Niconico Douga launched in Japan in 2006 and introduced the idea that every similar site has since borrowed: comments that fly across the video itself, anchored to the second they were written rather than listed underneath. Bilibili took the concept wholesale, and the word danmaku travelled with it.
It became the centre of an enormous creative ecosystem. Vocaloid music, which produced Hatsune Miku and an entire genre of software-voiced pop, grew up there. So did dense traditions of fan animation, game commentary, remix culture and collaborative in-jokes that ran for years across thousands of videos.
Much of that output was made by amateurs posting under pseudonyms, uploaded once and never mirrored anywhere. When an account goes quiet or a video is removed, the work frequently vanishes for good — which is why the communities around it have always taken archiving seriously.
Saving a Niconico video
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1
Copy the Niconico address
Take the nicovideo.jp address from your browser, or use the share control beneath the player. The address usually contains an sm or nm code followed by numbers, which identifies the video.
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2
Tender the address above
Paste it into the field at the top of this page, which starts reading it at once.
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3
Choose from the encodes
The versions the site holds are listed with their file sizes. Older uploads, of which there are a great many, offer noticeably less than recent ones.
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4
Take possession of the file
Tap the row when it turns blue. Downloads on Android, the Files app on an iPhone.
The comments are not in the video
As on the sites that copied the idea from it, Niconico draws comments over the picture at playback rather than encoding them into the file.
| Element | In the downloaded file? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The video | Yes | This is what is being saved |
| Scrolling comments | No | Drawn by the player from a separate stream |
| Subtitles | Usually not | Also handled separately in most uploads |
| Member-only video | No | Requires an account with access |
| Niconico Live | Only after it ends | A running broadcast has no finished file |
For most purposes a clean picture is what you want, though it does mean losing a layer that is genuinely part of how the site is experienced. The comments only exist inside Niconico's own player.
Why people archive Niconico video
The material is fragile in a way that larger platforms are not. Enormous quantities of amateur animation, music and video were uploaded once, by pseudonymous creators, and never posted anywhere else. When an account lapses, that work is simply gone.
Access from outside Japan is also inconsistent, and parts of the site have been restricted by region over the years. People who follow particular creators find files more dependable than a site that may not load.
And the culture there has always been archival. Communities built around long-running collaborative projects tend to understand early that nobody else is keeping a copy for them.
Niconico download questions
Will Niconico comments be in my file?
No. They are drawn over the video by the player from a separate stream, so what you save is the clean picture.
What are the sm and nm codes in the address?
They are the video's identifier on the site. Different prefixes come from different eras of the platform and all work the same way here.
Do I need a Niconico account?
Not for public video. Member-only uploads require one, and nothing here signs in.
Can I save a Niconico Live broadcast?
Only where the broadcast has ended and been left up as a recording.
Why do older videos look so poor?
Because they were uploaded when the site's limits were far lower. That is the quality stored rather than a reduction applied here.
Is Niconico connected to Bilibili?
No, though Bilibili borrowed the scrolling comment idea from it. They are separate companies in different countries.
Where does the Niconico file save?
Downloads on Android, the Files app on an iPhone.
My Niconico link will not load.
Access from outside Japan is sometimes inconsistent, and the video may have been removed. Both are worth ruling out before assuming a fault.
Is there a Niconico limit?
No cap and no queue.
Is archiving from Niconico acceptable?
The community there has a long tradition of preserving work that would otherwise disappear, and that instinct is a good one. It does not extend to reposting somebody's animation or music without credit, which on a platform built around pseudonymous creators is taken especially seriously.