| 1) How did you discover MAL? 2) What were you doing - if anything - to keep track of your shows before MAL? For me, I was introduced to MAL through a friend. Luckily for me, it was only a few months after I had gotten into anime, so I didn't have that many shows to move over. Before then, I think I had just been using pen and paper to write down shows I had watched. How many of you have a similar experience? |
| I wrote titles down in Notepad. Alphabetically in columns. And rated 1 to 10. I discovered MAL about 10 years ago, accidentally, from some weeb forums |
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| I created and maintained an Excel spreadsheet that was divided by shows I was watching, shows I had completed, and movies I had completed. I also, for years, tried to keep track of the shows I was watching weekly. I also created graphs to see how my watch time changed over time. I even developed a non-numerical, nine-point rating system that transferred over to MAL. |
SithSteelJun 29, 2019 8:44 PM
| I started watching anime just a month before joining MAL(except Pokemon and Yugioh). So I didn't have a big list anyway. My first anime was BnHA. Then I watched some big titles like Code Geass, Death Note and OPM. After watching those I developed a huge love for anime. Therefore I wondered if animes had an IMDB page for rating so I could keep tabs on which animes I've watched. Through a single google search instead of an IMDB page, I discovered MAL. Before I discovered the existence of anime, I was just playing games, mostly Souls games and Skyrim. |
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| When I started watching anime, I found out about Myanimelist through google. But it toke me around 7 years before I created my account. Before I created my account here, I just used this page to find animes similair to something I had already watched and wanted something similar. The Recommendation section was great for that. But I never wrote down anything I have watched and even when I created my Myanimelist account 3 years ago, I didn't add in shows that I had watched before I created my account here. It's fun to find something now that I watched 10 years ago and you remember, oyeah I have watched this for so long ago. Or you find out how horrible taste you had back in the days when you started to watch anime, sigh. |
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| Once i was getting really into the medium, i just started writing down my completed/plan-to-watch anime in a physical notepad, and then moved on to my second-hand iPad's Notes when the physical list got too big to easily manage, until i finally "moved" that list to MAL. I honestly can't recall how i discovered MAL. All i remember is that i used to lurk around the site for a long time, simply using it for info, before finally making an account (there used to be a very strict password requirement restriction back then, which turned me off from signing up). |
Stygian_PrisonerJun 29, 2019 3:32 PM
| I only started using MAL around a month ago, previously lurking occasionally but never had an account. I can't say for certain in much more detail than "general word of mouth around the internet", but I'm sure I first discovered it in September of 2016 when I first started getting into watching some anime shows, then looking up discussions and analysis on them in either Bing or Google. Up until then and even now in tandem with MAL, I just keep updating a Notepad file on my laptop where I keep lists of many other things as well. |
| just using mini-encoding anime sites like animestash (but its close to being dead now) minitheatre (now dead even if its still alive im sure its just a scam site now) also warez-bb forum my first internet home although its usually down now a days so its not good wasting time there now) EDIT: i do not remember how i know about MAL but most probably someone on the forums of the sites i listed said it |
degJun 29, 2019 2:56 PM
| At first I never had a list, but eventaully I wanted to make one so I went through KissAnime's entire library and wrote down all the ones I watched in a .txt file. |
| I found MAL 9 years ago..I used it to find new anime without creating an account. A few months later I decided I had enough of writing everything I watched down (document) and yeah so here am I |
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| Well, I got into anime two years ago due to one of my friends so it's not that long ago. I haven't been keeping any notes of what I watched. I've seen people mentioning MAL online a lot when it comes to keeping track of all the shows you're watching and when I searched for certain anime the site came up as well and I thought it might be handy to have something like that, a list to keep everything in order and where you could search for more anime to watch, something similar to IMDb for movies/shows. So I made a profile here. Luckily, I haven't watched that many anime before creating a profile. I admit I'm not very active here. I merely use it for keeping track of anime I'm watching and putting recommendations or shows that might interest me on plan to watch list so I don't overlook or forget them and nothing else. |
ProbingUranusJun 30, 2019 1:25 AM
| Before mal I just reccorded my watched series on my 3ds notes. |
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| I used (and still use it) another site for tracking tv series, they have anime mixed in there too. I don't remember how I discovered MAL, just stumbled across it some day while searching some anime info perhaps. |
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| I used Ani.db before a friend put me onto MAL. Before that I didn’t track my watching so I still stumble across series I have seen and forgotten to add to my watch list. |
| When I first decided to actually get into anime (outside of watching shows like Dragonball Z, Yu Yu Hakusho, etc on tv), I started googling to get a sense of what to watch first. Somehow MAL came up as one of the top results, and shortly after that I made an account to keep track of what I was all watching/watched. I didn't need a list before because back when I was watching anime on tv, I didn't always watch it in release order, so episodes were all over the place. |
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| Before my list was on MAL, I had a list on Anime News Network's "My Anime," starting in 2002. I had been watching anime for a few years before that, but the number of titles was still fairly small, so I just kept track of them in my head until then. At the same time I was keeping the list on ANN, I also had a separate word document where I kept track of exactly which episodes of which anime I watched every day. I even had it color-coded; I think it was green for first episodes, red for last episodes, pink for specials and OVAs, purple for movies. I stopped using the word document shortly after I joined MAL. There were times I also had lists on Anime-Planet and AniDB, but ANN was always my most updated list, mostly just because that's where I started, and I loved their "custom lists" feature, which let me organize my lists by season, genre, or anything else I wanted. For a while after joining MAL, I kept both lists updated, but it became too much trouble after a couple of years. Now MAL is the only site I use. I'm not sure how I discovered MAL, but I'm guessing it was just while Googling for info about an anime. That would have probably been around 08 or 09. I know I frequented the site for a few years before I finally signed up and took the time to make my list. |
palm-treeJun 29, 2019 10:00 PM
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| Not watching Anime. This is because when I decided to create one is when I thought it would be cool to see when I was watching certain show and used it as an anthology of what I was doing certain month in certain year. |
| I created an account once I finished my first few shows. Became aware of MAL while looking up stuff to see next. |
| lol I had a text file which listed all the shows I'd seen. It had a bit over 50 back then and I made it one day because I noticed that I couldn't remember the names of all the shows even though I remember the character/plot. That was around 2011 I think. As for how I found MAL, I think an anime YouTuber mentioned it and I immediately went to check it out because I figured it would be better than my shitty notepad. |
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| I didn't, I never kept track of the anime I had watched, I had been watching them since I was a kid. I wouldn't have seen the need to, just like someone who watches TV shows a lot wouldn't do that either. When I joined the site through my friend's recommendation I had to remember the anime I had watched. Luckily most of them weren't unknown anime, they were more well known so whenever I'd see mention of it I'd remember I watched it and add it to my list. Probably the most obscure anime I had watched at this point was Ayashi no Ceres, and Gensoumaden Saiyuki. |
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| just like i keep track of western cartoons and series i watch: i just watched as i remembered the anime and feel like.... i dont think you ctually need a databasis |
| Smoke Weed Everyday |
| I don't remember exactly when did I discover MAL, but it was more than 5 years ago, mostly because of my interest on seiyuu casts. I used to look for information about the voice actors of the anime I watched, so I ended up visiting this page very often to check if the voice I was listening to actually belonged to the person I thought... And after a while I created an account. Before that, I had a notebook where I wrote down all I watched, and classified it in genres and the like. I still have it, still use it btw. |
| I have a good memory. I didn't need to make a document. I only saw some episodes of these before joining MAL. .hack//Sign Ayane-chan High Kick! Cardcaptor Sakura Hello Kitty Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou Kanokon Keroppi Love Stage!! Neon Genesis Evangelion Pokemon Queen's Blade R-15 Shinmai Maou no Testament Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters I found MAL back in 2008 when looking for torrents. |
IpreferEcchiJun 29, 2019 4:05 PM
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| Used and still use another website. This one is just for forum lols and list comparisons (because there are more people here than any other site) |
| i was only on tumblr. i'm pretty sure i discovered mal from letterboxd when i was looking up animated films on that site |
   ｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆｡ from the days that i've lived those i had spent with you, seemed real 月光 |
| a weirdo in a game asked me if I used MAL and that's how my first account came to being forever lost somewhere, rip forgotten username I didn't really track the anime I watched, before. |
 I'll be out ridin' my pony until it's time for candy And I'll be naked, because I want to ♫ |
| I found out about mal a few years before i made an account. No idea how i discovered it though. I just watched anime without making a note of what i'd seen. When i first joined i had quite a lot of anime to remember and add to my list. |
| Before I found Mal I didnt watch that much anime (the first FMA, Ouran, Soul Eater, Kuroshitsuji etc.) so I memorized them in my head. I think I was searching for ''Anime reviews'' on google and found this site. Shortly after I made a account. |
| During my time getting more and more into the medium, but having literally nobody in my life who enjoyed it, I looked up: "Anime sites." Boom. More that i made anime discussions on a site called: "Vizzed." Trying to flex my writing stuff, but it was primarily aimed at children, the site that is. I didn't really keep track of anime. When I got on here I just looked up my history on hulu, added them all, got started on MAL. |
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| I have created my MAL account just about when I felt I was invested enough in the medium to feel I need a list and wanted to have ratings of my own. So nothing before, I didn't need it. |
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| I used the notes app on my phone to keep track of all the anime/manga I've seen/read and I also used goodreads to keep track of what volumes of manga I've read. I don't remember how I found MAL but I'm glad I found it. It's so much easier to keep track of stuff now. |
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| I think I either learned of MAL through just minor mentions in youtube videos and eventually deciding to make an account to see what it's about. Before I used MAL, I used my memory. I honestly hadn't seen too much and if I had. I would remember if I'd seen it through a cover on anime-planet, which I used to find new anime series. |
| I too, just used a notepad to keep track of shows I watched. |
ええ、私はそこにいてそれをやった  |
| Before i discovered both AniDB & MAL, I used the Sticky Notes app on windows. I first started with AniDB (best search system but the UI is Ugly) i saw someone mentioned about MAL in /a/, and here I am. |
LunaEstlinJun 29, 2019 10:21 PM
 It’s okay to look back at the past, just don’t stare too long |
SithSteel said: Ten said: I used (and still use it) another site for tracking tv series, they have anime mixed in there too. I don't remember how I discovered MAL, just stumbled across it some day while searching some anime info perhaps. What site were you using? Sounds useful. myshows.me - it also shows the dates when each episode is airing, so it helps to keep track of what is upcoming too. The database there is uploaded from tvmaze so you can check that out too in case you don't like the other one. |
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| I found MAL after my first anime that i completed i searched on google about anime name and found MAL on results. But i sign-up after 4 months !! I used Google Keep to write anime that i finished! |
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| After watching 50+ anime, i scanned through Kissanime's library and compiled it in a excel spreadsheet and gave my own rating from 0-10. Later, somebody in a Facebook group suggested MAL and i transferred the data here.Interestingly, my rating style changed in MAL and I'm more generous now because i don't want to shit on decent shows just because i didn't like them. |
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| Before MAL, to keep track of the anime i had finished, i wrote them all down on a piece of A4 paper. |
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