It's weird that this /c !anime@lemmy.ml doesn't show up on neither Feddit's Community Browser https://browse.feddit.de/ or Lemmy Explorer https://lemmyverse.net/communities when searching for "anime"

Instead anime@(the-instance-that-shall-not-be-named).social shows up first on Community Browser, and

I'm not sure what to make of that.

Is someone trying to shadow deprecate this /c/ ?

All they've removed is a post that linked to an instance that they had de-federated from. They haven't really taken off any anime related content from the time I've been here so claiming it's content removal hammer is overblown. I also don't agree with the migration to the other instance. This is the largest anime community by far on lemmy, it's where most new users will migrate to and other than not having access to Shinobu, there has been little to no signs of being censored or anything.