MyAnimeList

MyAnimeList

Type of business	Kabushiki gaisha[1]
Type of site	Anime and manga social networking and cataloging
Available in	English
Owner	Media Do[2]
Created by	Garrett Gyssler[3]
Key people	Atsushi Mizoguchi (CEO)
URL	myanimelist.net
Commercial	Yes
Registration	Free
Launched	November 5, 2004; 20 years ago (2004-11-05)[4]
Current status	Active

MyAnimeList, often abbreviated as MAL, is an anime and manga social networking and social cataloging application website run by volunteers. The site provides its users with a list-like system to organize and score anime and manga.^[5] It facilitates finding users who share similar tastes and provides a large database on anime and manga.^[3] As of March 2024, the site reported having approximately 26,417 anime and 68,308 manga entries.^[6] In 2015, the site received 120 million visitors per month.^[5]

History

The site was launched in November 2004 by Garrett Gyssler and maintained solely by him until 2008.^[5] Originally, the website was called AnimeList, but Gyssler decided to incorporate the possessive "My" at the beginning, following the fashion of the most important social network in those years: Myspace.^[7]

On August 4, 2008, CraveOnline, a men's entertainment and lifestyle site owned by AtomicOnline, purchased MyAnimeList for an undisclosed sum of money.^[8][9] In 2015, DeNA announced that it had purchased MyAnimeList from CraveOnline, and that they would partner with Anime Consortium Japan to stream anime on the service, via Daisuki.^[10][11]

MyAnimeList announced in April 2016 that they had embedded episodes from Crunchyroll and Hulu directly onto the site, with over 20,000 episodes being made available on the site.^[12]

On March 8, 2018, MyAnimeList opened an online manga store, in partnership with Kodansha Comics and Viz Media, allowing users to purchase manga digitally from the website. The service originally launched in Canada but later expanded to United States, the United Kingdom, and several other English-speaking countries.^[13]

MAL became inaccessible for several days in May and June 2018 when site staff took it offline for maintenance, citing security and privacy concerns.^[5][14] The site operators also disabled the API for third-party apps, rendering them unusable.^[5] The moves were done in an effort to conform to the European Union's GDPR program.^[5][14]

MyAnimeList was acquired by Media Do in January 2019; with their purchase, they announced their intention to focus on marketing and e-book sales to strengthen the site.^[15][2]

On September 25, 2019, HIDIVE and MyAnimeList announced a partnership which would incorporate MyAnimeList's content ratings into HIDIVE's streaming platform, while exclusively providing MyAnimeList users with a curated selection of embedded HIDIVE content for free.^[16]

On February 18, 2021, MyAnimeList announced it had conducted a third-party allotment of ¥1,200 million, with Kodansha, Shueisha, and Shogakukan, and parent company Media Do collectively investing ¥600 million.^[17] On May 31, 2021, it was revealed that Akatsuki, The Anime Times Company, DMM.com, and Kadokawa Corporation had invested ¥311 million during its initial third-party allotment.^[18] On July 26, 2021, it was revealed that Bushiroad, Dentsu, and other companies had invested ¥448 million, with the total third-party allotment raising to ¥1,360 million.^[19]

In October 2021, MyAnimeList collaborated with e-book publisher and parent company Media Do to release Fist of the North Star Manga Fragments: Dying Like a Man, a series of non-fungible token (NFT) products based on the Fist of the North Star manga.^[20]

On May 10, 2023, MyAnimeList went under an emergency maintenance after being hacked with the titles of all anime being replaced with a reference to Serial Experiments Lain. On May 13, the website resumed online activity after restoring its databases. Personal information and data of users was not breached during the hack, however any list updates, forum posts, edits, etc. made ~8.5 hours before the incident would have to be remade.^[21][22][23]

Features

MyAnimeList only lists anime, aeni, donghua as well as manga, manhwa, manhua, doujinshi and light novels. Users create lists that they strive to complete. Users can submit reviews, write recommendations, blogs, produce interest stacks, post in the site's forum, create clubs to unite with people of similar interests, and subscribe to the RSS news feed of anime and manga related news. MAL also initiates challenges for users to complete their 'lists.'^[3]

Profile

MyAnimelist provides users the ability to customize their personal profiles and lists. Accessible through the dropdown menu under the users profile name, clicking "Profile" and under "Profile settings" and "List style design" users can first change their list style. The provided options are Community designs, and Modern designs. After making a selection, the user is brought to an edit screen in which they can freely customize their list views including cover image, background image, background image style, colors, and customized CSS.

MyAnimeList also allows users to change profile customization, to do so the user can navigate to "Profile" then click "Profile settings." After that, two options are given, "Modern" and "Classic." Classic provides the user with a text box to modify the profile's BBcode which allows the user to freely add features to their profile. The "Modern" customization, which can be found here, allows users to choose a theme which can be edited in "Style Settings." With the "Modern" customization, users can add a image, title, and introduction, along with the ability to show the user's published anime and manga. Furthermore, users have the ability to add certain rankings for manga and anime they enjoyed.

Scoring

MyAnimeList allows users to score the anime and manga on their list on a scale from 1 to 10. These scores are then aggregated to give each show in the database a rank from best to worst. A show's rank is calculated twice a day using the following formula:

$${\displaystyle R={\frac {vS+mC}{v+m}}}$$

Where ${\displaystyle v}$ stands for the total number of user votes, ${\displaystyle S}$ for the average user score, ${\displaystyle m}$ for the minimum number of votes required to get a calculated score (currently 50), and ${\displaystyle C}$ for the average score across the entire anime/manga database. Only scores where a user has completed at least 20% of the anime/manga are calculated.^[24]

In February 2020, MyAnimeList updated its scoring system to prevent vote brigading.^[25]

Controversy

In January 2017, MyAnimeList rewrote an anti-Nazi article written by a contributor on the site to be more pro-Nazi without notice to the contributor.^[26]

See also

• Otaku
• Otaku USA
• Anime News Network
• The Visual Novel Database

References

1. 事業紹介 [Our Business] (in Japanese). Media Do. Archived from the original on October 16, 2020. Retrieved October 31, 2020.
2. 株式会社メディアドゥホールディングス (January 15, 2019). "» 米国子会社による米国MyAnimeList社の買収に関するお知らせ". 株式会社メディアドゥホールディングス (in Japanese). Archived from the original on November 20, 2020. Retrieved March 2, 2019.
3. "Why Some Fans Watch Anime At Double Speed". Kotaku Australia. Gawker Media. January 11, 2018. Archived from the original on October 23, 2018. Retrieved June 4, 2018.
4. "myanimelist WHOIS, DNS, & Domain Info – DomainTools". WHOIS. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019. Retrieved June 26, 2019.
5. Orsini, Lauren. "MyAnimeList Passes Third Day Of Unexpected Downtime". Forbes. Archived from the original on May 31, 2018. Retrieved June 4, 2018.
6. Kineta (January 6, 2023). "Happy New Year & 2022 Wrap-Up!". MyAnimeList.
7. "Exclusive Interview with the Founder of MyAnimeList, a Colossal Site with 120 Million Monthly PVs | Tokyo Otaku Mode News". otakumode.com. July 5, 2015. Archived from the original on July 7, 2015. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
8. "CraveOnline Buys Manga Social Net MyAnimeList". CBS News. CBS Interactive. August 4, 2008. Archived from the original on June 2, 2019. Retrieved June 4, 2018.
9. Staff, Edit (August 4, 2008). "CraveOnline Buys Manga Social Net MyAnimeList". gigaom.com. Archived from the original on March 10, 2015. Retrieved March 2, 2019.
10. Hale, Daryl Lee (July 18, 2015). "DeNA Confirms MyAnimeList Buyout". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on June 2, 2019. Retrieved June 4, 2018.
11. "DeNAとACJ、海外アニメサイト「MyAnimeList」に日本製アニメを提供" (in Japanese). CNET Japan. July 16, 2015. Archived from the original on June 2, 2019. Retrieved June 18, 2018.
12. Pineda, Rafael Antonio (April 9, 2016). "MyAnimeList Adds More Anime From Hulu, Crunchyroll (Updated)". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on April 10, 2016. Retrieved June 4, 2018.
13. Pineda, Rafael Antonio (March 15, 2018). "MyAnimeList Opens Manga Store with Titles From Viz, Kodansha". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on June 23, 2018. Retrieved June 4, 2018.
14. "Wait, What's Wrong With MyAnimeList?". ComicBook.com. Archived from the original on June 2, 2018. Retrieved June 26, 2019.
15. "Media Do Acquires MyAnimeList Website". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on January 16, 2019. Retrieved March 2, 2019.
16. "HIDIVE, MYANIMELIST ANNOUNCE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP". HIDIVE. September 25, 2019. Archived from the original on December 16, 2019. Retrieved October 19, 2019.
17. "Kodansha, Shueisha, Shogakukan Invest in MyAnimeList Through Third-Party Allotment". MyAnimeList.net. Retrieved March 13, 2022.
18. Hodgkins, Crystalyn (May 31, 2021). "Akatsuki, DMM.com, The Anime Times Company, Kadokawa Invest in MyAnimeList". Anime News Network. Retrieved June 9, 2023.
19. "Additional Companies Have Undertaken Third-party Allotment of MyAnimeList". MyAnimeList.net. July 26, 2021. Retrieved June 9, 2023.
20. Sum Lee, Choo (October 18, 2021). "Fist of the North Star NFT Sold Out Within The First Day of Its Release". Anime News Network. Retrieved October 18, 2021.
21. "Weeb Hacks Popular Anime Database Just To Recommend One Show Over And Over Again". Kotaku. May 12, 2023.
22. "Notice of Emergency Maintenance on May 10, 2023". MyAnimeList.
23. MyAnimeList [@myanimelist] (May 13, 2023). "We are slowly rolling out the site and our apps now. Our databases have been restored to the last backup taken before we went offline. Unfortunately, any list updates, forum posts, edits, etc. made ~8.5hr before this will need to be remade. FAL will be up in a few hours." (Tweet) – via Twitter.
24. "How are top anime/manga scores calculated?". MyAnimeList. MyAnimeList, LLC. Archived from the original on October 8, 2007. Retrieved August 27, 2018.
25. Luquin, Eduardo (February 22, 2020). "Interspecies Reviewers: 10 Things You Need To Know About This Controversial Anime". Comic Book Resources. Retrieved November 25, 2022.
26. Orsini, Lauren (January 19, 2017). "My Anime List Defends Rewrite of Contributor's Anti-Nazi Article". Anime Feminist. Archived from the original on May 14, 2017. Retrieved October 18, 2021.

External links

• Official website