GM, COT❣️ Yuzunoko here.
Ever since that summer when Niconico Douga went completely dark, how have you been feeling about Niconico?
On June 8, 2024, Niconico, the Japanese video site famous for comments that scroll right across the video, was hit by a large-scale cyberattack that included ransomware, and almost all of its services stopped working. About two months later, on August 5, it came back as a new version called Kaettekita Niconico (Niconico Is Back).
In this article, I use only announcements from Dwango, the company that runs Niconico, and from Niconico's official channels to lay out how it went down and came back, plus the main moves announced through September 2026.
I'm going to follow the wording of the announcements as closely as I can (lining it all up in order, two months really is a long time).
Here's everything from the outage to the 20th anniversary as a diagram.
June 8, 2024: the services stopped
According to the report Dwango put out on June 14, around 3:30 on June 8, a malfunction left its web services, Niconico included, unable to work normally. After looking into it, they confirmed around 8:00 that same day that it was caused by a cyberattack that included ransomware.
Dwango set up a task force the same day, and to keep the damage from spreading, it cut the connections between servers in a data center run by a group company and shut the servers down. Because the attack had also reached the internal network, Dwango explained that it stopped some of its internal business systems too.
"Re: Kari" while everything was down
While things were down, Niconico Douga (Re: Kari) opened at 15:00 on June 14. According to Dwango's announcement, it was a new version that Niconico's dev team proposed themselves and built in just three days.
It had only the bare minimum, watching videos and commenting, with a simple design that called back to Niconico Douga (Kari), the site's original 2006 version (kari means "provisional").
What you could watch was a selection of videos, mostly popular ones from 2007, and apparently you could watch them for free without an account (built in three days? That dev team is way too cool❣️).
On June 19, Niconico Live (Re: Kari) opened too, also built in three days by volunteers.
Through July, more stopgap services followed one after another, like Niconi Commons (Re: Kari), Niconico Hiroba (Re: Kari) and Niconico Jikkyo (Re: Kari), and Niconico Manga came back early with limited features.
August 5: back as "Kaettekita Niconico"
The July 26 announcement set the reopening for August 5. The services coming back included Niconico Douga, Niconico Live (watching and commenting on official programs), Niconico Daihyakka (the user-written encyclopedia) and Niconico Seiga (the illustration site).
User live streams and Niconico Channel were planned to come back one by one during August.
Then at 15:00 on August 5, Niconico reopened as the new version, Kaettekita Niconico. In his comment in the announcement, Shigetaka Kurita, head of Niconico operations, explained that the new version name put into words what the team wanted to say to users who had been waiting all along.
On August 22, official anime streaming came back too, alongside the return of Niconico Channel.
Some services didn't come back. For Niconico Community, the explanation was that "the data and systems needed for recovery were lost, leaving us with no choice but to give up on restarting the service."
Refunds and compensation were announced for things like Premium membership fees for June, July and August 2024, the months the services were down.
On the same day, August 5, Dwango also published the results of its investigation into the information leak. The personal information confirmed to have leaked outside the company covered 254,241 people in total, including business partners, creators, employees, and people connected to Kadokawa Dwango Gakuen (an educational corporation).
For Niconico users' account information (login email addresses and passwords) and credit card information, Dwango says no leak from Dwango has been confirmed. The cause is thought to be employee account information stolen through phishing or similar attacks.
The main moves in 2026
The big announcement of 2026 so far is the vertical Niconico Short. It launched in the Niconico Douga app on April 15, and both the scrolling comments and Nicoru, the reaction you can give to a comment, work just as usual.
Videos up to 3 minutes long that are square or vertical are apparently sorted into Shorts automatically, and a Shorts viewing page for PC opened on June 15 (comments pouring down a vertical screen like a bullet storm is so Niconico, and I love it).
On May 18, a price change was announced. From August 1, 2026, the prices of Niconico Premium and paid Niconico Channels changed. It's the second change for Premium, and the first for paid channels since they launched in 2008.
As reasons, Dwango lists rising prices in general, more data and storage from videos getting higher quality and longer, and the growing cost of security measures and keeping the service infrastructure running.
The Premium benefits page now shows 990 yen a month (tax included). The price change notice on Niconico Info says that if you pay through an Apple Account or Google Play subscription, your Premium price stays the same.
The same announcement also lists updates planned through around spring 2027, such as a redesigned viewing screen for the smartphone browser version, a reworked video upload feature in the app, and better audio quality for channel videos.
For Premium members, a new benefit started on July 1: 100 KADOKAWA manga and light novels you can read as much as you like on BOOK☆WALKER (an e-book store).
On April 25 and 26, Niconico Chokaigi 2026 (Niconico's big offline festival) was held at Makuhari Messe (a convention center near Tokyo). According to Dwango's announcement, 138,228 people came to the venue, more than the 132,657 the year before. Niconico Chokaigi 2027 has also been announced for April 2027.
20 years on December 12
According to Niconico Info, Niconico Douga (Kari) was born at 21:06 on December 12, 2006. 2026 marks its 20th anniversary, and Niconico has announced that it's calling this year the "Niconico 20th Anniversary Year" and holding celebrations throughout it.
The first project was a giveaway of Stem data (the separate tracks) for classic songs, tied in with The VOCALOID Collection (a Vocaloid music event on Niconico). The giveaway is already over, but the call for videos tagged "Niconico 20th Anniversary REMIX" is still going, and they say they'll feature them one by one on a special site and the Niconico top page from September 3.
On August 24, they also announced Niconico, Iwatte Mita ("Niconico, we tried celebrating"), a countdown that delivers an anniversary video every day for the 100 days from September 3 to the anniversary on December 12.
About this article
I put this article together from Dwango's press releases, notices on Niconico Info, and the Niconico Premium benefits page.
Planned updates and 20th anniversary projects can change, so check Niconico Info and Dwango's official announcements for the latest.
Quotes from Japanese sources are our own translations.
Translated from the Japanese original.
See you next time on COT❣️