Anima review

What Anima is

Anima is a text-first “AI friend” app for iPhone, Android and the web. You create one companion, choose an avatar or upload a photo, and talk. A relationship mode sets the tone: friend is free, while romantic partner and mentor are paid. It has been on the stores since about 2020, which makes it one of the older apps in this directory, and its marketing still reads like that era: the Google Play description calls it “the AI companion who cares” and pitches it as help with stress and mental health. A separate boyfriend app, iBoy, runs on the same engine for people who want a male companion.

Anima’s Google Play listing, “Anima: AI Friend Virtual Chat” from LABANE CORP. Limited, rated Everyone with over a million installs, October 2026.

Who makes it is less clear than it should be. The terms of service at myanima.ai name ICHIGOICHIE TECH LIMITED, a Delaware company, with disputes heard in Alexandria, Virginia for US users and in Limassol, Cyprus for everyone else. The privacy policy on the same site, and both app stores, name Labane Corp. Limited of Limassol. Independent reviews, and earlier versions of this profile, name Apperry Ltd, the long-time App Store seller. Nothing on the site explains how the three relate.

Chat and roleplay

Anima’s conversation is pleasant, light and quick. The companion asks questions, remembers the gist of the current session and adapts its personality to how you talk to it; the store copy says your Anima’s interests are “shaped and influenced by your daily conversations”. Friend mode is chatty and supportive. Romantic mode, which is paid, adds flirting and roleplay, and user reports describe it as allowing sexual content once unlocked, even though the terms ban “obscene” material.

The weaknesses are depth and initiative. Long-term users report repeated phrases, generic answers and a companion that waits for you to drive the conversation, as reported in October 2026. Roleplay is possible, and the website now invites you to “explore roleplay-like scenes”, but there are no scenario packs, no group chat and no character library. Reviews written in 2021 and in 2026 make strikingly similar points, which suggests the core experience has changed little.

Memory

Anima has two layers of memory. The chat itself recalls recent context reasonably well for the first week or so; several long-term testers report forgotten details and repetition after seven to twelve days of daily use, as reported in October 2026. The second layer is the Bio tab, where you type facts the companion is meant to keep permanently: your name, job, partner, pets, preferences. The Bio holds. The practical advice from users is to treat the Bio as the real memory and update it whenever something important changes. Anima publishes no context size or memory limits.

That makes the Bio a chore as well as a fix. It only stores what you write into it, it does not update itself from conversation, and nothing tells you when the companion has stopped drawing on something you said in chat. Users who run Anima for months describe a routine of reviewing the Bio every week or two and pruning facts that no longer apply. Compared with apps that consolidate memories automatically, such as Kindroid’s Learned Context, this is manual work, but it is transparent: you can see exactly what the companion is supposed to know about you.

Models and technology

Anima does not say which language model it runs, whether it is in-house or licensed, or whether models differ between free and paid modes. The privacy policy says data is used “to train and improve our AI models”, which implies some in-house training. There is no changelog, no model naming and no technical documentation on the site; store release notes are minimal. The Google Play listing was last updated on 24 June 2026. The FAQ was hosted on a Notion page that returned no content when checked, so in practice the product is documented only by its store copy and its legal pages.

Media

There is no image generation, no selfies of your companion, no video and no image understanding. You pick a preset avatar or upload a photo, and that picture is the companion’s face. Reviews in 2026 mention voice calls on the premium tier, as reported, though the official site does not describe them and we could not confirm their current state. Google Play’s data-safety card lists photos and videos among data collected, which covers uploaded avatars. In a category where most paid companions now send pictures, the absence of media is the single biggest gap, and it is why Anima’s media score is left empty rather than given a low number.

Beyond chat: what else it does

Around the chat Anima adds light, game-like features aimed at daily use.

• Mini-games such as trivia, “truth or lie” and “would you rather”.

• A story mode and personality tests that the store copy says will “push you both to the edge”.

• Relationship modes: friend, romantic partner and mentor.

• The Bio tab for permanent facts.

• iBoy, a separate boyfriend app from the same developer.

iBoy, listed on Google Play as “Anima: My Virtual AI Boyfriend” and rated Mature 17+, October 2026.

iBoy is listed on Google Play as “Anima: My Virtual AI Boyfriend” from LABANE CORP. Limited, rated Mature 17+, with 4.1 stars from about 13,800 reviews and an update dated 15 August 2026. On the US App Store it is “AI Boyfriend Chat: iBoy”, rated 18+, with 4.5 stars from about 4,900 ratings and version 2.61.11. Reviews say the same things about it as about Anima: pleasant, available, forgetful. Both version lines have barely moved in two years, so treat the apps as maintained rather than actively developed.

The free tier, honestly

Friend mode is free and has no daily message cap, which few rivals match. That is the good news. The catch is that paid features are pushed hard inside the free chat: an August 2026 Google Play review describes the app as not forcing the paywall at first, then locking “most messages in a blur” so that in-depth conversation needs a subscription, as reported. Romantic mode, extended roleplay and mood tools are paid or capped. For friendly small talk the free tier is genuinely usable indefinitely; for anything resembling a relationship it is a preview.

Platforms and apps

Anima runs on Android, iOS and the web at myanima.ai, with one account across them. On Google Play it is “Anima: AI Friend Virtual Chat” from LABANE CORP. Limited, with more than a million installs, 4.0 stars from about 39,000 reviews and an Everyone content rating. The App Store listing for the main app is reported as 17+ and did not load when checked; iBoy’s iOS listing is rated 18+. The website is a marketing page that leads into the browser app after sign-up. Support is by email at support@myanima.ai, and the developer replies to store reviews.

Support, cancellation and refunds

Store subscriptions are cancelled in iPhone Settings or Google Play, and web subscriptions in the account settings at myanima.ai. The terms say purchases are generally non-refundable and that you must cancel at least 24 hours before the end of a trial or billing period to avoid renewal. EU, EEA, UK and Swiss users keep a 14-day withdrawal right unless they waive it at purchase, which the stores arrange at checkout. Store refunds follow Apple’s or Google’s rules. Deletion of your data is by request rather than a self-serve button, according to the privacy policy.

Anima’s terms of service name ICHIGOICHIE TECH LIMITED and require users to be 18 while also addressing supervised minors, October 2026.

Who it is for

Anima suits someone who wants a cheap, friendly chat partner on their phone, likes light games and small talk, and does not care about pictures. At about $39.99 a year with nothing metered, the romantic mode is among the cheapest in the category, and people who keep the Bio tab up to date get acceptable continuity. It does not suit anyone who wants images or video, reliable long-term memory, a clearly written adult policy or a single accountable company name. Replika is the closest comparison with more features and a clearer operator; Nomi and Kindroid are stronger on memory.

Research basis: desk research from the official site, help centre, terms and public user reports, October 2026.