Have you guys heard that My Anime List has had a few issues lately. They are in fact continuing to have a few issues… It’s a scoop, from me to you!
I don’t in fact need that much help remembering if I’ve seen a show or not. I guess I’m not yet to the point where I’ve seen so many I could conceivably rewatch one without noticing. However, I do like listing things and I really enjoyed looking up other people’s lists and ranks. It a great and very quick way to get an idea of a person’s preferences. Since that particular feature has been unavailable for some time, it’s forced me to find an alternative that would allow me to share my list with others easily without having to reenter all my MAL list.
I’m thinking that a few of you may be going through the same thing right now so I’m here to share with you my experience with AniList.
The first thing I did was look up options that would easily let me import my MAL profile and whittled them down to those that seemed the most popular (since these types of platforms are really more fun with more users). I was left with the following options:
To be honest form there I chose purely on looks. I liked the flexibility of AniList’s layout. The soft colours and clean layout appealed to me. I didn’t try out any of the other platforms (for now) so I can’t say much about them. I’ve added the links so you can check out for yourself what you like most. I have to admit Kitsu and Notify.moe are very intriguing too.
For my part, I am really enjoying AniList. Transferring my MAL info was a breeze. I simply exported my list from MAL’s website, extracted the zipped file ad uploaded that directly to AniList. When you create your profile, there’s a handy dandy little page that let’s you just drag and drop the file and everything is ported over including ratings. It took a few minutes at most.
As I mentioned, AniList does offer a bit more flexibility which is nice. You can play with themes and colours and have several different ways to display your list, there are also many filers for those with impressive watch. I’m superficial so this is a plus as far as I’m concerned. What’s more though is that you have several options (which you can change at any time) on how the information in your list is presented.
As I mentioned, AniList does offer a bit more flexibility which is nice. You can play with themes and colours and have several different ways to display your list, there are also many filers for those with impressive watch. I’m superficial so this is a plus as far as I’m concerned. What’s more though is that you have several options (which you can change at any time) on how the information in your list is presented.
What I mean is that you can choose for instance if you want the original Japanese names of shows, the English titles or both. I use English titles on this blog because I thought it would be easier to know what shows I’m talking about for English speakers who watch on Crunchyroll like me. So sometimes I get confused when someone shoots out the original title of one of my favorite series. Having the option to have both is useful.
You can also personalize your ratings system. I was often frustrated with MAL’s 1 to 10 scale since I found that way too many shows fell into the 7 category and they really weren’t equivalent. With AniList you can keep that scale if it works for you, keep the scale but add the possibility of .5 marks, switch to a % scale, a 5 star system or simplify the whole thing with a 3 simley system. Additionally, you can subdivide ratings by adding specific categories such as characters, story, visual, audio, enjoyment, or whatever you want to add in…
If you’re one of those folks that loves going into detail, it’s great. So far I really just imported my MAL list so all my ratings are flat 1 to 10 scores but I’m looking forward to playing with it more, since you can then filter using all these variables.
Of course you know me. The real fun here is the stats. Like MAL, AniList allows me to see how much of my life I’ve wasted with a compiled time total of anime watched:
I can still identify favorites (I know …I know):
But this is the real fun stuff…
First, I can see my watching profile in history. As you can tell I really concentrated my watching habits on anime that came out in 2016. However, I seem to have really enjoyed the two shows from 1988 and 2003 I saw as those are big rating years! On the other hand, I am not a fan of 2007 anime… All things considered, when you factoring the large amount of 2016 shows I’ve watched, it’s pretty impressive that the score remained that high.
This may be my favorite. The genres and tags section. This will show you how well you know yourself. Unsurprisingly, As far as times watched goes, I concentrate on shows which are considered Comedy, with a steep drop off at action, then another step down for Drama. Adventure and Fantasy rounding off the top five.
At the very bottom we have Horror (I told you I don’t know many horror animes…), surprisingly Magical Girl (I haven’t put Sailor Moon in my list yet…), Music, Mecha and Ecchi.
However if we look by score, it seems I most consistently enjoy Thrillers, Horror and Magical girl shows. With Supernatural and Fantasy close in tow. And rather dislike Music, Slice of Life (???), Mecha, Romance (I knew it) and Ecchi. Slice of Life is a real surprise to me as many of my favorites fall into the category, but I guess it’s so wide that it catches a few less enjoyable titles as well. I’m also surprised by how low Comedy and Psychological are. I went to see the details and it seems that “comedy” also includes the romantic comedies so that mystery is solved…
As for the Tags – I watch Shonen, School amines with male protagonists who have super powers and/or magic and in a pinch I’ll also watch female protagonists. I stay away from police, Aliens, Work, Idols and memory manipulation. This has nothing to do with anime it’s just a smart rule to live by.
This said, I love Anti-heroes, delinquents, gangs in anachronological order and alternate universes. Which makes sense. But dislike Post apocalyptic (really?), reverse harems (REALLY?) with idols, love triangles and of course traditional harems…
That very low score for the post apocalyptic tag got me curious so I had to investigate further. From the animes in my list, it’s associated with the Evangelion franchise, one movie I disliked and rated much lower than the rest, AoT which I liked, Shelter which I loved, Akira and Yuki Yuna both of which I enjoyed a lot and Aachi wa Ssipak. This is what’s bringing the score down drastically.
You can get similar stats on the voice actors that feature most frequently in animes and those that are in the anime’s your rate the highest. Staff members, a stat I found particularly interesting since we rarely hear about them yet they can make a drastic difference. Makoto Yoshimori has the same tastes as me since he provides music for so many of my favorite shows. I’ve been admiring Takahiro Kishida designs for some time. Apparently Masafuimi Mima is my favorite sound designer…
Anyways, I’ll spare you the rest. Point is that I found all these random little facts fascinating. I’m going to try to find some time to populate my library a lot more and put in better details, so I can get more significant results out of these stats. Maybe we can compare again in a while and see if my tastes have changed!
Do you guys have an AniList? Can I stalk it?
Just created one and added some stuff I couldn’t find on MAL when I wanted to add them. Seems like Saekano OVAs got added to the series itself too so had to one up both seasons with 1 more episode watched.
My List:
https://anilist.co/user/notnotded/
Hope you have fun with the site
I will! Will probably continue updating both MAL and AniList though. Some things aren’t on AniList and some aren’t on MAL.
Thank you for introducing me to this!
I was just looking at moving to a better database, namely because I want to delete en masse the 500 ‘watching’ shows that I’ll never get around to ever watching, and found your blog.
Drinking? Anime? Where do I sign up?! :3
Nice website and pictures too ^-^. As for stats, don’t you just love them? Though I must admit my favourite is the amount of days I’ve wasted (only some 188.2), but they can be pretty useful for searching for new content too. Thanks, I think I’ll check out AniList. My only regret is that it doesn’t appear to list the songs used, but it’s design definitely looks like a step up from the clunk, old MAL setup.
P.s. pretty sure Taiga can interface with AniList if you want to use both.
I need to look into Taiga more but so far AniList is working for y limited needs. I hope you like it too!
Not big on anime listing sites. I do have some truly massive folders in my bookmarks bar for anime in different states of completeness. If I were to investigate, I’d start with Taiga because of my deep and abiding love for Toradora.
I looked into it but I think it’s much less interactive
I also switched to AniList when MAL started having trouble. I wish it was better about getting information about shows, specifically casts and staff, but it works alright.
If you’re using a Windows PC I’d also really recommend that you try Taiga. It’s not really it’s own tracking service, it’s more of an agent that will update those services (AniList and Kutsu) for you. It automatically identifies what you watch either by streaming or by file, and helps keep a convenient list right on your computer. It will also let you know which of your shows are coming up.
(btw, I’m HighwayAnime on Anilist)
I watch on my ps4 though… Does it still grab it somehow cause other updaters don’t. Not that I really have an issue with doing it manually
I’ve been using MAL for almost 10 years now and never had any qualms with it, until recently, that is! I realise that it’s a free service, so maybe I shouldn’t complain, but it’s been such a nuisance, not being able to access certain pages when I want to! Anyway, you’ve done a great job of making AniList sound interesting. I especially like the sound of being able to adjust your rating scale, so I may give it a shot! When I do, would it be okay to look you up? : )
Please do!
I also used to update everything in excel before I came across MAL ….I might have created an AniList sometime ago, I don’t remember. But reading your post reminded me of how I used to enjoy listing everything down to the detail.Thanks for that…. So I will be going to AniList now….I guess it is time for me to go back into the field….And may ask how can I add you in AniList….
Yay! More stat fans. To add me you can search for me : IrinaTheGreat and follow.
Thanks….I look forward to seeing your list….
Hmm. You make a good case for moving over to AniList. MAL seems to be coughing up a lung right now anyway.
Though I’m not overly keen to update my lists anymore. My preferred method now is to just keep track of my progress in notepad and Excel and then *occasionally* update everything on MAL. Working toward making it a yearly thing if possible.
Repeat paragraph fail lol
Well if you watch anime on your comp – AniList does autoupdate…
Is there no option to turn that off?
yup
I have a MAL account but don’t understand why they are still fannying around getting all the site functions running again – it’s been two months now!
I mostly use it to keep track of all my shows and to gauge responses of new shows to see if it worth picking up or dropping, something I really missed this season.
I wonder what’s up whit MAL
https://anilist.co/user/nguyenp123/
I don’t know, I’m kind of stubborn and lazy. I know that I can switch over whenever, so I’ll see where everything is a month from now. If they don’t have everything fixed by then, I’ll switch. The plots look pretty nice.
I’m starting to really appreciate being able to give ratings by element actually. I can see bd anime with great charas or best sound design (according to me…)
I don’t usually give ratings, but that sounds interesting.
Ok, I’ll check it out.
It’s a shame MAL is still struggling to restore everything. I made my profile back in high school, long before I started blogging. I originally haven’t considered any alternatives but you’re making AniList mighty tempting to join.
I’m keeping both up for now
You already know where to look for my AniList details…
…but to be honest, Cactus Matt’s comment reminded me about 3 years ago (at least, according to my old Kitsu account’s start date) I was using a Word doc for an anime/manga PTW list and a “manga I’ve read” list. Needless to say, because of the way I filled them in (I didn’t put any chapter numbers for the read manga list, I only italicised anything I finished), that carried over to my list as it stands today. Haven’t got rid of the docs yet because AniList is missing a few things and I haven’t put some PTW entries down (my PTW is already out of control as it stands…), but that just goes to show how much the times have changed.
Yo guys are next level
Mmm, honestly I feel like I’d want to change to this platform, maybe because I’m pretty picky when it comes to the UI and if it looks good/up-to-par. Plus, it seems to do the exact same things as what I usually would do on MAL, just it being stylistically better (plus the inclusion of stats and such are cool). I’ll definitely consider making an account!
I really like the stats and the auto updating
I love MAL so I just waited it out. But most importantly, is that a 7 for Bakemonogatari???
Is MAL completely back up now?
Not completely but nearly
While I use MAL for information about what anime are coming in future seasons, I’ve never had an account and actually don’t have any record of all the anime I’ve watched (which explains why occasionally I’ll watch an older anime and then remember about two episodes in that I’ve seen it before). While I get the usefulness of this in some ways, part of me feels that this would just be another thing to sink hours of my time into adding in titles and playing with stats and so on, so for now I have no plans to join any of these sites, though I do like the available information.
Can’t deny that it’s a time sink
Never heard about notify.moe, but I’ve used Kitsu for a while after abandoning MAL, but I wasn’t able to update Boku no Hero Academia for a few weeks, and they didn’t fix that, so I went to AniList. Kitsu is good, but they focus more on the social aspects than listings, and I already use too much time on twitter, WP and reddit.
I’m on Anilist as GeekAstronaut, feel free to add me there
Oh I will – in fact already did! Yay!
At the moment I’m keeping both MAL and AniList updated until I see how things work out. I’m on both sites with the username otakulounge (I know, so original).
Well you know, My name’s Irina so I’m really not one to talk.
First, you get 25 points for including a GIF from “Ōkami-san and Her Seven Companions.” It’s an endearing shot of Ryouko and Ryoushi, too!
Like Cactus Matt, I hadn’t heard of AniList before. I’ve been looking for an alternative to MAL for obvious reasons, and had kind of settled on Anime-Planet because they have a relatively complete set of character listings.
Now I’m starting to take a look at AniList — thanks for the suggestion! I like the features you pointed out!
Interesting thought pieces and now public service announcements — gotta love the variety!
Thank you Crow! I hope you let us know what you end up choosing. I’m curious about the other platforms out there as well
I do indeed have an AniList – screen name is CountZero.
I won’t tell anyone!
Gunm was my favorite manga for a really long time as well.
I’ve been reading it with my dad (who I’ve gotten into anime and manga).
All right… I just made this… The new venue is going to take some getting used to, but I’ve had gripes with MAL for years, so maybe it’ll be worth it.
https://anilist.co/user/NaruNarcy/animelist/
Awesome – you seem to be enjoying this year’s anime’s so far and we like a lot of the same elements (genres and tags…) cool
I haven’t got anilist, but like you I do like lists and stats, and I have to say this looks very cool. I’m going to look into this. As for recordkeeping I’m currenly not relly keeping track of the things I have watched (crunchyroll does a pretty good job at it and also like you I don’t really have trouble remembering if I have seen something or not). But maybe I will try this just for the fun of it😊
It’s really just a virtual equivalent to keeping your anime collection lined up all nice in your bookcase to look over.
Well, you convinced me enough, so I have signed up just now 😊😊
oh wow awesome!
Speaking of not having enough time…this anilist is a lot of fun too! So yeah…even less time now lol 😂😂
Seems cool…
Not that I ever use MAL for anything more than gauging public opinion. (6.51 for Chaos;Head? What a joke)
MAL ratings are a constant source of puzzlement for me
Yeah! Owarimonogatari Second Season is only rated 9.01 out of 10! What a rip…
I had a MAL once, but some time ago I went through each entry and deleted it one by one (because I couldn’t find an option to delete it all at once). The reason is that my love for lists was interfering badly with anime watching behaviour: I was more hesitant dropping shows I didn’t like, I was constantly worried about how incosistent I was with my ratings, and so on. I had between 800 and 900 shows in the list by that time.
Reading this is giving me the urge to start anew with AniList; I’m especially interested in the staff members thing. Imagine AniList recommending me people like art directors, who I know nothing about. But I won’t. There’s a reason I deleted my MAL. I get obsessive, and animewatching is less fun. Pity. A bit more self control, and I’d have tons of fun with lists.
I understand that. I’m ocd without the list anyways so I might as well get the stats!
i never really paid attention to the stats thing because there’s a third-party site that aggregates MAL stats for when im curious. i have anilist a shot, but i couldn’t get over how clunky the search is.
I’ve had no issues with the search so far. It’s been pretty much the same for me.
Man, I am sad at all the lost MAL forum discussions right now. I used to read post-chapter discussions of controversial manga chapters to see people going “WHAT THE HELL?!”, it really added a lot to the experience.
As for anime I watch, well, I am a slob. I just scroll through my memory banks and try to remember if I’ve watched a thing or not.
All the other platforms have forums as well
Yeah, but MAL had the biggest at the time, and I was always lurking.
I’d never heard of AniList, but I can see the appeal, dem stats are nice. But I’m an old man, I keep all the anime I watch (and the scores for each one) in a freakin’ Excel document. I might consider importing my list of watched anime into something like this one day…
Using Excel is for Legends. 🤣🤣🤣
Excel…Wow!