Possible reasons:
1. Your image is not an original anime screenshot.
2. The anime has not been added to database yet.
3. Your image is of modified.
Regarding 1. You may try to use SauceNAO and iqdb.org which is best for searching anime artwork.
Regarding 2. New animes currently airing would be analyzed around 24 hours after TV broadcast. Long-running animes / cartoons are excluded at this stage. See "What anime are indexed" at the bottom of this page.
As for 3. The image search algorithm is designed for almost-exact match, not similar match. It analyze the color layout of the image. So, when your image is not a full un-cropped original 16:9 screenshot (i.e. cropped image), the search would likely fail.
Color is an important factor for the correct search, if heavy tints and filters are applied to the screenshot (i.e. grayscale, contrast, saturation, brightness, sepia), too much information are lost. In this case the search would also fail. The Edge Histogram can solve this issue by ignoring colors and only search edges. But I am running out of computing resource to support another image descriptor.
Image transform is also an important factor. If the image is flipped, mirrored or rotated, the search would also fail.
Text occupied too much of the image. Large texts on the image would interfere the original image. The system is not smart enough to ignore the text.
If your image has too little distinguish features (e.g. dark images or images with large plain blocks of plain colors), the search would also fail.
Searching with a real photo (of an anime) definitely won't work.
Extra border added
Bad Screenshot
Original Screenshot
In case your screenshot has extra borders, please trim off the extra borders before you search.
Cropped Image
Bad Screenshot
Original Screenshot
Cropping the image would result a huge loss of information content.
Flipped image
Bad Screenshot
Original Screenshot
This screenshot from AMV - Animegraphy 2015 flipped the original scene in the anime. Try to search with a flipped image if you guess the image has been flipped.
Tinted images
Not a good Screenshot
Original Screenshot
Tinted images are hard to search. Because the applied filter effects heavily distorted the information in the original screenshot. The color layout image descriptor can no longer find such images.
Old Japanese Anime
Sample Screenshot
Anime of this age are not indexed.
Not from Anime Screenshot
Sample Screenshot
You should try SauceNAO and https://iqdb.org/ to search anime / doujin artwork.
Not Japanese Anime
Sample Screenshot
Tom and Jerry is obviously not a Japanese Anime.
Dark image
Sample Screenshot
Dark images are hard to distinguish using the colorlayout descriptor.
Low resolution image
Sample Screenshot
Your image should be at least 320x180px to search effectively.
Slightly distorted size
Acceptable Screenshot
Original Screenshot
Reasonably sized subtitles
Acceptable Screenshot
Original Screenshot
A frame of GIF
Acceptable Screenshot
Original Screenshot
If the color distortion is acceptable, GIF is also OK.
Drawings of the anime scene
Acceptable Screenshot
Original Screenshot
Acceptable Screenshot
Original Screenshot
The search image does not has to be taken from anime screencap directly. You can use drawings of some scenes as long as it is similar to the original one.
Crop your screenshot to 16:9 or 4:3 before searching. Remove any extra borders in screencap (if any). By default, it crops the image to 16:9, if you upload a 16:10 screenshot, it should be cropped automatically. If the position is incorrect, you can drag the image and adjust the crop position. If your image is tinted, you are out of luck.
Most Japanese anime since 2000 are indexed, plus some popular anime in 1990s, and little anime before 1990. A list of anime are incomplete in index at this stage, including Jewelpet, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Dragon Ball, Crayon Shin-chan, Doraemon, Pokemon, Detective Conan, Chibi Maruko-chan.
Some anime are being removed or relocated, so some of the previews may go offline. The preview uses a considerable amount of network bandwidth, it would take some time to load if you have a slow connection.
I am still collecting raw anime, and it would take a number of powerful servers several months to complete. It will switch to the new dataset once it is ready. The current dataset uses Chinese-subbed anime because the current index is provided by some Asian users.
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You cannot do that. This website is not intended for watching anime. If you wish to watch the anime, you may check which TV channel is broadcasting the anime in your country. For those which has finished airing, consider buying or renting the original Blu-ray/DVDs.
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