Kessen

⚡ ELO Rating

Rankings use the ELO system from chess. Beating a higher-ranked anime gains more points; losing to a lower-ranked one costs more. More battles = more reliable ranking.

🏷 Tiers

Calculated dynamically from your ELO rankings: S top 10% · A 10–25% · B 25–55% · C 55–80% · D bottom 20%.

● Confidence

Uncertain — fewer than 3 battles, don't trust this rank yet.
Settling — 3–9 battles, getting more reliable.
Confident — 10+ battles, stable.

〰️ Fuzzy & ✗ Not Seen

Fuzzy — can't judge an anime fairly because you don't remember it well? Mark it fuzzy and it'll appear far less often until you've refreshed your memory.
Not Seen — removes the anime from your ranking pool entirely. Re-add it any time from the Excluded section at the bottom of Rankings.

↩ Undo

Changed your mind? Undo reverts your last battle result, restoring both ELO scores. You can undo up to 5 battles in a row.

⚙ Battle Modes

Tap the mode button in the battle screen to switch between:

⚙ Standard — default matchmaking, pairs chosen to maximise ranking accuracy.
🎯 Settle — targets uncertain matchups first so shaky rankings lock in faster.
🙈 Blind — hides ELO scores so you pick purely on instinct, without being anchored by numbers.
🎲 Trio — three anime at once; drag or tap to rank them 1st, 2nd, 3rd.
🔥 Winner Stays On — the champion keeps fighting until knocked off, with a streak counter. Great for finding your true top picks.
⚡ Tower — pick a champion and pit it against 10 opponents spread across the rankings. A fun way to stress-test how highly you really rate a show.

≡ Battle Pool Filter

Tap the Filter button in the battle screen to exclude formats (TV, Movie, OVA…) from matchmaking. Useful if you only want to rank one type at a time. The same popover has an Avoid same franchise toggle that stops the picker from pairing sequels against each other (so you don't keep getting AoT S1 vs AoT S2). Both settings persist between sessions.

⚔ Battle Next

Tapping an anime card opens its detail view, where you can hit ⚔ Battle Next to queue it as one side of your next battle against a similar-ELO opponent. Great for "wait, why is this ranked so low?" moments.

⌨️ Keyboard Shortcuts

← left wins  ·  → right wins  ·  S skip  ·  U undo

📋 Rankings

Title search at the top, then a row of filter chips: + Genre, + Studio, + Year, + Format, + Length. Each opens a popover listing the actual values from your list with counts, so you can see at a glance what's worth filtering by. Picks become removable chips — combine across categories (AND) or pick multiple values in one category (OR). One ⤫ Clear filters button wipes everything. Sort by ELO, Title, Win Rate, Battles, AniList Score, Tier, or Confidence. Toggle grid or list view. Fuzzy-only and Franchise mode live in the row below.

⛓ Franchise Mode

Groups sequels and seasons together in the Rankings view so you can see a franchise's overall standing at a glance. Each franchise card shows the average ELO, a ★ Top badge for the highest-rated entry, and the franchise's all-time best ELO. Tap a card to drill in, then use:

⚔ Battle within — restrict the next battles to entries inside the franchise so you can settle "which Re:Zero season is best?". Auto-stops once every pair has been battled.
🚫 Exclude all from battles — bulk-remove the whole franchise from your battle pool (with undo).

Franchise mode unlocks two extra sort options: ★ Top ELO and Members.

📊 Tabs

Battles — stats, biggest upsets, rivalries, and full battle history. Total Battles + Fuzzy Flagged tiles are clickable shortcuts.
Profile — two sub-tabs: Taste (your archetype, genre & era breakdowns, studio affinity, taste vs the community, score distribution) and Achievements (milestones and badges earned through ranking).
Discover — four sub-tabs: For You (recs based on your top-rated anime), This Season (airing now + next), Moods (taste-grouped collections), and Predict (tier guess for any anime you haven't ranked). Cards that strongly match your taste get a 🎯 Strong match badge.
Social — multiplayer modes and taste comparison (see below).
Manage — backup, export, sync to AniList or MAL, appearance, and reset.

👥 Social

🤝 Watch Together — co-op picker for what to watch tonight. Nominate shows (or pull from this season), then vote head-to-head until one wins.
🎮 Challenge Mode — solo guessing game. Type any AniList or MAL username and guess which of two of their anime they ranked higher. No signup or invite needed for your friend.
🌐 Live Challenge — together, real-time. Each round you both pick a winner and predict each other's pick — bonus points for reading them right.
Taste Compare — enter any AniList username to see how your rankings overlap, where you disagree, and get cross-taste recommendations.

🔮 Predict

Search any anime you haven't ranked — Kessen estimates the tier it would likely land in based on your genre preferences, era affinities, and how your taste compares to the community. The more you've ranked, the more accurate the prediction.

🔔 Notifications

The bell icon in the header shows alerts for newly added anime on your list, cloud sync events, finish-watching prompts, and a one-time ✨ What's new entry whenever Kessen updates to a new version (tap it to see the release highlights). Tap the bell to open the notification centre and review or clear alerts.

☁️ Cloud Sync

When logged in with AniList or MAL, your rankings automatically save to the cloud after each battle (with a short delay). Opening the app on another device will prompt you to load the cloud save if it's newer than your local one. You can also push or pull manually any time from Manage → Backup, Sync & Export.

🔵 AniList Integration

On first load — your AniList scores seed starting ELO values (10→1500 · 7→1200 · 4→900), so rankings begin close to where you already know they should be.

Sync to AniList (Manage tab) — push your ELO rankings back to AniList as updated scores. You'll see a preview of every change before confirming.

Re-seed from AniList (Manage tab) — re-pull your current AniList scores and replace ELO values with fresh starting points, without erasing battle history.

📋 MAL Integration

On first load — your MAL scores seed starting ELO values (10→1500 · 7→1200 · 4→900), giving your rankings a head start based on what you already know.

Re-seed from MAL (Manage tab) — re-pull your current MAL scores and replace ELO values with fresh starting points, without erasing battle history.

Discover & Stats — fully supported. Recommendations are powered by AniList's public database, which is also where cover art and metadata come from.

Social features (taste comparison & friend recs) use AniList usernames — enter any friend's AniList handle to compare.