12 Days of Xmas – Day 6: MyAnimeList

December 19, 2007 in Specials by Tom Langston (calaggie) | 4 comments


I’m only half done and I’m already tired…

The sixth day of this series of twelve things from 2007 that affected my anime-related life brings me to discuss another website, but this one is in English: MyAnimeList. I previously mentioned MAL as part of a multi-topic post I wrote in April and since then, I’ve used it almost exclusively to track my progress in various series. The last site I had used to keep track of what I’d watched was AnimeDB and I still have an account on that site but I don’t update it anymore likely because it’s too tedious a task for me to remember which fansubbing groups released the particular episodes I watched. It’s just easier to push the plus sign to add 1 to your episode total.

Like Facebook, you can befriend other users on MAL and also create and invite others to groups. (Also like Facebook, the primary color scheme is blue and white. Hmm…) I haven’t been particularly active on the forums since I’m not that much of a message board person. I also haven’t been as meticulous in maintaining my “Currently Watching” section as I should be. My mean score for completed series is 8.1 (“very good”), a figure that I believe reveals my slightly optimistic nature, although I’m apparently an average reviewer since the bottom of my list tells me my scores “average about 0.22 points lower than the average scores posted by other members”. Still haven’t written any actual reviews on the site, though.

Meanwhile, my “on-hold” list is full of titles I began watching for a bit (e.g. Dennou Coil, Asatte no Houkou) but just abandoned or forgot about so it serves a constant reminder of things I should think of marathoning in the near future. I’ve also come up with a bunch of series I’d like to watch so that section will be expanding in the next couple days. Hopefully, the small amount of manga in my list will inspire me to get off my ass, look through my unread manga, and get through them.

Lastly, I almost forgot to mention how I like having an RSS feed of recently updated stuff that I can integrate into my sidebar to give readers a sense of what I’ve been watching since I’ve decided I’m only going do reviews on completed series or DVD volumes. I don’t particularly like the limit of five favorite voice actors, though, since I have about double that number.

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  1. Crisu’s avatar

    Crisu on December 20, 2007 at 12:58 am

    MAL is definitely an interesting place .. and a great idea, too, considering the current success of Facebook.

    That RSS widget is interesting; I might have to install it myself. I’m already spamming my signature banner wherever I go. ^^;

    Reply

  2. Kanashimi’s avatar

    Kanashimi on December 20, 2007 at 2:51 am

    Actually, MAL was not always blue. In the beginning it was a bright red around over a year or so ago, and after that a green shade which lasted about three months before the blue became what it is today (believe, I was there through all these transitions).

    I’ve never used facebook because it’s never interested me, MAL always has and I’m sure it’ll stay that way solely because I believe it to be expanding on its own.

    Reply

  3. CalAggie’s avatar

    CalAggie on December 20, 2007 at 1:42 pm

    Kanashimi: Ah, didn’t know that since I joined well after the site had made its transition from Xinil’s personal site.

    Regarding comparisons to Facebook, I really resisted calling MAL “the Facebook for otaku” because the only things really in common between the two sites are what I mentioned in my post – the groups and friending (forgot the “wall”/comments) – and the differences outweigh the similarities. It was kind of a errant thought that didn’t enough substance to merit inclusion. Thank goodness…

    I am looking forward to seeing what new developments will happen to the site in the coming year!

    Reply

  4. Owen S’s avatar

    Owen S on December 20, 2007 at 9:14 pm

    Oh, so that’s how you got the MyAnimeList to work — here I was thinking it was a Wordpress plugin of some sort. Sheesh. Thanks for the heads up. D:

    Reply