Search anime
search_animeFind anime by keyword on MyAnimeList. Returns compact summaries with the MAL ID needed by other tools, plus pagination info and optional filters (type, genre, rating, score, status).
Instructions
Search MyAnimeList anime by keyword; returns compact summaries (with the mal_id that other anime tools require) plus pagination info. If Tenrai is unavailable and MAL_CLIENT_ID is set, transparently retries via the official API, which ignores every filter except q/sfw/limit/page (type/status/genres/genres_exclude/rating/score/min_score/max_score/letter/producers/start_date/end_date/unapproved/order_by/sort are silently dropped), always returns empty themes/demographics/broadcast (no official-API equivalent for any of these), enforces an explicit sfw: true client-side (a filtered page can come back shorter than limit), and — for a query with no real title match — comes back with a page of unrelated anime instead of an empty result (a quirk of the official search endpoint itself, not a mal-mcp bug; don't treat a nonsense-query result as a real match during a fallback).
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| q | Yes | Search query, e.g. an anime title. | |
| sfw | No | If true, exclude adult/explicit-rated entries (R+ Mild Nudity and up). Defaults to false (no filtering). Note: this alone still allows mainstream, safely-rated shows tagged with the Ecchi genre (fanservice) through — use `sfw_strict` to also exclude those. | |
| page | No | 1-based page number for pagination (1-1000). | |
| sort | No | Sort direction. | |
| type | No | Restrict to one or more media types. | |
| limit | No | Max results per page (1-50). | |
| score | No | Restrict to entries with exactly this average score (rarely useful — prefer min_score/max_score for a range). | |
| genres | No | Comma-separated MAL genre IDs to include (max 25), e.g. '1,4'. Look up IDs with get_anime_genres. | |
| letter | No | Restrict results to entries whose title starts with this single letter. | |
| rating | No | Restrict to one or more specific content ratings. More granular than `sfw`/`sfw_strict` — use this to target a precise rating band instead of a blanket adult-content cutoff. | |
| status | No | Filter by airing status. | |
| end_date | No | Only include entries whose end date is on or before this date (YYYY-MM-DD). | |
| order_by | No | Field to order by. | |
| max_score | No | Maximum average MAL score (inclusive), 1-10. | |
| min_score | No | Minimum average MAL score (inclusive), 0-10. | |
| producers | No | Comma-separated MAL producer/studio IDs to restrict to (max 25). Look up IDs with get_producers. | |
| sfw_strict | No | If true, exclude adult/explicit-rated entries AND anything tagged with the Ecchi genre, even otherwise-mainstream/safely-rated shows. Stricter than `sfw` alone. Defaults to false. | |
| start_date | No | Only include entries whose start date is on or after this date (YYYY-MM-DD). | |
| unapproved | No | If true, also include entries not yet approved by MAL's moderators (excluded by default). Defaults to false. | |
| genres_exclude | No | Comma-separated MAL genre IDs to exclude (max 25), e.g. '1,4'. Look up IDs with get_anime_genres. |
Output Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| page | Yes | ||
| results | Yes |