Today, popular anime cataloging website MyAnimeList announced that it is changing ownership from e-commerce provider DeNA to eBook/Manga distributor Media Do. The statement came from MyAnimeList founder and admin, “Xinil”, who believes this new partnership will boost the website into being the “number one ‘all things’ anime-and-manga platform”.
Xinil states that not much will change in the short term due to the logistic and legal hurdles required to go through to change ownership, during which the website maintenance will still be overlooked by DeNA. After the transition, he states that there will be a dedicated team, a set of priorities, and an entire new vision going forward.
The founder extends his gratitude towards DeNA for bringing the site to where it is today, being “forever grateful” for what they have done. This gets a bit undermined by database administrator “Kineta”, who makes a snide remark in their follow-up statement stating they “didn’t always agree” with DeNA. It’s likely that this is, in part, due to the data breach incident that occurred in May 2018.
Due to vulnerabilities on the end of DeNA, the website was down for over a week, with it taking almost four months to restore the “final features”. Even then the beloved API, which was crucial for a number of complementary third-party apps such as “Taiga”, has yet to return, with no specific information being available as of yet. It would not surprise me if this departure from DeNA had at least something to do with the incredibly slow response time between the data breach and the website being restored.
Overall, while some of their claims do seem ambitious, I am excited to see where this new ownership brings the platform. As a long time user of the website myself, it has been an invaluable tool in tracking my progress through the anime I watch and manga I read, as well as providing an easy and quick way to reflect on my thoughts through a simple 1-10 rating system. If you would like to know more, you can read the full statement from MyAnimeList, here.