 MyAnimeList, the world's largest anime and manga database and community, is coming under new ownership. On Tuesday, e-book and digital manga distributor Media Do Holdings announced a decision to acquire all shares of the website's operating business entity—MyAnimeList, LLC—from the current owner, mobile and web portal developer DeNA. Until the acquisition is completed, DeNA official Youichirou Watanabe remains the CEO of MyAnimeList, LLC.Tokyo-based Media Do stores and distributes e-book content on behalf of hundreds of Japanese publishers. Its partner network includes platforms such as LINE Manga, a digital manga platform by Asia's second most popular messaging application, and Rakuten OverDrive, a digital rights management platform whose e-book unit sales rank second only to Amazon. Media Do is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and reported 37.2 billion yen in consolidated revenue in the fiscal year ending February 2018. An American subsidiary, Media Do International, was established in San Diego in 2016. DeNA had acquired MyAnimeList in January 2015 from Los Angeles-based male lifestyle publisher CraveOnline Media, making the company the first Japanese owners of the website. MyAnimeList was an arm of DeNA's entertainment business and was a sister service to digital publishing platforms MangaBox and Everystar. Over the past four years, DeNA's investment allowed MyAnimeList to form partnerships with streaming anime content providers (Crunchyroll, Hulu, and Anime Consortium Japan's DAISUKI) and digital manga publishers (VIZ Media, Kodansha Comics), providing anime and manga content directly to the website's users. The launch of MyAnimeList's digital manga store last March capitalized on a trend of rising manga sales, especially in North America, as a result of the growing popularity of streaming anime. This is also boon for Japanese publishers, whose sales of digital manga continue to record double-digit increases domestically. Recent data from the All Japan Magazine and Book Publisher's and Editor's Association show that digital manga sales climbed 17 percent to 174.7 billion yen in 2017, accounting for more than 40 percent of the domestic manga market. Media Do's purchase of MyAnimeList is the latest sign that the Japanese publishing industry is increasing investment in English-language publishers and digital platforms. Media Do plans to continue "enhancing MyAnimeList's functions as an overseas e-book distribution and marketing platform," according to a released statement. Other North American manga companies that have also come under Japanese ownership include VIZ Media (Shueisha and Shogakukan), Kodansha Comics and Vertical (Kodansha), and Yen Press (Kadokawa). "I believe Media Do is uniquely positioned to slingshot MAL into being the number one 'all-things' anime and manga platform," said MyAnimeList founder Garrett Gyssler about the website's new owner. MyAnimeList currently sees 10 million monthly users and over 130 million monthly page views, according to web traffic data provided by Media Do as of December 2018. Official site: https://www.mediado.jp/ Official English site: https://www.mediado.jp/english/ Source: PR Times Correction: An earlier version of this story implied Youichirou Watabe was named the incoming CEO of MyAnimeList, LLC. His name is Watanabe, not Watabe. He is also the outgoing CEO of MyAnimeList, LLC, while DeNA completes the sale of the company. Media Do has not named an incoming CEO. MyAnimeList regrets these errors. |
mta_pnFeb 17, 2022 5:39 PM
| new owner again huh, this explains the lack of development especially for the API for the past long months MyAnimeList currently sees 10 million monthly users and over 130 million monthly page views, according to web traffic data provided by Media Do as of December 2018. thats a lot of ads revenue hopefully the ads will improve and not become more malicious though and if the ads gets better then i will surely disable Adblock for MAL to support this site |
arsonal said: "I believe Media Do is uniquely positioned to slingshot MAL into being the number one 'all-things' anime and manga platform," said MyAnimeList founder Garrett Gyssler about the website's new owner. Well, let's hope the manga database will see some improvement then, my backlog of manga I can't read because it's not yet listed here is getting ridiculous... |
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| Okaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy... new boss, huh?? Well, hope they improve the database and revamp the entire site with dark mode.... also... WE NEED THE APP!!!!!!! ANDROID AS WELL AS iOS!!!!! MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!! |
| Good luck wherever MAL goes on next. Hope to see it all work out in the end. |
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| With the change of ownership will MAL admin functions be back to the way it was? |
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| Ehhh I don’t know I’m both scared and happy. We’ll see, hope for the best for MAL |
| Hope this change only leads to a even better future for the website. |
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| Let's hope that this will be a positive change for the site. |
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| why tf is this on anime and manga news!? also, seeing e-books everywhere makes me think $$$ hope this site doesn't go fakku |
| An admin's dickhead Soul banned me from MAL t('v't) |
luinthoron said: arsonal said: "I believe Media Do is uniquely positioned to slingshot MAL into being the number one 'all-things' anime and manga platform," said MyAnimeList founder Garrett Gyssler about the website's new owner. Well, let's hope the manga database will see some improvement then, my backlog of manga I can't read because it's not yet listed here is getting ridiculous... Are you sure those are simple not allowed on Mal? Could you give me the name of some of them? |
luinthoron said: Well, let's hope the manga database will see some improvement then, my backlog of manga I can't read because it's not yet listed here is getting ridiculous... Hope so, it sure getting ridiculous. |
| I hope that with new ownership, we can have more frequent and expedient updates and additions to new and existing manga and anime pages. The recent trend of slow updates has been atrocious. Good luck MAL |
| Time to start missing DeNa in three... two... one... |
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| Good to know it's not a Western company at least! Now if only backlog improves..... Time to find out how the CEO looks like. |
| 「友達なんていない。人はすぐに裏切るし、学校っていうのは誰かを標的にしないとやってられない馬鹿共の集 まり。ままごとみたいな役決めて、仲のいいふりして都合が悪くなったら知らんぷり。そんな奴らと仲良くした いとか全然思わない。」 |
| DOES THIS MEAN WE GONE GET THE API BACK.. IS THIS THE REVIVAL OF POCKET MAL. |
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| We welcome our new overlords |
| I hope we get to see some changes for the better |
| Sounds good to me. I mean, at least it won't be worse than now, right? |
| MAL ANIME Put me in the show Media Do |
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| DOES THIS MEANS JAPAN ANIME COMPANY WILL STARTING TO THINK FOR WW FAN TOO???? Well, let's just hope that happen someday... And I hope with this, MAL with get better too~ |
 I'm starting to get embarrassed by my own forum signature line.. XD |
Frostbytes said: keragamming said: Are you sure those are simple not allowed on Mal? Could you give me the name of some of them? Not op but a big problem about MAL is how new manga take ages to get added. For example, Chainsaw Man and meo;lation, the two new wsj manga, are still not added when they have 5 or so chapters already. This problem happens with updating publishing status too. Anilist, on the other hand is pretty quick to update these kinds of things. Just take a look at this, shows the state of manga database https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1752366 Good point, I think mal needs more moderators, or implement a program that accepts new entry base on the requirments of mal. |
| I wanted to post earlier, but I wasn't on my comp so here it is! This is a great article with all the necessary information :) Cheers to the company! |
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| Meet the new boss! Same as the old boss! |
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keragamming said: Frostbytes said: Not op but a big problem about MAL is how new manga take ages to get added. For example, Chainsaw Man and meo;lation, the two new wsj manga, are still not added when they have 5 or so chapters already. This problem happens with updating publishing status too. Anilist, on the other hand is pretty quick to update these kinds of things. Just take a look at this, shows the state of manga database https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1752366 Good point, I think mal needs more moderators, or implement a program that accepts new entry base on the requirments of mal. I'm pretty sure that's the job of the Manga Moderators; I remember seeing a staff member saying that recruiting more of them is something the staff team wants to happen. |
 set made by Ale, circa 2016 |
| So the ceo of a weeb site is a japanese guy. Interesting. |
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| Good luck for all of us! |
| Just PLEASE don't ruin this site - if there are any updates scheduled, would be nice if they were on improving functionality, not on "modernising" looks (I mean this in worst way). Last.fm is a good example of how a place can be ruined by mindless redevelopment. |
| Huh new owners, cool. I hope they can do something about the toxicity on this site. Even if its an impossible solution to solve, it be nice to have some methods against it. Though yeah I'd like for new manga to be quickly brought on here. I'm surprised Chainsawman still isn't listed yet. |
| I used to be a watchmaker. |
| Add likes for thread comments |
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| I hope with the new owners we can get some manga added in the list that haven't been added yet. Some good mangas I've completed and plan to read aren't on the websites database. Same goes for anime that I've watched that isn't in the database. |
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| new boss OwO hope it goes well |
| I live long enough to see this. Look forward for the future of MAL. |
RNG best girl!!! RNG best waifu!! RNG is life!Long live RNG! |
| *insert 'webtoon on MAL' meme here* |
| Corporate overlords.. I'm sure they will do better than people that have been running the site out of love of anime instead of money. |
| cool, now tell them to fix the FREAKING LOADING ERROR, IT'S BEEN AT LEAST A MONTH... REWO*TJWKETLWEWOPWJT*WETJWK ARGHHHHHHH |
favorite "new girls" from summer <3 ... click sig for older seasons and more possible picks (rip all the other choices) |
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