We opened a free Joi account, confirmed the email, browsed the anime catalog, chatted with Jemma Fisher and walked through the builder and the Premium window. Joi is the easiest place to find an adult anime character and just talk.
By Wren Ashby
Joi is the pick for free text chat with anime characters. Filter the catalog by age band, open a character and talk; Premium at $47.99 a year adds images, video and your own characters.
A big anime catalog with real filters, free text chat that keeps going, and a builder that gives your character a job and a personality. Images and video sit behind Premium, and the promo banners get in the way.
Joi is a web app for AI companions with a large community catalog, its own Joi Originals and a builder. Its Anime section calls itself a place to talk to waifus and anime characters, behind an 18+ gate. For this site it stands out for one reason: the catalog can be filtered by age band, so it is easy to stay with adult characters.
We created a free account with an email address, confirmed it, browsed the Anime section with its filters, and chatted with Jemma Fisher, a 30 year old investigator of the supernatural. We went through Create AI in anime mode and opened the Premium window to read the plans. Below: what is free, who Joi suits, when to choose another platform, then every part of the product with a score.
Joi also runs Shorts, short videos featuring its characters, and a gallery of generated images. We focused on what matters for an anime girlfriend: finding her, talking to her, and what it costs to go further.
Signing up takes an email address and a password, then a confirmation link. Clicking it unlocks the account and adds 10 Neurons as a welcome gift. A discount code shows up in the header at the same time.
Once the email is confirmed, text chat with catalog characters works on the free account. In our test the conversation with Jemma went back and forth for several exchanges without any wall, and she answered in two bubbles each time, one reacting, one asking a question back. That makes Joi the most usable free chat of the five platforms we cover.
Premium unlocks the rest: creating your own characters, generating images and videos, 18+ roleplay, selfies, an 8,000-message memory and priority creation. Coins come with each plan. One month costs $13.99 with 1,000 coins, up to 20 images or 5 videos. Three months cost $20.99 with 1,200 coins a month, up to 75 images or 20 videos. Twelve months cost $47.99 for the year with 1,500 coins a month, up to 350 images or 100 videos.
In practice, a free Joi evening looks like this: confirm the email, set the age filter, open three characters and keep the one whose first replies you like. You will not see pictures, but you will know whether the chat suits you, and that is the expensive part to get wrong.
Joi shows those prices per week in its window: $3.22 a week on the monthly plan, $1.61 on the three month plan, $0.92 on the yearly one. Per month, the yearly plan works out to about $4.
| Plan | Price | Coins each month | Up to |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 month | $13.99 | 1,000 | 20 images or 5 videos |
| 3 months | $20.99 | 1,200 | 75 images or 20 videos |
| 12 months | $47.99 a year | 1,500 | 350 images or 100 videos |
Joi states there is no adult transaction on your bank statement, and that you can cancel at any time.
Joi fits these three profiles.
Two kinds of users should start elsewhere.
If you want images of your own character without paying first, OurDream gives 55 free dreamcoins and 10 free generator images at sign-up. If you want fantasy races in a few clicks, Nectar's builder offers elf, angel, devil, witch and cyborg presets that Joi does not have.
A third case: if you want to meet characters with long, written opening scenes rather than short first-person bios, Candy AI's Anime tab is the better catalog, at $3.99 a month on its yearly plan.
Seven parts of the product, each with its own score out of 10 and the screenshot we took.
The Sign up button opens a short form: email and password, or Google and Discord. Joi then asks you to confirm the email with a link and blocks the builder until you do. The mail landed in a spam folder in our case, so check there.
Once confirmed, a Congratulations screen announces 10 Neurons added to your account. A 50 percent promo code appears in the header and stays there. It is a fast sign-up, but expect discount banners from the first minute.
There is no age verification beyond the 18+ gate on the Anime section; the age filters in the catalog do the rest of the work for this site's purposes.
If the confirmation link does not arrive, the window offers to resend it after a short countdown or to change the email address.
The Anime section lists community characters and Joi's own, with filters for gender, age, creator and tags. The age filter is the reason we rate it highly: set it to 21 to 26 or older bands and every card you see is an adult character with her age shown.
Cards carry a name, an age, a short bio in the first person and a conversation count; the most opened anime characters show millions of chats. We liked Jemma Fisher, an investigator of the supernatural; Mikoto, an engineer with a sharp tongue; Heylin, a shy secretary; Michelle Jenkins, a maid who fears marshmallows; and Alma, a librarian.
Two warnings. The catalog mixes realistic and anime characters, so keep the Anime tab selected. And some cards use characters from existing anime or school settings; we skip those.
Joi has public landing pages for anime archetypes, including a yandere girlfriend simulator and a waifu page that promises tsundere girls and innocent yandere characters. Its generator also lets you filter by personality type, with options such as a toxic yandere.
For this site that is useful: a yandere or a tsundere can be found in a few clicks, without building anything. The trick is to combine the archetype with the age filter, so the results stay with adult characters, and to open the character's first message before committing to a long chat.
Fantasy is the other strong tag: fairies, a snow woman from folklore, a genie, an exiled faerie and royal guards are all in the catalog as community characters, with ages from 21 up.
We told Jemma that the lights in our building flicker every night at 3:12. She answered that a fixed time is not wiring, asked about sounds, temperature drops and how long it had been going on. When we mentioned a notebook of times and photos, she praised the discipline and asked what the photos showed.
That is good, attentive roleplay: on topic, curious, in character as a methodical investigator. Under the message box Joi offers small gift icons, and a Make video button sits at the top of the chat for Premium users.
Premium raises the memory to 8,000 messages, which matters if you plan a long story with one character.
Create AI starts with Female or Male and Realistic or Anime, with a Write prompt option if you would rather describe her in a paragraph. Then come ethnicity (White, Asian, Black, Latina, South Asian, Middle Eastern), body type with breast and butt sizes, and hair color and style.
Each choice shows an anime preview. The options are fewer than OurDream's and there are no fantasy races, but the screens are quick and clear.
Our tip: on the body screen, all three choices must be set before Next unlocks, which is easy to miss.
Compared with Candy, the looks screens are about as quick; compared with OurDream, there are fewer hair and face options. Where Joi pulls ahead is the second half of the builder.
The second half of the builder is Joi's strength. Name her, then choose an age band: 21+, 30s, 40s or 50s. A relationship screen follows (stranger, colleague, girlfriend, neighbor, boss, friend and more), then an occupation from a long list, then a personality: seductive, playful, dominant, loyal, mysterious, shy, witty and others.
Those three choices give her something to talk about from the first message. A librarian who is witty and a friend opens very differently from a spy who is mysterious and a stranger.
Creating the character is a Premium feature; the free account lets you go through the screens.
Images and videos come with Premium and use coins: the yearly plan's 1,500 monthly coins cover up to 350 images or 100 videos according to Joi's window. The gallery and Shorts sections let you browse what the platform and its characters produce.
We did not generate pictures on the free account. What we can say is that Joi's limits are stated plainly per plan, which makes it easy to pick the right length.
Shorts deserve a word: they are short clips with a character in a situation, labelled New Short in the banner. They work as trailers; if a Short catches your attention, the character's chat is one click away.
$47.99 for a full year is one of the best values of the five platforms, about $4 a month. The three month plan at $20.99 is a good test, and the monthly plan at $13.99 is in line with the others.
Joi states that no adult transaction appears on your bank statement and that you can cancel at any time. The discount banner in the header is persistent, and some characters send you messages before you open their chat, which can feel pushy.
The numbers on Joi's own cards say a lot: its most opened anime characters show several million chats each, which tells you how much the catalog is used. Joi does not quote reviews on its pricing window.
The complaint we share with many users of companion apps: promo banners and discount pop-ups are everywhere on Joi, and some characters message you first to pull you into a chat. The praise we share: the free text chat is real, and the age filters make it easy to find adult characters quickly.
On our side, the experience matched what the conversation counts suggest: the popular characters answer well, the community ones vary, and the age and anime filters are what keep the catalog useful.
Joi scores 8.7: the best free chat and the best filters of the five, with a fair yearly price. It is the platform to start with if you want to talk to anime characters tonight without paying, and to stay with if conversation matters more to you than pictures.
Our advice: confirm your email, set the Anime tab to an age band from 21, and open two or three characters such as Jemma Fisher or Mikoto. If you want your own character or pictures, take the 3 month plan as a test, then the yearly plan at $47.99.
For this site's archetypes, Joi is a good source of kuudere and dandere characters, quiet professionals like Jemma Fisher and Heylin, and of fantasy types such as fairies, a snow woman and a genie, all with their age on the card.
9.2/10
9.0/10
8.9/10
Written by
Wren Ashby @wrenashby
Anime fan from the Pacific Northwest who has spent the last couple of years testing AI girlfriend apps. Builds a character on every platform before writing a word about it.
How we testYes for text chat with catalog characters once your email is confirmed; the confirmation also adds a small coin gift. Images, videos and creating your own characters need Premium. In our test the free chat with Jemma Fisher went on for several exchanges without a wall, which no other platform here matched.
$13.99 for one month with 1,000 coins, $20.99 for three months with 1,200 coins a month, or $47.99 for a year with 1,500 coins a month, up to 350 images or 100 videos. The yearly plan works out to about $4 a month, one of the lowest prices among the five platforms we cover.
Yes. The Anime section lists community characters and Joi's own, filterable by age band, creator and tags. Keep the Anime tab selected, because the main catalog also has realistic characters. Good first chats for this site's readers: Jemma Fisher, Mikoto, Heylin, Michelle Jenkins and Alma.
Yes. The catalog filters by age band: 21 to 26, 27 to 35, 36 to 45, 46 to 55 and 56 and over. Every card shows the character's age. The age filter is the simplest way to keep the catalog to adult characters, and we recommend leaving it on.
Yes, with Premium. Pick Female and Anime, then ethnicity, body, hair, name, age band, relationship, job and personality. Our step by step guide shows each screen. The relationship, job and personality screens are what make Joi characters feel specific from the first message.
Coins pay for images and videos. The plans include 1,000 to 1,500 coins a month, and longer plans give a discount on extra coins. Shorter plans include fewer coins; if you plan to generate a lot, the yearly plan gives the most coins per dollar.
Joi states that no adult transaction appears on your bank statement, and you can cancel at any time. Check the plan details in the Premium window before paying; the weekly price shown is the plan price divided by weeks.
Some catalog characters send an opening message to new accounts to invite you into a chat. You can ignore them; they do not cost anything. Opening their chat is your choice, and nothing is charged for reading or ignoring those messages.
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