RealCartoon-Anime
Link to download page on CivitAi
A nearly unknown checkpoint and I don't understand why it isn't much more popular. It is currently my favorite anime checkpoint and among all the ones I tested, this is by faaaaaaaaar the best to use with AnimateDiff.
It has a very large understanding of concepts and poses, can generate a huge panel of styles, works with nearly all the possible settings (including the high CFG required by AnimateDiff for anime animations) and generated
images are different enough of the ones made with mainstream checkpoints.
While in the end it is only a matter of visual preferences, I highly recommend to give it a try.
For Stable Diffusion XL users, a dedicated version is available.
A realistic checkpoint, RealCartoon-Realistic, is also available.
Ease of Use
Performs very well as is
Prompt understanding
Understand nearly everything anime related
Versatility
Limited to anime/manga for best results, but with a large set of styles
