MOCHI.TV, part of Y Combinator's most recent batch, has launched a mobile app that slices anime into vertical, one-to-two-minute episodes tailored for smartphone screens. The three-person startup claims to operate more than 100 original series, adding new installments daily through what it describes as an AI-assisted production pipeline.
The company pitches itself as the anime answer to ReelShort and DramaBox, the live-action vertical drama apps that have reportedly generated considerable revenue through freemium coin-and-subscription models. Whether anime fans will embrace the same bite-sized format that has worked for melodramatic micro-dramas remains an open question, but MOCHI.TV is betting heavily on the crossover.
A Format Built for Scrolling
The catalog reads like a parody of isekai tropes: I Took a Pill, Now I'm Hot. I Reincarnated as a Trash Demon. Patch Notes: NPCs Are Hostile Now. Each title unfolds in episodes short enough to consume between subway stops.
"One-minute episodes. Full-season stakes," the company wrote in its App Store description, a promise that compresses an entire narrative arc into the time it takes to microwave leftovers.
Users can watch on mobile or through the mochi.tv web player, which surfaces a "Top 10 today" feed alongside view counters for individual series. One title, Love Note, had racked up tens of thousands of views by late summer, according to the company's public metrics.
The app offers a coin-based unlock system alongside subscription tiers. Weekly VIP access was listed at $19.99 as of late August, with an annual option at $149.99. Coin packs start at $4.99 for 500 coins and climb to $29.99 for 3,000. The company also runs ads on both iOS and Android.
From Gaming Revenue to Animated Shorts
Robert Qiu, founder and CEO, brings an unconventional résumé to the anime space. He previously scaled a gaming startup to what the company claims was $200,000 in monthly revenue and launched an NFT project that the company says generated more than $100 million in trade volume. Before MOCHI.TV, Qiu studied at UC Berkeley and worked at a major technology company.
Co-founder Michael Ninh led consumer growth at Hush, another Y Combinator company, and spent time at Massdrop. The startup operates under the legal name GENERAL ANIME, Corp., with listed addresses in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
"We're lifelong anime fans with a love for consumer products," Qiu wrote in the company's Y Combinator launch post. The founders frame the project as a convergence of fandom and mobile-first distribution.
Opening the Studio to Users
In mid-August, the company added user-generated content features through a tool called Mochi Lab. "Create your first series today," the Android launch announcement read, offering 100 gems to early adopters.
The Lab interface lets users direct story choices, assemble episodes using in-app tools, and compete on a weekly creator leaderboard. A handful of Google Play reviews from late summer mentioned creator costs hovering around $5 for two or three scenes, each roughly 15 seconds long. The company has not published a detailed pricing schedule for these tools.
Community-created series now appear alongside the studio's original catalog, though it's unclear how much traction user content has gained. The Lab page displays the most-watched community series, though view counts were modest compared to the top original titles.
The AI Production Claim
"Our AI workflow allows us to drop a new series a day," Qiu said, contrasting that velocity with traditional anime production timelines that can stretch across years. "Unlike traditional anime, our content is built for Gen Z."
The company says its writing roster includes contributors from Toei Animation, Marvel's Spider-Man franchise, Webtoon, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Robot Chicken, though these credits have not been independently verified through public channels.
The assertion raises familiar questions about AI-assisted creative work: how much human writing and art direction goes into each episode, and whether the speed gains come at a cost to the craft that anime fans typically prize. The company has not detailed its production process beyond the broad "AI workflow" descriptor.
Traction in a Crowded Market
According to Qiu's launch post, MOCHI.TV has accumulated more than 300 million views, surpassed 100,000 users, and built a social media following of 900,000-plus across platforms. The company described that growth as organic, though it did not provide third-party verification of the figures.
Public app store data offered a narrower snapshot. The Android version showed over 10,000 downloads and carried a 4.6-star rating from roughly 1,200 reviews. The iOS version held a 4.7-star rating, with review counts varying by region.
Those numbers put MOCHI.TV well behind the live-action vertical drama incumbents. Sensor Tower data indicated that ReelShort and DramaBox each approached $140 million in first-quarter in-app purchase revenue, benefiting from a format that has scaled globally over the past two years.
An Early Competitor Emerges
MOCHI.TV is not alone in pursuing vertical anime. Shortcat, another startup in the space, soft-launched in Asia and announced plans to release 100 exclusive titles. Founder Jeff Biart wrote on LinkedIn that the company intended to establish itself before MOCHI.TV entered the market, though neither startup has disclosed detailed user metrics or revenue figures.
The vertical short-drama category has proven lucrative enough to attract multiple players, but anime fandom brings its own expectations around production quality, narrative depth, and visual fidelity. Whether audiences accustomed to full-length series and feature films will shift viewing habits to one-minute episodes remains the central gamble for both companies.
For now, MOCHI.TV is iterating quickly, releasing new series at a pace that would be impossible under traditional studio constraints. Whether that speed translates into staying power depends on factors the founders cannot entirely control: how Gen Z audiences balance convenience against the storytelling traditions that made them anime fans in the first place.
