution based on source (ignoring untouched and leaked sources): | |
| WEB / BluRay -> 1920x1080 | |
| UHD -> 3840x2160 | |
| TV -> 1920x1080 (If the channel is SD, then it's 480p) | |
| DVD -> 1024x576 | |
| Video Codec | The encoding process for the video file. The most popular encoders today are x264 (AVC) and x265 (HEVC), with the latter being newer and able to achieve higher compression rates with less quality loss. To learn more about encoding, visit Codec Wiki. |
| Audio Format | Lossless: These retain the highest audio quality and have larger file sizes as a consequence. The most common one is FLAC. |
| Lossy: These formats aim to provide good quality while keeping file sizes small. The most popular ones today are AAC, AC3, EAC3 (all commonly found in Web releases), with MP3 being found in older releases. | |
| Subtitles | Closed Captions (CC): Also known as soft subtitles; text overlays on a video that provide translated dialogue or just audio transcription in case they're following the dub; can be turned off if not needed. |
| Open Captions (OC): Also known as burned-in/hard subtitles; non-interactive subtitles that have been permanently 'burned' into the video file itself and can't be turned off. | |
| Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing(SDH): A type of subtitle that includes not only dialogue but also annotations for sound effects and other audio information to aid viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing. | |
| Forced Subtitles: Subtitles that automatically appear when a portion of dialogue or text is in a different language from the main audio track; they are 'forced' on screen to provide necessary translation or context. | |
| Karaoke Subtitles: Karaoke subtitles highlight the lyrics in time with the Opening / Ending / Insert songs. | |
| File Hash | These are CRC32 codes, used to detect errors during file transmission. For example: 7BAAC64C. CRC generates a 32-bit code for each file (in hexadecimal, it's 8 digits). Fansubbers include these codes in the filename so that users can easily check whether the downloaded file is corrupted or not. If the file is corrupted, the user will receive a different code than the one written in the file name. |
| Container / Format | The container used for the video file, with the most widely used one today being MKV, for the ability to put multiple audio/subtitle tracks in one video file. The most popular one in the past was MP4, which focused on being compatible with a wide range of devices, but was only able to have burned-in hardsubs. |
Examples
- [SubsPlease] Sousou no Frieren S2 - 01 (1080p) [4277EF46].mkv
- [hydes] Akira (BDRip 1920x1032 x264 FLAC).mkv
- Frieren.Beyond.Journeys.End.S02E01.Shall.We.Go.Then.1080p.CR.WEB-DL.MULTi.AAC2.0.H.264-VARYG.mkv
Manga / Light Novel
| Part | Description |
|---|---|
| Publisher | CaaS (Chapters as a Service) sites release chapters indvidually instead of volume. Examples: Manga Plus, Manga UP!, Comikey, Tapas etc. |
| Volume websites sells the whole volume with better quality. Example: VIZ, Kodansha, Square Enix etc. | |
| Source | Digital: Nowadays the primary source is digital, since it's easier to rip and usually higher quality. |
| c2c: In the case of scans, the most used tag is c2c - cover to cover. Example: Trite, XRA. | |
| Uploader | The ripper of the manga, either an individual or group. If the manga is scanlated, the scanlation group is credited here. |
| Tags | PRE: Indicates that a digital release has issues the publisher has yet to fix (like missing/duplicated pages). PRE2 means the publisher has fixed some of those issues, but not all of them. |
| f: It indicated this is a fixed version after the initial upload. If there are further fixes, it will be put as f2, f3 etc. | |
| ED: Means the upload is an edited version of another torrent upload. Often merged spreads or color-corrected (or ai-colored, upscaled). | |
| Brackets | () -> Manga (traditional) |
| {} -> Long-strip | |
| [] -> Light Novel | |
| Container | CBZ is the most common file format for manga, actually just a Zip container. There are also CBR(RAR), CB7(7zip), PDF, ePub etc. The image files inside are generally jpeg, png or webp. JPEGXL/JXL is a newer supported format which can provide really good quality under lower file size. |
Examples
- Frieren - Beyond Journey's End v01 (2021) (Digital) (1r0n) (f2).cbz
- The Kind Adventurer and the Reincarnated Girl v01 (Digital-Compilation) (Oak-JXL).cbz
- 20th Century Boys (The Perfect Edition) v01 (2018) (c2c) (Trite).cbr
- The Ephemeral Scenes of Setsuna's Journey v01 - The Former 68th Hero and the Beastfolk Apprentice [Yen Press] [Stick].epub