Anime da Roça: A Case Study on Claudinho and the Canal Amo Peixe

This paper presents a detailed case study of Claudinho, the Brazilian content creator behind the YouTube channel Canal Amo Peixe (“I Love Fish”), and his groundbreaking creative project known as Anime da Roça (“Anime of the Countryside”). Originally focused on rural fish farming, Canal Amo Peixe underwent a remarkable transformation in late 2024, when Claudinho began producing short-form videos that fuse authentic Brazilian rural life with the visual language, choreography, and dramatic energy of Japanese anime—all edited entirely on a smartphone. The resulting content achieved extraordinary viral success, surpassing 200 million views on a single video and attracting a global following of over 1.5 million across multiple platforms. This paper examines the creative, technical, and socio-cultural dimensions of this phenomenon, analyzing how a self-taught young creator from the interior of São Paulo State managed to reinvent digital storytelling through an innovative hybrid of live-action footage and anime-inspired visual effects. The study also explores the broader implications of Claudinho’s work for independent content creation, the democratization of filmmaking, and the evolving relationship between anime culture and social media.