Danbooru



An Image Booru is a new breed of Image Boards and is essentially a tag-based image archive. Most are based loosely around anime. Because the idea is still relatively new there are not that many of them around compared to, say, forums or more traditional imageboards. The name is derived from Danbooru, the first booru. These sites cater to those who want the Pixiv experience, but don't feel like sifting through Japanese or inconsistent tagging. A very large majority of the images you see on boorus came from Pixiv first.

Danbooru got its name from the Japanese word Danbo-ru, meaning 'cardboard box.' It was originally coded and administrated by rq. The site got more and more popular, in large part due to rq's lenient policy on mature content, until eventually the site couldn't take the strain anymore and rq pulled the plug.

Danbooru has since revived under Albert, with stricter quality/content guidelines. Users are divided into nine levels. "Members", "Privileged", and "Builder" have their submissions sent to a moderation queue, where they are deleted if no one in the moderation staff ("Test Janitor" and above) approves them in three days. "Members" are prevented from viewing Loli and Shota images because advertisers aren't comfortable with the content; higher user levels don't see ads. "Members" can become "Privileged" for a one-time $20 fee; all other levels are by invitation only.

While Danbooru was down, many new boorus sprung up. Some use the original Danbooru code (or a modded/hacked version, at least), but because the original Danbooru runs on Ruby on Rails, most of the new ones use Shimmie, a version of Danbooru rewritten in PHP. Most non-specialized boorus, like Gelbooru, automatically import all images uploaded to Danbooru. Sankaku Complex has a booru, as well. Regardless of which site you frequent, though, the general consensus is that if they didn't exist, finding that cute anime girl picture that you saw that one time would be much harder.

Images can even be looked up in reverse, using SauceNAO or IQDB.

Tropes that apply to the site include:
"Ratings only apply to sexual content. Violence, gore, or cursing does not factor into an images' rating. Note also that ratings do not say how "family friendly" or "kid safe" a picture is, this is explicitly not a goal. Danbooru users are assumed to be responsible adults and the ratings are there only to help them choose the content they wish to see."
 * Brain Bleach: Browsing Danbooru and Gelbooru? Bring a few gallons. They even have special pools titled "Nightmare Fuel", and "CANNOT UNSEE!".
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience: Artist tags are red, character tags are green, copyright tags are purple, and general tags (tags that don't fit in any of the above, as well as the default color) are blue.
 * Fan Service with a Smile: A great deal of the content for obvious reasons; it's not restricted to waitresses and maids of course.
 * Grandfather Clause: Users were discouraged from flagging old images posted before the stricter guidelines -- which included ordinary photos of Asian women and a pool dedicated to stuff that didn't belong -- until Albert finally explicitly revoked the Grandfather Clause in forum #14967. A purge commenced.
 * Fundamentally Female Cast: It's easy to go through several pages without seeing a single guy.
 * Of course, some of this is likely due to the fact that the most common art on the site is Touhou art, which constitutes nearly a quarter of all content...
 * Mass Super-Empowering Event: Albert once gave the Contributor-level near-full post moderation powers without warning, throwing much of the site into an absolute panic before it was reverted.
 * Media Classifications: There are three ratings for images: Safe, Questionable (the default), and Explicit. What those actually mean is a little more tricky:


 * Name Order Confusion: With character tags, Danbooru goes by the original name order from the source material the character is from. Generally, this means Western names are "[Given name] [Surname]" and Eastern names are "[Surname] [Given name]." Of course, there are exceptions, such as the Japanese name "Subaru Nakajima" ("[Given name] [Surname]") being the correct order, not "Nakajima Subaru."
 * Not Safe for Work: Naturally. Even if you're viewing clean images, you still have the ads to watch out for. Danbooru used to host a "Safebooru" mirror that only contained images rated "Safe"; that name was later taken up by an independent booru (Safebooru.org). Safebooru automatically imports all "Safe"-rated Danbooru uploads, however, which as described above in the classifications does not mean safe for work.
 * Spin-Off: Gelbooru (essentially Danbooru without the quality controls), Safebooru... even a Ponibooru.
 * Sturgeon's Law: Actively defied with Danbooru's mod queue, where Test Janitors and up review the uploads of Privileged and below. The queue ensures that the worst offenders of Sturgeon's Law get winnowed and keeps the art quality on the site at least above average.

Tags dedicated to particular tropes include:
WARNING: Assume all links to Danbooru are NSFW
 * Actor Allusion: seiyuu connection
 * A-Cup Angst: breast envy
 * Adjusting Your Glasses: adjusting glasses
 * Air Guitar: air guitar
 * Art Imitates Art: fine art parody
 * Asskicking Pose: Battoujutsu stance
 * Bland-Name Product: brand name imitation
 * Blush Sticker: blush stickers
 * Boys Love: yaoi
 * Breaking the Fourth Wall: fourth wall
 * Bridal Carry: princess carry
 * Cat Smile: :3 and >:3
 * Clasp Your Hands If You Deceive: Gendou pose
 * Cross-Popping Veins: anger vein
 * Crossover: crossover
 * Dangerously-Short Skirt: miniskirt or microskirt (reasonable and absurd, respectively)
 * Eyecatch: eyecatch
 * Eye Pop: eye pop
 * Fantastic Arousal: hornjob, eargasm, etc...
 * Fetal Position Rebirth: fetal position
 * Flat What: what, which often suffers from overuse.
 * Flipping the Table: table flip
 * Form-Fitting Wardrobe: impossible clothing and its child tags
 * Freaky Friday Flip: body swap and personality swap
 * Gender Flip: genderswap; especially popular flips even have their own character tags.
 * Glasgow Grin: Glasgow smile
 * Godiva Hair: censor hair
 * Taken to the logical extreme with hair bikini.
 * Gorn: guro. Technically banned under the TOS.
 * Gun Porn: The list of weapons index
 * Hair Antennae: antenna hair
 * Hitler Cam: from below
 * Honest Axe: Honest axe
 * Hot Chick in a Badass Suit: Some in pant suit
 * Idiot Hair: ahoge
 * I'm Taking Her Home with Me: take it home
 * In-Joke: creator connection, company connection, season connection
 * Last Supper Steal: the last supper
 * Literal Metaphor: too literal
 * Little Bit Beastly: animal ears + tail. There are also tags for the specific kinds of ears and tails, of course. For characters who don't have these features canonically, there's kemonomimi mode.
 * Lolicon: loli
 * Hachimaki: hachimaki
 * Marshmallow Hell: breast smother
 * Meido: maid. For characters who have never worn a maid dress canonically (inlcuding cosplay), there's enmaided.
 * Memetic Mutation: tag group:meme, a wiki-only tag that indexes all the meme tags.
 * Mismatched Eyes: heterochromia
 * Modesty Towel: naked towel
 * Naked Apron: naked apron
 * Name's the Same: namesake
 * Hidden Eyes: no eyes
 * Nosebleed: nosebleed
 * And for "truly epic gushers of blood", they have epic nosebleed
 * Panty Shot: pantyshot and implied pantyshot
 * Peek-a-Bangs: hair over one eye
 * Petting Zoo People: furry. Technically banned under the TOS.
 * Playboy Bunny: bunnysuit
 * Pose of Supplication: orz
 * Potty Emergency: have to pee
 * Prehensile Hair: prehensile hair
 * Princess Curls: drill hair
 * Product Placement: product placement
 * Qipao: China dress
 * Rage Quit: ragequit
 * Rape As Comedy: you gonna get raped, which is explicitly reserved for humorous situations only. (Serious examples go under imminent rape.)
 * Sarashi: sarashi
 * Say It with Hearts: spoken heart
 * Scenery Censor: convenient censoring
 * Shotacon: shota
 * Snot Bubble: nose bubble
 * Scenery Porn: You can choose which scenery do you want, either cityscape, landscape nature, real world location or a specific one.
 * Screw Yourself: selfcest
 * Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: pov aiming
 * Spit Take: spit take
 * Stab the Sky: Kamina pose
 * Super-Deformed: chibi
 * Suplex Finisher: suplex
 * Sweat Drop: sweatdrop
 * Tsundere: tsundere
 * Twincest: twincest
 * Umbrella of Togetherness: shared umbrella for the literal case and ai ai gasa for the drawing with the two names under it
 * Unmoving Pattern: unmoving pattern
 * Verbal Tic: ayaya]], myon, unyu, mukyuu, etc... Tag group:meme has a section dedicated to them.
 * Versus Character Splash: VS
 * Victoria's Secret Compartment: between breasts
 * Visible Silence: ...
 * "V" Sign: V
 * Wall of Text: wall of text
 * Whale Egg: egg laying. Justified with some characters (raven or sparrow youkai), not so much with other characters.
 * Yandere: yandere
 * Yuri Genre: yuri
 * Zettai Ryouiki: zettai ryouiki; thighhighs is one of the top tags, and tags exist for the different colors and patterns as well.

Image pools dedicated to particular tropes include:
WARNING: Assume all links to Danbooru are NSFW
 * Animesque: Animifying
 * Alas, Poor Villain: Alas Poor Villain
 * Badass: Badass
 * Crack Pairing: The Most Unlikely Couples
 * Cry Cute: Unhappy Adorable
 * Cuteness Overload: Disgustingly Adorable
 * Disproportionate Retribution: Disproportionate Retribution
 * Dynamic Entry: Dynamic Entry
 * Expressive Shirt: Expressive Clothes
 * Fantastic Arousal: Uncommon Stimulation
 * Finishing Move: Finishing Moves
 * Food Porn: Food Porn
 * Gameplay and Story Segregation: Parodied in Gameplay Mechanics
 * Gratuitous English: Epic Engrish
 * Heartwarming Moments: Heart-Warming
 * Parodied with Almost Heart-Warming
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: Hilarious In Hindsight
 * Harsher in Hindsight: Harsher In Hindsight
 * Humongous Mecha: Awesome Mecha
 * Hypocritical Humor: You're the Last Person I Want to Hear That From
 * I Regret Nothing: I REGRET NOTHING!!
 * It's Not Porn, It's Art: Making Love
 * The Last of These Is Not Like the Others: Odd One Out
 * Major Injury Underreaction: Doesn't that hurt?
 * Mind Screw: How is that even possible?
 * More Dakka: More Dakka!!
 * Mundane Made Awesome: What Do You Mean, It's Not Awesome?
 * Nightmare Fuel and High Octane Nightmare Fuel: Nightmare Fuel
 * Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Unseen Awesomeness!
 * Panty Shot: You saw, didn't you!?
 * Rule 34: Rule 34
 * Scenery Porn: Scenery Porn
 * She's Got Legs: Hot Legs
 * Take That, Scrappy!: Kyubey gets the receiving end in Everybody hates Kyubey
 * Tastes Like Diabetes: Disgustingly Adorable
 * Tear Jerker: Soul-Crushingly Depressing and Heart-Breaking
 * We Are as Mayflies and Mayfly-December Romance: Tragedy of Long Life
 * Tears of Joy: Tears of Joy
 * "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Okay, now tell me how you really feel.
 * There Is No Kill Like Overkill: OVERKILL
 * Unsound Effect: Unconventional SFX
 * What an Idiot!: Digging Your Own Grave
 * The aftereffects are collected in Told You Not to Do That