[Update May 8] MyAnimeList Acquired by Gaudiy Inc.

@fluffycow17
Does that trailer have its own MAL entry?

@kakyoin this is a great way to destroy the site. So many companies fail to realize this. They change UI and watch all the old users leave and fail to get new users. A UI overhaul would be the biggest mistake. I'm surprised someone who joined in 2009 would even suggest that lmao


Literally just keep the site as it is. I don't need any big changes. Just keep everything working and I will be happy. I just need my lists. That's all. It's really that simple. I even think Novels are fine because they clearly say "light novel" when you go to the page itself.


As for the topic of AI and such.... it sucks. But we also feared the site would fall apart back when DeNA bought it but the site didn't turn into a mobile-first disaster. Just keep your lists backed up in case the worse comes to pass. See what happens for now.

Problem with this is just look how broken the site became when they added conversation view. It broke the forum because the previous devs didn't know how to do it without neutering basic functionality like quotes and really next to no one is even using that view anyway. You can always use a Stylish or Stylus theme for MAL to change appearances, what is better to focus on is functionality aspect of UI, technically that is UX too but these terms overlap. Though it is fine if you mean the mobile site and the mobile app since I don't think anyone is that attached to it that they would be that bothered by change. Also the current dark mode has bad colour choices where the contrast is too high.


You mean just the design aspect of UI though. Since UI also means function. We all hate how we cant quote users like normal anymore after the dumb conversation view neutered the forums and no one likes the sometimes overly restrictive character count restriction to post especially since there is no display of current character count as you type so you wind up having to submit multiple times which is a bad user experience.

I don't use the forums much anymore, I guess I forgot these things even happened. There used to be a quote button next to the reply button right? That was much easier for sure.

And I've never used the conversation view.

After posting: now I'm seeing it for the first time. Why did it drag your entire post above my new post? I only quoted the last part. Yeah that looks terrible.

Should be kept in mind not everyone's suggestion is a good one. Ive seen bad suggestions from people who dont even use site much actually gets what they want implemented, and they left anyway and everyone hates it except a few mods and even then only because they think it is easier to moderate when other methods would have accomplished that better. That is how conversation view came about for the forum lol

I'm not a regular forum--or even the website itself--user, but this is the only website of the style that I use -- and the only reason as to why I haven't moved to any alternative options is because I truly dislike their vison of what an Anime/Manga database or forum should look like, and from what I've seen by checking Gaudiy's work; they share the same ideas than those other websites. This doesn't give me much hope for the future of MAL.

I understand that my point of view or personal preferences shouldn't get in the way of progress, but when progress looks as bleak and soulless as it does; I'm adamant of holding to my beliefs and not falling for conformity "in the name of progress".

I don't visit MAL because I'm expecting updates or UI overhauls -- I'm here because this is the only space that still has the community driven spirit from the past that I've always loved; something that is lacking everywhere else. There are a handful of forums left that preserve this timeless layout and UI design, almost every-other-site is trying to move to a "futuristic" or "modern" look that blends everything together with minimalism as an excuse.

Instead of focusing on fixing what the users are complaining about or don't like, they make up their own interpretation of what the user said, or straight up ignore it to bring yet another awful update that replaces everything that the users liked for things that they will hate even more than previous changes. Even though in Gaudiy's website they state that they care about fans and their feedback, they also state that they want to "redefine" common sense -- and that doesn't really speak good of them in my opinion.

If you have to "redefine" the meaning of something so that your ideas make sense, then you aren't really listening to anyone but yourself. I understand that they mean it in the corporate sense, but there's always something that corporations won't tell you or are hiding from the public eye -- and is seen more often in companies which talk so high about their commitment with the community and fans than any other one.



That statement sounds good in paper, but all it is telling me is "we are going to have you on a leash" -- Why? Because they are the ones with the money, they are the ones that will be overseeing smaller projects that they buy into. Greed will blind their judgement the moment they get bored or tired

You also can't turn a blind eye to their whole business premise, they exist to push Blockchain and Generative AI -- you can't tell me that you're partnering with a company which has as a motto "Gaudiy is aiming to create 'fan nations' where everyone can spend their lives with love by utilizing advanced technologies such as Blockchain and Generative AI. Come and join us to challenge the unseen future!".

This also doesn't paint a good picture in my book:


Every other company with similar views has failed miserably, has ruined or abandoned projects, and brought nothing of value to the table. Is this really what we want? Do we want to throw everything out the window for a company that will most likely end like the rest just for pseudo novelty reasons? "Oh but they aren't like the other ones!" That's what all of them say, and they may be somehow right because each new company is worse than the previous one.

Your opening statement of "Technology is a tool." rubs me the wrong way. You're already in the corporate mindset of "we have to appeal to our investors", so I don't see a bright future from here onwards. Presenting the community's worries in a mocking way "Did you say AI/blockchain?!?!", plus a sanitized, deflective and generalized statement "Technology is a tool." is sad.


All that statement says is "We know that NFT and AI related projects usually end bad, but this time we don't know for sure, and we can't bite the hand that is feeding us.".

The more we advance into the future, the more I realise that self-hosting is the only good option left. Everything else has been infected by this "the future so cool!" mindset while ignoring everything bad that has come out of it.

Good luck though.

Personally I couldn't care less about some Sonic rule 34 artist crying on Bluesky that AI is taking over his work, instead of utilizing AI which is far better if you already have a graphical background to begin with. As far as the site goes, the only use for AI in terms of features would be recommendations based on the shows you watched, but I feel it's going to be mostly background data harvesting stuff, which seems meaningless to me on a site like this but I could be wrong.



What development? I don't recall any major features or changes to the site being added for years, maybe a few minor things were added that I don't generally use in areas of the site I barely visit... But other than that, nothing has changed in terms of: Searching Anime, Finding Anime and keeping my list up-to-date.

The biggest change I've seen in the past years was when the API went down for more than a year and you were not able to use any 3rd party apps to update your progress. I find something like that or even the monetization of data or even putting the majority of features behind a paywall far more likely than any improvements to the site happening with this acquisition.



If people leave the site for stupid stuff like that, good riddance. You're basically requesting Cartoons to be added to the site which obviously are not Anime, if you want to keep track of that use Trakt/IMDB/Rotten Tomatoes etc. I use Mydramalist for Asian drama shows, while that site is dogshit .. there is not really a competitor in that space.


If the new Myanimelist owners want to add stuff like that to the site, they might as well make sub-sites with stuff like:
A: MyCartoons
B: MyAsian Drama series
C: MyRegular series
^ Obviously not the naming scheme but to make it clear what I mean, something that interconnect all those things into a single account. But then again, you have something like that already in the site SIMKL.

The distinction would at least prevent me seeing Castlevania, Bob's Burgers, Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo and Ed, Edd and Eddy in the top 10 list of MyANIMElist, because practically everybody has seen and enjoyed these shows. So for those 3 people that run away from the site for a competitor you would want to pollute the database even further with things that are NOT anime? If anything that would make me want to leave the site for a competitor if that increases.

Anilist is MyAnimelist's biggest competitor as far as I'm aware and the only Castlevania mention I see on it is a 2005 manga, Devil May Cry some random novels and a 2007 anime... the only show on there from what you listed is Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. Which is the only one in your list that even makes sense as it was animated by a Japanese studio and also has the option for Japanese dubs, something those other two lacks.

It's already annoying enough to see a gazillion Chinese shows, two of them I've seen were enjoyable, but these shows always seem to have a rating of 7.5 or higher. Only this season there's 15+ entries of Chinese shows in the ONA section, some of them have no rating but those that do the majority of them is rated 7.8 or higher. I have a feeling people rate them less harshly than they do Japanese anime as the 'best' Chinese show Link Click, while enjoyable doesn't seem like a rank #52 show to me, especially considering the shows it surpasses on the list that in my opinion were far better.

There's some Chinese titles in the top 250 of this site with barely 10k people rating it....

Like this:


Banana Fish should in reality never be lower on the list than Doupo Cangqiong: Nian Fan, yet it is despite having 90~ times the amount of members the Chinese show has...

Or these shows:


A Chinese show that doesn't even hit 4000 members is ranked higher on the list than several extremely popular/known shows, several of which with millions of members or franchises that have had millions of members in general.

.... and you want to pollute this list even further by adding AMERICAN cartoons to the mix? That sounds like a great idea to kill off the site lol.

EDIT:
If there is ONE feature I would want it is being able to hide or for MAL to remove Recap/Music/PV/CM entries from the database as they are pollutants to me, I can't recount the amount of times I got API-limited because many entries are one of those listed above. Especially with shows like One Piece....

Or when you use sites like Chiaki to find entries you're missing the majority of it is recaps/music, just remove that crap from the database already. For completionists/people with OCD it's annoying to have these entries, because on one hand I want to have 100% completion rate per series and everything related in my list, but on the other hand I would be polluting my list with 500-1000+ extra crap entries.

Being able to hide entries from anywhere on the site itself would be a great thing in the first place, I don't want to keep seeing the same crappy stuff I will never watch polluting any type of list such as searches or top lists.

Like we have entries for Gintama x KFC with barely 4000 members:
https://myanimelist.net/anime/37864/Yinhun_x_KFC

Why is MAL polluting it's database and database editors wasting time adding these bogus entries?

I think people are over exaggerating this whole scenario. It is in Gaudiy's best interest to keep MyAnimeList alive, otherwise they would obviously not have acquired the stocks either. There will not be any big changes to the website, even the CEO has confirmed this, so I'm not sure where this fear is coming from.

@Steph You're right I should begin trusting the words and intentions of CEOs implicitly from now on. How silly I've been. let me change my entire point of view in the face of such a strong argument.

Yeah, of course they're not going to intentionally kill it. They're going to unintentionally kill it because of the explicit purpose of their entire company. CEOs make bad business decisions sometimes, happens

Those have larger fanbases than Nezha Zhi Mo Tong Nao Hai, to be fair.

Gaudiy has taken Sony and Bandai with them in an allotment, meaning that both Sony and Bandai also have interest in MyAnimeList, 2 parties that have nothing to do with NFT's. These parties would probably (this is an assumption ofcourse) only join the allotment if they have some degree of certainty that MyAnimeList does not turn into a mindless NFT website.

Now since the CEO said this, it is probably also a legal binding due to the involvement of other shareholders who are commited to MyAnimeList (due to the allotment). This makes it quite hard for the CEO to suddenly go back on his words, so yes, in this case I would take the CEO and trust his words.

@Steph

yes yes. i trust sony and bandai with my life. they wouldn't ever support anything like gaudily exists to propagate (cough)(cough) and probably have a great personal stake in this website and its userbase themselves and aren't just giant corporate homunculi with a million billion subsidiary companies they use to exert broader control over a market or anything

you're right, i think i'm overreacting. on the other hand, you're making well-reasoned points and not transparently trying to run damage control or anything. kudos for that

First of all, why would I run damage control? Second of all, what point are you trying to make by pointing out AI? AI is our future and no matter what happens within a few years parts of MyAnimeList will also have AI, for the better. How does this link back to Blockchain and NFT's?

@Steph Damn straight. AI is MAL's future. The future is just going to be short and it's probably going to suffer a Tumblr-esque mass exodus, which nobody really wants, y'know. Not even your techbro owner.

That said, if you like the feeling of having an overlord putting his boot on your throat and don't think it's worth fighting back against problems with ownership, you can always just come work for me at H&E. Send in your resume!

AI can be used for both good and bad. Imagine if AI unlocks its full potential and unlocks the ability to filter out spambot / troll posts by themself? I do not see any negative sides of AI, ChatGPT has already saved millions of students ;)


wut?

@Steph I had a conversation with a student who had ChatGPT write his papers for him in the server the other day, and he was so uneducated that he didn't even know that the rough draft is typically the most time consuming part of the paper to write. You normally learn about roughs and the process of writing a paper in *primary school.*

I see a lot of potential in that one :) Going to really make his mark on the world, I'm sure. Why develop skillsets to assign yourself value as a person if you're just willing to hand that value over to your future replacement? Or do you like laying down and just letting people rip everything you and humanity in general have worked to accomplish so they can have a cheaper alternative in the long-run? I mean, I run a porno server in a sense, I won't judge you for your masochism.

Is the blame for that on AI or ChatGPT or the fact that the student goes against every policy made by their university? If someone does something bad or stupid on the internet, do we blame the fact that the internet exists or that person for being stupid enough to break certain rules?

eh fuckin whatever. If shit hits the fan I'll just switch to the bazillion other anime list sites out there.

@Steph yeah, what uni policy are they breaking, chief

the one where their schools tell them to use it cough cough

You're framing it like it's a bad egg situation when it's already a mass-spread institutional problem lmao. How are you on here trying to argue in favor of a topic you clearly don't even keep up with?

I mean, yeah, I guess it checks out that you support AI now. You probably use ChatGPT to write your papers too. I can smell it on you, people who rely on AI instead of doing anything themselves tend to share these kinds of traits owo

There is a huge difference between using ChatGPT as an assistance tool vs using it to write papers for you. You can use ChatGPT to find you sources, gain a general understanding of how things work, help you with starting. But since you are still the one typing it out, you still have the learning effect. University's specifically mention you can use ChatGPT for assistance (think of finding sources, translating, grammar check etc.) you just can not let it write the paper for you.

@WeaponArchitect that's the spirit

it's gonna hit the fan eventually, so I suggest thinking about which site you think you'll like more!