Sadly, many anime tend to just throw their main cast of characters together with the title onto a picture and see the task as done. A key visual is essentially the equivalent to the box art that can be found on the packaging of a video game and thus the goal of these pictures should be to communicate all information about an anime in a concentrated form at a glance. This is precisely the reason why I think that key visuals might be the most interesting means of advertising an anime. What all of these methods have in common is that we as viewers have to invest some time to get an idea of an anime. Among other things the director can give interviews that seem honest and enthusiastic at best and by that call attention to the anime or the team simply creates a trailer that shows as many gorgeous scenes as possible and tells us enough about the anime itself at the same time in order to pique our interest over more than a few stunningly animated sakuga moments. If an anime is advertised for, the team has a variety of options at its disposal.

Key visual design