| I’m super excited to announce - MyAnimeList has been acquired by MEDIA DO HOLDINGS Co., Ltd.（Media Do)! As an established eBook and Manga datastore and distributor, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, I believe Media Do is uniquely positioned to slingshot MAL into being the number one ‘all-things’ anime and manga platform. What does this mean? In the short term, not a lot will change. A bunch of logistics and legal hurdles are still being worked out, so DeNA will continue the day-to-day maintenance for at least the next few weeks to come. In the less-short term, it means a new dedicated team, a new schedule of priorities, and a new vision for MAL’s future! Having chatted with the Media Do group a number of times now, I’ve been delighted to share in their excitement and enthusiasm for improving and growing MAL. It’s been roughly four years since DeNA took the helm with MAL’s development, and they successfully guided us through a very difficult growth state. I will forever be grateful to DeNA’s team, and their tireless translators. We’ve come a very long way, and we wouldn’t be here without their care and support. I have no doubt good things are in store for us this year! Thank you everyone for your support and continued involvement in our amazing community. |
XinilJan 15, 2019 9:15 AM
| I firmly believe change is a good thing and I suspect that many users will feel positive about this breath of fresh air. The team members at Media Do are motivated to grow MAL, and from my first impressions, also understand that the community's feedback is an essential tool to reach this goal. I'm looking forward to working with Media Do and hope to see MAL continue to flourish. Once we have more specific information—for example, on the API everyone's burning question—Xinil or I will be sure to share it. As we say goodbye to DeNA, I would like to warmly thank all of the developers and team members who contributed to MAL's maintenance and growth over the last 4 years. While we didn't always agree, it must not be forgotten that these individuals grew MAL from its stagnated state, adding many features in the first couple of years: notifications, episodes, PVs, the Seasonal page, an improved News section, List customizations, and more. I am glad that I had the opportunity to work with many of them and am grateful for the life they breathed back into MAL's code development. Here's to 2019 and onwards~! And hopefully to a better organized Suggestions board :'D |
| Wut lol |
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| Yeah just bring back the API so that I can use the MAL Updater thank you very much. |
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| Holy crap this is fantastic news. DeNA started off great, but clearly has been slacking hard lately. I really hope this means some good things are in store for us, cause we really need it. I welcome our new rulers \o/  Tyrel said: Wut lol Now you can come back again ;) Manyaa_- said: Yeah just bring back the API so that I can use the MAL Updater thank you very much. Really hope that'll be one of the first things they pick up. I don't give a crap about the API myself, but it's very clear so many users want it. |
ArdanazJan 15, 2019 1:07 AM
| Now, this is epic. I can't contain my excitement after all the pain and torment. Even if it was tough with DeNA at times, it's not like they were useless and I appreciate what they were able to do for MAL. Here's to the future 🍹 |
Ooooh I'll remind you of this if they actually do it :'D |
| Given the huge problems MAL had to face last year, this sounds like a good change indeed. Best of luck, guys! |
| It's been three four years already?! Think I'm losing my sense of time. Despite the things that went down last year, I have to appreciate DeNA for implementing some of features we have now. Some of the devs were pretty cool too, and I wish them the best. Looking forward to see what Media Do has in store for MAL. |
SnowJan 15, 2019 1:27 AM
 ‖ Submit News × Guidelines ✦ Part of U × Color Your Night × Limelight × Headline ‖ ˙⊹܀⁺☁︎˚˙⊹⁺.˙⁺ |
Ardanaz said: Holy crap this is fantastic news. DeNA started off great, but clearly has been slacking hard lately. I really hope this means some good things are in store for us, cause we really need it. I welcome our new rulers \o/ Tyrel said: Wut lol Now you can come back again ;) Manyaa_- said: Yeah just bring back the API so that I can use the MAL Updater thank you very much. Really hope that'll be one of the first things they pick up. I don't give a crap about the API myself, but it's very clear so many users want it. What is this API thing actually? |
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Vivekananda said: What is this API thing actually? It allows 3rd party apps to use MAL's information. So people had made apps to automatically update your list for example. DeNA took it down because of a security issue like they said, but this has angered a lot of people that were using those apps that were dependant on the API. You can read more about it here: https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1731860 https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1740204 |
| Wow I'm excited to see what Media can actually Do for MAL! |
Happy Halloween  |
Legit my hero. |
| new owner again huh, this explains the lack of development especially for the API for the past long months hopefully the ads gets better so that i will surely disable Adblock for MAL to support this site |
| It comes at a price, but one I'm willing to take. Nobody else should have to suffer. |
Happy Halloween |
| Last year was rather difficult for us. Even so, I appreciate everything DeNA did for us in the past four years. Thanks to all the developers and their contributions to MAL. Let's do this, Media Do! |
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| Interesting. |
| Nice! To be honest I was hoping for this, but I didn't think it would actually happen. DeNA probably had good intentions, I do appreciate some features they implemented earlier like the seasonal anime page and notifications. But everything that happened last year and their lack of communication was just unacceptable, so I'm glad to see them go. Here's hoping Media Do will be better than its predecessors (it shouldn't be too hard considering how bad they both were). |
| Good shit, let's see if they can beat CraveOnline for best owners of MAL Tyrel said: Wut lol Can you go back to being mod pls |
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| Hmmm, another take over huh? I was surprised to read such news so shortly after DeNA taking over, until I realized it has already been over 3 years ago ^^ Well, I wish them good luck and hope that their vision for MAL's future aligns with what the community desires and that they are better at communicating with said community. |
| For those who seek perfection, there can be no rest on this side of the grave. Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment. |
| I'm not sure what this means for us exactly. Certainly an interesting piece of news. As long as I can continue adding anime into a profile that helps me keep track of what I've watched, plus banter a little on the forums occasionally, I'm happy. |
| If your favourite character is Tsutsukakushi Tsukiko, you are my soul mate. Been a long time since I've been here, I'll continue expressing myself freely and believe everyone should too. My MAL Interview |
| That makes it the 4th owner for MAL. If that will make the site better, I am all for it. But this site development is stagnant for the most part. We will wait & see~ |
 ~Vive La Miémorrina~ Play Lolita Caramel | Admire My Artworks Follow Me On Twitter | Read My Drawing Blog |
| does this mean more hentai |
 "For the sake of humankind, I forsake my humanity." - Cherry |
excitant said: I hope this means you will have a look into your manga database team. It's about half the size of nearly every other modding team on here and two people haven't logged in for several months. This negligence of your database for something that is supposed to be a database is not deserving of being "number one ‘all-things’ anime and manga". Feel free to be the change you desire: https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1435506#msg42500983 Unikkatil said: That's great. MAL took a step forward, but if you don't mind, could you guys explain to me, a man living under rocks for more than 10 year, what exactly deNA means? It's just the name of the company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeNA Inuchiyo said: does this mean more hentai I certainly hope so  |
Unikkatil said: That's great. MAL took a step forward, but if you don't mind, could you guys explain to me, a man living under rocks for more than 10 year, what exactly deNA means? they got a wiki page here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeNA i read in the past here in the forums that DeNA is losing money from MAL base on their annual profit reports so maybe thats why they decided to end development of MAL and ultimate sell it to another company that is pointed out by this news |
| I hope that Media Do API |
| Bruh Sound Effect #2 |
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| yeah ok |
╮ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ╭ |
| Well..... that change was sooner than a presidential term ^^' But let's hope it's for the best. DeNA did improve a lot of things this site needed, so let's hope the new owners continue to move the site forward and don't make it give a few steps back. |
Unikkatil said: @Deg I see. I guess it's understandable, but even if MAL was acquired but another Co. means that they too will lose money on this site? i got no idea, my guess is that it will heavily depend on how much new things (development) they will add to MAL from now on to attract more new users that will be potential customers of their manga business |
| Interesting news. Never was a fan of DeNA in the first place. However, I hope Media Do can make MAL a better place. |
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| I haven't followed things super closely, but from an outsider's perspective, it certainly seems that DeNA was a bad fit for this site, and did a lot of stuff to try to force their own philosophies onto the site, to the detriment of the site's core strengths. Hopefully with a new owner, they'll be more open to user feedback and help restore some of MAL's lost good will from the last year or so. |
AlejandroAC said: What is really going on? So much negligence, lack of information and no actual words from anyone important. Something big must have been happening if it has been having problems for so long and kept changing owners. Some Legal issues? The page is not profitable? Something else? Not being profitable is hard to believe, since 99% of the work seems to be done by volunteers and there are plenty of ways to generate income that go directly to the owners: ads, donations, partnerships, etc. So will anyone tell the truth and speak some words of wisdom? Or we will be kept in the dark like fools while owners seem to keep gambling with the site and give 0 fucks about the community? Being the most popular thing nowadays can change easily with how Internet works, so we are probably doomed to the slow and inevitable decay of this site if nothing is done. i cannot find the thread where i read that DeNA is losing money from MAL but think about it if MAL is profitable for DeNA then they will not sell this site to Media Do plus DeNA basically stop doing a lot of development of this site after like their first 2 years of ownership there are other alternatives to MAL that are more actively being develop anyway like AniList and Kitsu so MAL knows it needs to develop this site further or they will be left out by the competition EDIT: found the comment about DeNA losing money from MAL https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1751409#msg56234003  |
degJan 17, 2019 1:38 AM
deg said: there are other alternatives to MAL that are more actively being develop anyway like AniList and Kitsu so MAL knows it needs to develop this site further or they will be left out by the competition Certainly true, and I hope that our development pace can be picked up. Though I feel it's not as urgent as it's made out to be, they are both so far behind in overall features. |
Shymander said: deg said: there are other alternatives to MAL that are more actively being develop anyway like AniList and Kitsu so MAL knows it needs to develop this site further or they will be left out by the competition Certainly true, and I hope that our development pace can be picked up. Though I feel it's not as urgent as it's made out to be, they are both so far behind in overall features. i feel like AniList have overall better features already at this point though and they are also planning artificial intelligence/machine learning features too and i find that very cool, like i mention time and time again more automation is better than more human staff but when it comes to database content then surely MAL is still ahead of the competition by a huge amount and also AniList and Kitsu gets much of their database content from MAL too anyway MAL is still more active with users too thats why im still here |
Yeah, Kitsu and AniList dosent have political board. |
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| I'm really hoping we get the Halloween theme now. Lolz. |
im fine if MAL removes CE altogether, sure i will have some withdrawal syndrome but i can get over it like i will just be more active on reddit /r/worldnews or something |
| btw @Xinil will you make another AMA with the new development team just like you did few years ago here https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/3gedyl/im_xinil_creator_and_lead_admin_of_myanimelist/ |
| I hope MAL actually become better with this. |
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| Interesting! I hope they do right by MAL's community. |
| And imagine how awesome it would be if noy only we get the API back but discord staff gets badges ._. Welcome new masters! |
"Sky, sky of red, red the colour, the colour I hate" |
| Welcome and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how our new owners do! Goodbye former owners, thank you very much for all your dedication and efforts throughout the years that you’ve spent managing this wonderful site! |
#Anime4Life be my Life Motto! #PrayForKyoAni  |
| Interesting. Let's hope that the new owners will bring positive changes. |
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| I for one welcome our new Media overlords. |
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