Akatsuki, The Anime Times Company, DMM.com, and Kadokawa Invest in MyAnimeList Through Third-Party Allotment

by ImperfectBlue
May 30, 2021 11:48 PM | 52 Comments

MyAnimeList Co., Ltd. (MyAnimeList) announced on Monday that Japan-based companies Akatsuki Inc. (Akatsuki), The Anime Times Company Inc. (The Anime Times Company), DMM.com LLC (DMM.com), and KADOKAWA CORPORATION (Kadokawa) are collectively underwriting 311 million yen (approximately US$2.83 million) of MyAnimeList stock through a third-party allotment.

The stock is part of the 1,200 million yen (approximately US$10.93 million) in shares MyAnimeList issued on February 18. Japanese publishing companies Kodansha Ltd. (Kodansha), SHUEISHA Inc. (Shueisha), Shogakukan Inc. (Shogakukan), and MyAnimeList parent company MEDIA DO Co., Ltd. collectively implemented a third-party allotment and underwrote half of this amount. MyAnimeList will continue to use the funds obtained from the third-party allotments to improve and expand its platform.

Akatsuki is an entertainment company incorporated in June 2010 that specializes in mobile games. The company developed Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan Battle—published by BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Inc.—for iOS and Android devices in 2015, and the game has since accumulated over 300 million downloads and US$2 billion in revenue worldwide.

The Anime Times Company is a video distribution company launched by Avex Inc. through a joint investment made by Avex Pictures Inc., Kodansha, Shueisha, and Shogakukan in November 2014.

DMM.com is an electronic commerce company founded in November 1999 that offers online shopping, video streaming, e-books, rentals, and additional services. The company rebranded as DMM.com in July 2003 and began video, game, and e-book distribution. DMM.com claimed to have over 34 million service subscribers as of February 2020.

Kadokawa is a media conglomerate formed through a merger between the original KADOKAWA CORPORATION (founded as Kadokawa Shoten Publishing Co., Ltd. in 1945) and DWANGO Co., Ltd. in October 2014. It was known as KADOKAWA DWANGO CORPORATION until July 2019, when an absorption-type company split led to its current title. Kadokawa brings together various publishing, film, video game, and mass media companies under the Kadokawa Group, which includes BookWalker, ComicWalker, J-Novel Club, Kinema Citrus (31.8% stake), and niconico, among others.

Source: Press Release

Companies

20 of 52 Comments Recent Comments

Next thing ya know these companies might take suggestions for TV Anime from MAL.

However, in all seriousness what do these investments mean for the site?

Jun 6, 2021 6:41 PM by Nodqfan

Now when you got money add every Doujinshi that exists.

Jun 3, 2021 8:04 PM by LICK_IT_GOOD

No drastic redesign please, something similar to the one from a couple years ago is fine.

Jun 3, 2021 2:42 PM by El-Melloi

Great news! Now please make the app actually do other stuff than just updating my anime list.

Jun 1, 2021 7:38 PM by takkun_

Hannatach said:
How is this site worth $10 (+?) million??

The site not. User data though...

Jun 1, 2021 1:08 PM by boii

I just hope MAL doesn't waste the "potentials" here. idc about anything else

Jun 1, 2021 3:50 AM by mhkr

so what's in it for the users?
I just want to add my characters on mal without having to wait for 8 months

Jun 1, 2021 2:02 AM by Catalano

People here arguing whether a redesign is needed or not like their opinion worth shit. If shareholders believe that "modern" "mobile" design increases engagement metric by 1.5% then the site will implement that design.

As for the paid staff i can see it happening for the database moderators, but not the forum ones. The latter is not essential to the site's purpose and, i suppose, is harder to display advertisements on. I expect MAL to close forums altogether and herd it's userbase to Discord, like Bethesda did recently.

May 31, 2021 11:25 PM by Genoard

Judevin said:
Bro can we get dark mode now.

i second this! 😊

May 31, 2021 11:23 PM by Berry-Vodka

With all of these investments and things, you guys really should pay the mods that we currently have. This site is still being run on a voluntary basis despite all of these investments and that's not a good look. It's about time you start paying the ones that actually make an effort in keeping your site up to date and alive.

Plus, as a MAL supporter, we haven't seen any new features or perks or quirks added. Sometimes I wonder, what am I even paying for?

Don't get me wrong, I think it's amazing that companies are investing in MAL and that we have all these good things happening, but I wish you'd translate that into more tangible things that users can see and use. Like for example, being able to change the pictures on our favorites list. Or having more than 20 (it's the main reason I'm paying for support, but it's still not enough) in the first place. Or having better list designs that are on the site by default and not just being contributed by generous users (which are great, but those features are things you expect to be on the site you support and pay real money for). And, for f**k's sake, mass/bulk editing. Do you know how tedious it is to edit anime one by one especially for larger lists like mine?

It may sound like I'm complaining... no, actually, I'm owning up to it - I'm complaining. I'm giving you guys my hard-earned money and you're also earning money from all these companies. It's high time you translate some of that money to stuff we users can actually see and use. And into paying fair compensation to the real people who run this site.

May 31, 2021 9:40 PM by gwendal738

Are mods even getting paid yet or they're still working voluntarily?

May 31, 2021 7:52 PM by ClickBaitBuster

Does that mean MAL will finally have enough funds to add back the "soulmate" feature where you can find the user who has the most affinity with you in the entire site? I would also like a good design overhaul, *NOT* the anime list design (I like the CSS customization), but the home page, forum designs, etc. But perhaps this has nothing to do with MAL getting more money to do better stuff and I am missing the point entirely.

May 31, 2021 6:42 PM by h_hue

all i want is up to date manga database man.

May 31, 2021 6:25 PM by Kuma

Interesting development. I have a couple questions:
Is there any way for us mortals to see a list of the largest stakeholders who own MAL and their percentages?
Is MAL sharing user data with these stakeholders?

Also, it is at times like this, where I'm reminded that MAL is a rather big for-profit company, when I most think MAL should hire/pay for content moderation, database and writing work. You literally have conglomerates profiting off this work, and it's only fair for it to be compensated.

Kineta said:

Piromysl said:
Does that mean you'll finally implement some captcha code for account creation, so we could get rid of bots?

This is such a strange piece of misinformation that seems to be circling recently. If you look at the footer, you'll see reCAPTCHA is used on the website. And its been used on account creation for years and years.

This is off-topic, but, ah yes, I'm reminded of that captcha every time I have to unblock 3rd party scripts from google to login.
Like every captcha, it annoys users and don't really stop bots.

May 31, 2021 4:07 PM by danann

Rogerhunter said:
update the ugly old design

Immediate development plans towards these goals include:

　
Infrastructure changes to increase speed and support advanced UI/UX features
　
Multi-language support for the anime/manga databases and user lists
　
iOS/Android app advancements: e.g. dark mode, manga lists, social functions, etc.
　
Upgrading user communication tools to increase information

Mobile First is all the rage now so i doubt the Desktop Website will have a redesign before the Mobile Website and Apps

and that Roadmap is the same they posted last time https://myanimelist.net/pressroom/20210218
so thats why i deleted my previous comment about it

May 31, 2021 12:46 PM by deg

The question is, will MAL really "use the funds obtained from the third-party allotments to improve and expand its platform."?

There's almost a typo on the post where it says "MyAnimeList will continue to use the funds obtained from the third-party allotments to improve and expand its platform."

Instead of continue, "start" would sound better and a bit more honest

May 31, 2021 12:28 PM by hacker09

It's called money laundering,

How many times have I heard of investments and nothing has been added.
Now go and ban me for speaking the truth.

May 31, 2021 12:10 PM by ichii_1

I hope that this doesn't mean any big changes to the site's design.

I like MAL's layout the way that it is, and I don't want to see it turn into some minimalistic, mobile layout, as I'd probably quit the site if that happened.

May 31, 2021 12:00 PM by _-_Sally_-_

Will we see some sudden score improvements here: https://myanimelist.net/anime/producer/1696/Kadokawa

Only kidding, I’m glad to see some investment from the industry

May 31, 2021 10:34 AM by Bfolls

Interesting. Seems like good news.

May 31, 2021 8:57 AM by Tamasul

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