MyAnimeList

MyAnimeList, often abbreviated as MAL, is an anime social networking website. The site primarily functions to serve as a place for users to keep track of the anime and manga they've watched or read in a highly-organized and stylized list format. In addition, MyAnimeList connects users who share similar tastes, and provides personalized suggestions and a comprehensive source of information on anime and manga.

Although the website was created and is actively maintained by Garrett Gyssler (whose alias is "Xinil" on the site), MyAnimeList is mostly run by its moderators and users. Currently, there are approximately 30 staff members continuously updating the anime and manga databases, moderating the community, and frequently posting up news stories. As of March 17 2008, MyAnimeList has over 40,000 members, with over six thousand signing in every day.

History

MyAnimeList was originally hosted on Garrett Gyssler's personal website, Xinil.net. Launched in November 4 2004, it consisted solely of a no-frills anime list. Databases were absent during this time and the site had no other significant features. On June 29 2005, the anime database was created to standardize anime series' names on every user's list.

Prior to the launch of the first generation forums in 2006, the website utilized the "Panel" system for user communication. This system was similar to the "Profile Comments" feature on MAL today, which is the ability for users to place text messages on another user's profile page. The Panel system was mostly created for users to have the ability to communicate error reports and suggestions to the administrator, but minor discussion and casual conversations often emerged.

The lists were moved to the domain MyAnimeList on April 6 2006, and the first generation forums were launched at the same time. This greatly enhanced communication between members. In the first few months, the forums were largely inactive, having only a dozen or so active members. Near the end of 2006, the forums and the rest of the site significantly increased activity, and the second generation forums were created on December 11. Unlike the first generation forums, which utilized the Simple Machines Forum script, the second generation forums are entirely custom coded by Gyssler from the ground up. At this time MAL was quickly gaining widespread appeal among the anime community. Since then, numerous popular features had been added, including reviews, clubs, recommendations and the launch of the manga database on July 9 2007.

Current Features

MyAnimeList lists Japanese animation, Korean animation, and some Western animation influenced by anime.
Similarly, MyAnimeList has information on Japanese manga, original English-language manga, or OEL, as well as (fan comics), manwha (Korean), and manhua (Chinese).

MyAnimeList includes a searchable database of voice actors; information such as date of birth and the actor's name in kanji are listed.
There is also a searchable anime character database; each character's page lists the anime and manga series they have appeared in, as well as the actors that have voiced them. Japanese, English, Korean, Spanish, German, French, Brazilian Portuguese, and Italian voice actors can be listed.
MyAnimeList has a searchable database of fansubbing groups; each group's page lists the anime that have been fansubbed by the group, and users can rate the quality of the fansub. Another feature is a RSS news feed of anime and manga related news.

Reception

MyAnimeList experienced a dramatic increase in users in 2007 accompanied by many improvements to the site's interface. It has been lauded in numerous anime blogs, citing its "beautiful user-interfaces", discussion pages for episodes of all the current anime, and being a great way to share opinions on anime. It has also been praised for its impressive GUI and its intuitiveness, partially because of its similar design to Facebook.

MyAnimeList has also been listed as "Killer of the Week" in Web 2.0 category by killerstartups.com. By 2008, its popularity and recognition earned the site a mention in Seek Japan's "Best of the Web '08" feature in its "Otaku" category alongside other destinations such as Anime News Network and Danny Choo.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu