#naruto statistics

Methods

All Naruto fics and Sakura’s fics

Data was collected from FF.NET (filters set on: Ratings: All, Sorted by: Published date).

For the description of process of total Naruto fics numbers collection see this post. Briefly, the archive was browsed and the first pages featuring a new year as Publish Date of the fic at the top of the page were taking note of. Knowing the number of archive pages produced per year and the number of fics per page (25 fics on FF.NET) the number of fics published in every given year was calculated. Data obtained through this method have error of +/- 24 fics per year. For detailed description of limitations of this methods see here.

To find out the numbers of Sakura’s fics, I chose Haruno Sakura as Character A in Filter Menu, and performed an analogical analysis as for total Naruto fics.

Ships – Pairing Option

Romantic pairings are more complex issue. From October 2013 a ship can be indicated by “Pairing Option”. Pairing Option makes the characters’ names appear in square brackets, and users can search for the fics tagged with a specific ship through the Filter Menu.

I searched fics tagged with Pairing Option between Haruno Sakura and following characters:

Uchiha Sasuke

Uzumaki Naruto 

Hatake Kakashi 

Uchiha Itachi 

Gaara 

Yamanaka Ino 

Uchiha Madara

The choice of characters was based on this analysis. I chose Top 5 ship partners of Haruno Sakura, accompanied by Yamanaka Ino (Sakura’s 7th most popular ship and her most prominent F/F ship) and Uchiha Madara (Sakura’s 9th most popular ship and my OTP 😊 ).

For every ship, I sorted the fics by Publish Date and counted the number of fics published per year.

Ships – Ship Names

Before the introduction of Pairing Option other solutions were invented and utilized by the fandom. In order to allow the readers to search and find shipping fics, authors were putting specific phrases into the summary, and readers would use Search Menu. Such phrases involved various variants of “Ship Names”: character names mergers (example: SasuSaku), usage of letter “x” between character names (example: Sasuke x Sakura, SasukexSakura) and combination of both (example: SasuxSaku). For details see this analysis.

In this analysis the following phrases were searched, and number of ships published per year was collected (on example of ship Uchiha Sasuke x Haruno Sakura):

SasuSaku

SakuSasu 

SasukexSakura 

SakuraxSasuke 

SasuxSaku

SakuxSasu 

Sasuke x Sakura 

Sakura x Sasuke

For detailed description of the process of searching various ship names see this post.

Fic number retrieved from every Ship Name search were summed up year-by-year, giving a total number of fics per a given ship per year. Of course, this procedure opens up a possibility for fics featuring several Ship Names in their summaries to be counted multiple times. For detailed elaboration on limitations of the method please see here.

Results

First off, it is interesting if the number of Sakura’s fics reflects the general changes of Naruto fandom. Fics tagged with Haruno Sakura and total Naruto fics are presented in Figure 1. (Please note that Sakura’s fics are plotted on the secondary vertical axis! I will use secondary axis a lot in this analysis. For those unfamiliar with it, a short how-to-read-it: Total Naruto Fics reached their maximum in 2008 when ca. 47000 fics per year were created. Sakura’s Fics also reached maximum that year, but in her case ca. 11000 fics were published (you need to look at right-hand axis). Such presentation allows us to see that Sakura’s fics creation follows very exactly the output of the entire fandom. If I would plot Sakura’s Fics on one axis with Total Fics, her graph would look very flat, and this observation would have been lost.)

In 2013, one year before the end of manga, all Naruto fics show stabilization of published fics numbers, while fics featuring Sakura show a small, local maximum. The end of the franchise and canonization didn’t halt the general negative trend that was present in the fandom since 2009.

Sakura’s fics represent ca. one fourth of total Naruto fics (102K fics vs 407K fics). If one breaks down the percentages year-by-year (Figure 2.), it can be seen that the 25% was pretty constant over the years, with the exception of years 2003-2005. When I was performing Ship Names searches, it turned out that during those years there were many more “shipping” fics with Sakura than the fics tagged with “Haruno Sakura” (example: in 2003 there were 34 Sakura’s fics, while in the same time 54 SasuSaku fics and 53 NaruSaku fics!). So, it is clear that during the very early years people weren’t tagging the characters too diligently. Therefore, data form the years 2003-2005 will need to be excluded from certain further parts of this analysis.

And now, finally, after all the boring intro: THE SHIPPING!!!!!

SasuSaku

Let’s start with Uchiha Sasuke, Sakura’s most prominent ship (Figure 3.). As reference, Sakura’s fics are plotted on the secondary axis (this figure and the next ones). Fics numbers retrieved from Ship Names searches and Pairing Option search are shown separately and shouldn’t be added up. It is not clear how many of the fics are both tagged with Pairing Option and a Ship Name, especially those published in the years 2013-2019. I am planning to address this issue for Sakura’s main ships in a separate analysis.

Generally, SasuSaku ship development follows pretty well the number of Sakura’s fics, with a maximum in 2008, and a steep decline afterwards. It seems that the decline of SasuSaku fics is steeper than the general decline of Sakura’s fics (and of the Naruto fandom in general) though. There is a small local maximum in 2013 that reflects an overall increase of Sakura’s fics (2013 maximum may be longer and larger if Pairing Option fics are to be included – but this needs prior deconvolution) and afterwards we have a steady decline.

NaruSaku

Uzumaki Naruto x Haruno Sakura ship shows similar trend as SasuSaku ship until 2012 (maximum in 2008 and then decline). The local maximum around 2013-2015 seems to be more pronounced though than the one of Sasuke’s ship and probably than in fandom in general (Figure 4.).

KakaSaku

The ship with Kakashi behaves differently from the two previous ones (Figure 5.) and often goes against the general trends of the Naruto fandom. Namely, it shows maximum in 2007, a local maximum in 2011 (and no maximum in 2013), and, going against the decline of entire fandom (!!!) another local maximum in 2017. Pairing Option for KakaSaku was also rather on a constant level in years 2016-2018 when for other ships it was already showing a decline. One need to take under consideration though, that KakaSaku is by far not as numerous as the two previous ships, and relatively small number of fics can produce effects that are well visible on the graph (example: maximum of year 2017 is only 173 fics).

ItaSaku

Ship with Itachi shows maximum in 2009, and a second, relatively strong maximum in 2013 (the strongest among the ships examined so far). The fics tagged with Pairing Option exhibit maximums in 2014 and in 2017, but otherwise the general shape of the curve reflects the trends in the fandom (Figure 6.).

Gaara

Ship Gaara x Haruno Sakura had its maximum in 2008. The local maximum from 2013 is the weakest out of the ships examined so far, as if the temporary rise of activity in the fandom cause little increase of Gaara x Sakura fics production (Figure 7.).

InoSaku

Ship Ino x Sakura follows general trends of the fandom, with an exception of a local maximum appearing in 2017 (Figure 8.). The Pairing Option shows stabilization in years 2015-2018, despite the general fandom decline. However, relatively small size of this ship (ca. 20-40 fics per year in the recent years) makes all relatively small variations appear as more significant than they might really be.

MadaSaku

Ship Uchiha Madara x Haruno Sakura is a bit of a special case, as Uchiha Madara appeared in the franchise on-panel in 2008 only, and in person in 2011. This is reflected through the first MadaSaku fics showing up in 2008 only. There is a maximum in 2010 – interestingly, before the Tobi/Obito reveal, when Tobi persona was still assumed to be Madara. It would be interesting to see if the fics published this year take place in original Narutoverse or are of a time-travel sort. Years 2012- 2013 show a decline followed by a steep increase (against the general trends of the fandom) with maximum in 2016 (for Ship Names) and 2017 (for Pairing Option). In 2019 another increase can be noted, after a relatively weak 2018 (Figure 9.).

So, now it’s time for some comparisons between the ships.

Ships with Sasuke, Naruto and Kakashi can be plotted together (Figure 10.). The ranking of ships remains unchanged over the entire timeline, however NaruSaku used to be ca. 4 times less popular than SasuSaku during the fandom heyday, and around the times of canonization it became only 3 times less popular (a relative increase in popularity). This is unfortunately also the time of introduction of Pairing Option, so this effect may be an artifact of parts of fandom using tagging systems in different ways. I will try to address this very question in the future.

Dynamics of ships tagged with Pairing Option (Figure 11.) show as well the 3 : 1 ratio of SasuSaku : NaruSaku ships in years2014-2015. From that relative high, the decline of Naruto’s ship seem to be more dramatic than this of Sasuke’s ship in the recent two years (in 2019 the ratio was 4,3 : 1).

But the numbers of fics created per year don’t tell the entire story, especially with the number of total fics changing so rapidly. Therefore, I examined what percentage of Sakura’s fics a ship amounted for over the years (Figure 12.) Years 2003-2005 are unsuitable for this kind of analysis, as the numbers of shipping fics exceed (and in 2003 vastly so) the number of Sakura’s fics.

The results from Ship Names searches are presented in Figure 12. For presentation purposes, SasuSaku ship is plotted on the primary vertical axis, while all the other ships – on the secondary.

SasuSaku ship used to make up to 30% of all Sakura’s fics during the fandom rise and heyday (2006-2008), only to drop to 15-17% in more recent years. The decline reached its local minimum in 2011 (for orientation: Sasuke’s and Sakura’s infamous reunion under the bridge in Iron Country was published in March 2010). During the Fourth Ninja War chapters SasuSaku stabilized on 16-17%. The canonization of ship in November 2014 didn’t seem to influence its popularity, and recent years brought a decline with all-time minimum of 14,3% in 2018.

However, it is possible that data from years 2013-2019 are influenced by existence of Pairing Option In the most optimistic scenario, the two tagging systems would be additive and we would have ca. twice as much SasuSaku fics. This question will be addressed in the future.

Data from Pairing option show only a fraction of fandom history (Figure 13.), and after a steep rise (caused by spreading of Pairing Option awareness among the writers) SasuSaku remains on a steady level of 14-18% of all Sakura’s ships.

NaruSaku ship was at 8% in 2007, and later it dropped to 4,3% in a manner similar to SasuSaku ship. During the Fourth Ninja War Arc popularity of NaruSaku rose once again to almost 7% and remained relatively high also post-manga end (up to 2015), only to drop to its minimum of 3,6% in 2019. The Pairing Option shows a similar drop in NaruSaku fics in last two years.

KakaSaku started off at 4% in 2006 and afterwards suffered a small decline, interestingly - with a minimum during Fourth Ninja War Arc in 2013 and not like those of Team 7 boys in 2011. From 2014 KakaSaku is on a relative rise as reflected by both Ship Names searches and Pairing Option.

ItaSaku had its maximum relative popularity in 2009, when 3,5% of Sakura’s fics were ItaSaku ones, and another peak in 2013. Last year brough a small, but visible rise of Itasaku fics.

GaaSaku started at 3% in 2006 and from then on it is on a steady decline according to Ship Names searches. Pairing Option shows a modest increase of published fics in two recent years.

InoSaku doesn’t show dramatic changes, though a low period can be noticed during the years 2010-2015.

MadaSaku remains on very low level throughout the entire timeline, but a rising trend can be noted in recent years (both tagging systems).

Methods

I collected the data browsing through both archives. AO3 by default shows all available fics. Filters in FF.NET were set to display all Ratings (not Rating K -> T as in default). Fics were sorted by Publish Date in both archives.

I browsed through the archives and took note which consecutive page of the archive featured a first appearance of a “new” year as a Publish Date of the fic on the top of the page (see Figure 1).

In the example illustrated in Figure 1.  the first fic on the page 806 was published on 01.01.2018. The first fic on the page 807 was published on 31.12.2017. Page 807 was defined as the first page of 2017. Independently on how many fics published in 2017 could be found on the page 806, page 806 was still counted as “belonging” to the year 2018. Such simplified approach was necessary for streamlining of data collection.

Data collection was performed similarly on AO3. However, AO3 displays Publish Date only in the body on the fic (when browsing the archive, only Update Dates are visible, and those are different than Publish Dates for most of multichapter stories). Therefore, manual inspection of fics on the top of the pages was often necessary.

After identifying all “first” pages for every year, I calculated (via simple subtraction) how many pages of fics were produced per year. FF.NET displays 25 fics per page, AO3 – 20 fics, therefore the number of pages per year was multiplied by 25 for FF.NET and by 20 for AO3 to obtain the number of fics published in a given year.

Analogical approach was employed to examine the number of fics produced per month (the page number with first appearance of “new” month on top was noted) for the years 2018 and 2019, to gain more insight into details of fandom dynamics in most recent times.

Limitations of the method

Due to my definition of the “first page of the year”, each year can in reality have up to 24 fics more (or up to 19 more on AO3) on the page preceding “first page of the year” (page 806 in the example from Figure 1.). According to my method those fics would be included into the count of the following year (2018 in the example from Figure 1.). In the same time, a year can in reality have 24 fics less (19 less on AO3) than I calculated on its “last page” due to similar phenomenon concerning the year’s “end”.

Therefore, all the values reported for FF.NET have an error of +/- 24, and those for AO3, error of +/-19.

Additionally, as new fics keep being added, years’ borders may shift from one page to another. This factor should however be negligible, because current fic addition speed is ca. 1 fic per hour on FF.NET and 1,5 fic per hour on AO3 and my data collection lasted ca. 2h for FF.NET and 1h for AO3.

On AO3, authors can freely set a publication date, and the chosen date is then displayed in the header of the fic when one clicks inside it. The user-defined date doesn’t influence the sorting order, i.e. fics are still sorted according to their date of addition to the archive. However, the user-defined publish date makes application of my definition of the “first page of a year” very challenging. I often had to look at second, third or fourth fic on the page to find out to which year they belonged to (in order to correctly assign the page to the year). Fortunately, the publish date-changing seemed to be in fashion only during the early day of the archive (years 2009-2011). Therefore, the data from the years 2010 and 2011 may be contain larger errors than those from later years. Due to this difficulty, I also entirely opted out from reporting the data for 2009.

 Results

Number of fics published per year on FF.NET and AO3 is shown in Figure 2.

On FF.NET, after a steep rise in years 2006-2007, Naruto fandom was at its peak in 2008 (having produced more than 45000 fics that year). After 2008 a rather steep decline can be observed, with a very slight reversal of negative trend in 2013. In 2019 only less than 9000 fics has been added to FF.NET.

Situation looks very differently on AO3, which, having been established in 2008 and opened for use in 2009, has been gaining momentum ever since. In 2019 ca. 13000 Naruto fics have been added to AO3. It is interesting to note that the growth of Naruto fandom on AO3 was very slow for several years, but recently it accelerated.

To examine the details of this “growth spurt”, I analyzed data from 2018 and 2019 month-by-month. Results are visualized in Figure 3.

It can be seen that until July 2018, less fics per month were being published on AO3 than FF.NET. In the period August 2018 – November 2018 the fics’ numbers between the platform evened out, and AO3 gained advantage over FF.NET in December 2018.

 In order to check if the gain of fics on AO3 can counterbalance the loss of fics in FF.NET, I plotted the summed numbers of fics (those published on FF.NET and those published on AO3). The results are presented in Figure 4.

At the first glance, it looks as if AO3 could compensate for the losses on FF.NET and halt the decline. The case is not that straightforward however, and simple addition of fics from two platform can actually be misleading and incorrect. This is due to the fact that many authors publish in parallel on both platforms, and fics uploaded to FF.NET are de facto the same fics as those published on AO3. Additionally, some authors move from the older FF.NET to the newer AO3, where they re-post their older works in bulk.

To answer the question if the decline of Naruto fandom has been stopped, one would need to know the numbers of unique fics published per year. But, looking at years-long trend, I would lean towards the opinion that the decline is real.

But not to finish this post on a too depressing note, I would like to share one more graph – namely the cumulative number of fics on both platforms (Figure 5.). Even if the fandom is past its heyday, hundreds of thousands of fics have been produced and are there to read and enjoy (and comment on!). And, last but not least, it’s up to us to keep the fandom alive!