Best site for making an anime/manga-list?

[ikke]

I've been thinking of archiving all the series i've seen/read so far but I'm not sure which site is the best for doing so.
I've been on myanimelist but recently I had the feeling that there's a lot of 'crap' over there. So could anyone recommend a good site or
tell me which one's better. So far I know of these websites where you can make a list: anidb, myanimelist, anime-planet, animenewsnetwork

[Scudworth]

I'm partial to anime planet myself.

[Tiffanys]

Well, I use anime-planet. But, you can't add hentai.

[i_am_otep]

I use both anime-planet and myanimelist...

Uhmm I would say go for myanimelist 'cause you can view your complete list in a single page.

In anime-planet, it gets a bit annoying when your list is getting too big and you have to start flicking pages when you're looking for something.

[Hizoka003]

go to anime planet, myanimelist is made by an ass hat, i know the girl that does most the coding for anime-planet sothis is good people

[erious]

go to anime planet, myanimelist is made by an ass hat, i know the girl that does most the coding for anime-planet sothis is good people

That's a... really silly argument, you know.

Uhmm I would say go for myanimelist 'cause you can view your complete list in a single page.

+1, I find myanimelist user interface much more comfortable then alternatives.

[bobjoe]

Most people at BakaBT like anime-planet best, so you should too!

Yes, that is a flawed argument. I was just jumping on the bandwagon.

In all seriousness, I like A-P better than MAL or anidb for keeping track of what you watch. I have accounts at all of them, but A-P is the one I use for my list, personally.

[DaggerLite]

I'll vouch for AniDB. ;p

If you can get past the messy interface, I'd say it beats other sites on everything else.

[IKillKittens]

+1 for AP

I like how it keeps track of how much time I've wasted

[DaggerLite]

I like how it keeps track of how much time I've wasted

Just to be fair on the quoted statement: As you can see in my signature, other sites do that too.

[IKillKittens]

Indeed they do, only it not as noticeable as that creeping sideway thermometer reminding you constantly of the time you'll never get back

[WiiLeeYum]

[review?]
The only ones I know of are AniDB, A-P and MAL.

AniDB is more professional and more intensive. Hell, I got intimidated while making remaking my list and stopped going on it, let alone never finishing the list. But still very informative, with subbers and whatnot. Problem is no pictures, or at least I have not stayed long on AniDB to find them.

A-P has the nice premade signature box awaiting for you and adding the animes and manga are very simple. They have screenshots of the anime but they are mostly the first episode. Once again, simple to use. The problem with it, as mentioned, is the use of multiple pages, 0-5 rating system with .5 intervals (which is not enough imo), time of updating the series (episode and/or synopsis) and the tags are very limited with multiple mistakes. They recently added character pages, but imo is very poor to piece of shit. No list for Hentais.. but does that really make it lose points?

MAL has the one page list for both as mentioned before. The custom tags are fun to use and the rating system is from 1 to 10 with a bit of guideline saying excellent, average, poor and so on. They have fairly the same information as animenewsnetwork about a title and they have fairly detailed character pages, which is great. Like A-P it is easy to use. The thing I hate from MAL is similar to A-P, the rare occasions of updating the characters. One opinion of mine that makes me "hate" MAL are the clubs. I gotta say, some of the clubs are worth making like "List of x or y in anime/mangas". The only problem is that they add or don't add some characters that make/don't make sense into the category. Reviews are generally better but that depends on the critic, which you have to know who is good and who is just trolling. Recently watched is both good and bad. Good, you can pm someone that just finished a title. Bad, it marks you as "Recently watched" as soon as you add it to your list, even if you put it as "Plan to watch".

imo, All sites have some retarded person adding recommendations that have facepalming reasons.
They should combine these sites together to make an ultimate one.
[/review?]

[DaggerLite]

Indeed they do, only it not as noticeable as that creeping sideway thermometer reminding you constantly of the time you'll never get back

Here's an example of a small selection of what kind of signatures you can make on AniDB: http://wiki.anidb.net/w/SigServer:Examples

And here's a live example of the Anime-Planet signature replicated on AniDB:


AniDB is superior to the others in what it can offer of features. The only thing it really it loses out on is usability (user-friendliness) and thus also has very little social interaction compared to the others. The issues is that it's hard to use until you get to know it, and you can't really customize your list with CSS for presentation. It seems a bit "all over the place" at first, but once you get into it, it beats the others by far for anime management in my opinion. You can modify everything on AniDB with custom CSS (and even submit it as a scheme), but that takes a lot of time.

MAL and Anime-Planet both look nicer and have more active societies. Thus, generally, there will be more reviews and social user-added content. It also focuses a lot on presentation of these items, whereas AniDB mainly focuses on the anime data. It has a bunch of social features implemented, and it's not really hard to use those things compared to the site as a whole, but promotion of user-content and presentation sucks. If you're mostly after the social aspect of things, I'll vouch for Anime-Planet, since it is overall more appealing and professional.

One option is to simply make an account on all three and have a look around, try to add a bit of anime, and finally decide for yourself where you want to stay. I'm guessing most the people on BakaBT forums use, or even have accounts on more than one of them simultaneously.

Edit: I think it's also nice to mention that AniDB does not have manga in it. There is a planned and partially started MangaDB coming sometime in the future, but that's likely very far ahead.

[lStealtherl]

AniDB for anime. Oldest, most features, most information, most inventive and the one that still progresses most. Only drawback for modern casual users is that it doesn't look as pretty and user-friendly as the others.

[Hizoka003]

my most up to day list stays on anidb, simply becasue i use their site to rename my files and add them to my list at the same time... on my comp i have 1.2 TB of anime, and when possible i like to have all the names in the same format, which is "Title" - EP [Sub group]

Death Note - 01 [Arigatou]  for example


the anidb has a very custimizable renamer built into their applet and as long as they have your file in their database it can rename it however you wan it, and if you get the anime from a decent sub group, it the file is from a decent sub group they will have the files with few exceptions

[AceD]

I tryed AniDB and MAL, but ended up picking A-P to keep track of my anime and such...just down to your personal preference really, they all get the job done well.

Though for information, i use AniDB the most.

[Sosseres]

I use the combination of AniDB and Baka-Updates Manga.

I simply like both sites and have gotten used to them. Their competition is roughly in the same class, so it is just preference and extra features.

[Zalis116]

AnimeNewsNetwork's only been mentioned once in passing, so it deserves a little more attention:

Pros:
Relatively easy to add titles, either from individual anime pages or alphabetical lists.
Rating is fast and easy once titles are added
Allows customized lists
Best-formatted comment/mini-review feature I've seen.
Allows several sorting options, including by comment
Can track manga, database is reasonably complete aside from some very obscure titles
Can view entire list on 1 page if desired, or customize items per page
Tracking of DVD collections
Can find the lists of "like-minded" users to assist in the search for recommendations.

Cons:
Can take awhile to add anime, unless you go by the alphabetical lists
No default "stalled" or "Won't Watch" / blacklisted categories
No fansubber or ripper info
No episode progress or total time watched tracking
No language options for title sorting, i.e. you'll find Strawberry Marshmallow / Ichigo Mashimaro in "S" no matter what.
No tracking of start/end dates.

Anime-Planet is very easy and fast for adding and rating titles, but the database isn't complete (hentai effing where?), doesn't track rewatches, and doesn't track any information on viewing formats, legal or illegal. Tracks total time watched and allows some customization. No tracking of start/end dates. Tracks manga (I think?)

MyAnimeList: interface isn't hard to use, but adding and rating titles is very slow and cumbersome. I can say that I never would've maintained an MAL list if I hadn't been able to import my AniDB list to it. Even then, I had to go find every random little omake, sidestory, and unaired episode that MAL has separate entries for, like this one. Tracks DVD collection and fansubber/ripper info, but only vaguely. (You have to remember or guess how many GB a series occupies, for instance.) Tracks rewatches and started/finished dates. Shared anime list with rating comparisons is a good feature, although I use it more for giving recs than getting them. No language sorting options, which is especially annoying because they randomly use English titles for some shows and romaji ones for others, irrespective of licensing status. Also tracks manga, though I don't use that feature.

AniDB: Although I'm an old-time ANN loyalist, I have to say AniDB is my overall favorite. Very complete database, tracks rewatches, episode progress, start/finish dates, release groups, file size/type/quality, time spent, total file size, and legit-media watching. I've seen a lot of complaints about AniDB being confusing or user-unfriendly. However, I've never felt that, even when I was new to downloading anime back in 2005. Adding and rating is fairly quick and easy. I add everything manually, although I understand there are programs that can automate the process. AniDB's list sorting can't be beat: user-review ratings, overall site ratings, airdate, progress, total series length, you name it. And then there's the filters, which allow you to answer questions like "what're the top-rated anime in my list that I haven't seen yet?" And then there's the integration with the tag system, which allows you to find more shows with your favorite fetish elements story components that you haven't seen.

So since they all have their pros and cons, I use them all. That way, there's less of a chance that some show will slip through the cracks of my memory and not get added.

[ikke]

[review?]
The only ones I know of are AniDB, A-P and MAL.

AniDB is more professional and more intensive. Hell, I got intimidated while making remaking my list and stopped going on it, let alone never finishing the list. But still very informative, with subbers and whatnot. Problem is no pictures, or at least I have not stayed long on AniDB to find them.

A-P has the nice premade signature box awaiting for you and adding the animes and manga are very simple. They have screenshots of the anime but they are mostly the first episode. Once again, simple to use. The problem with it, as mentioned, is the use of multiple pages, 0-5 rating system with .5 intervals (which is not enough imo), time of updating the series (episode and/or synopsis) and the tags are very limited with multiple mistakes. They recently added character pages, but imo is very poor to piece of shit. No list for Hentais.. but does that really make it lose points?

MAL has the one page list for both as mentioned before. The custom tags are fun to use and the rating system is from 1 to 10 with a bit of guideline saying excellent, average, poor and so on. They have fairly the same information as animenewsnetwork about a title and they have fairly detailed character pages, which is great. Like A-P it is easy to use. The thing I hate from MAL is similar to A-P, the rare occasions of updating the characters. One opinion of mine that makes me "hate" MAL are the clubs. I gotta say, some of the clubs are worth making like "List of x or y in anime/mangas". The only problem is that they add or don't add some characters that make/don't make sense into the category. Reviews are generally better but that depends on the critic, which you have to know who is good and who is just trolling. Recently watched is both good and bad. Good, you can pm someone that just finished a title. Bad, it marks you as "Recently watched" as soon as you add it to your list, even if you put it as "Plan to watch".

imo, All sites have some retarded person adding recommendations that have facepalming reasons.
They should combine these sites together to make an ultimate one.
[/review?]

Thanks for the detailed info. I visited anidb and A-P lately. As mentioned anidb is a bit user-unfriendly compared to A-P and MAL. So I made an A-P account to further investigate. It works kinda good and I noticed an option to import lists from other sites which might be handy because I still had some stuff on MAL. Anyway I'm going to check out anidb too cause I had the feeling their database is somewhat better

[ikke]

AnimeNewsNetwork's only been mentioned once in passing, so it deserves a little more attention:

Pros:
Relatively easy to add titles, either from individual anime pages or alphabetical lists.
Rating is fast and easy once titles are added
Allows customized lists
Best-formatted comment/mini-review feature I've seen.
Allows several sorting options, including by comment
Can track manga, database is reasonably complete aside from some very obscure titles
Can view entire list on 1 page if desired, or customize items per page
Tracking of DVD collections
Can find the lists of "like-minded" users to assist in the search for recommendations.

Cons:
Can take awhile to add anime, unless you go by the alphabetical lists
No default "stalled" or "Won't Watch" / blacklisted categories
No fansubber or ripper info
No episode progress or total time watched tracking
No language options for title sorting, i.e. you'll find Strawberry Marshmallow / Ichigo Mashimaro in "S" no matter what.
No tracking of start/end dates.

Anime-Planet is very easy and fast for adding and rating titles, but the database isn't complete (hentai effing where?), doesn't track rewatches, and doesn't track any information on viewing formats, legal or illegal. Tracks total time watched and allows some customization. No tracking of start/end dates. Tracks manga (I think?)

MyAnimeList: interface isn't hard to use, but adding and rating titles is very slow and cumbersome. I can say that I never would've maintained an MAL list if I hadn't been able to import my AniDB list to it. Even then, I had to go find every random little omake, sidestory, and unaired episode that MAL has separate entries for, like this one. Tracks DVD collection and fansubber/ripper info, but only vaguely. (You have to remember or guess how many GB a series occupies, for instance.) Tracks rewatches and started/finished dates. Shared anime list with rating comparisons is a good feature, although I use it more for giving recs than getting them. No language sorting options, which is especially annoying because they randomly use English titles for some shows and romaji ones for others, irrespective of licensing status. Also tracks manga, though I don't use that feature.

AniDB: Although I'm an old-time ANN loyalist, I have to say AniDB is my overall favorite. Very complete database, tracks rewatches, episode progress, start/finish dates, release groups, file size/type/quality, time spent, total file size, and legit-media watching. I've seen a lot of complaints about AniDB being confusing or user-unfriendly. However, I've never felt that, even when I was new to downloading anime back in 2005. Adding and rating is fairly quick and easy. I add everything manually, although I understand there are programs that can automate the process. AniDB's list sorting can't be beat: user-review ratings, overall site ratings, airdate, progress, total series length, you name it. And then there's the filters, which allow you to answer questions like "what're the top-rated anime in my list that I haven't seen yet?" And then there's the integration with the tag system, which allows you to find more shows with your favorite fetish elements story components that you haven't seen.

So since they all have their pros and cons, I use them all. That way, there's less of a chance that some show will slip through the cracks of my memory and not get added.

Thanks for the info!
Just like you I was always loyal to ANN to when there was need for a new series to watch. But since I'm on BBT most series-pages link to anidb and A-P. So since then I noticed that the database of anidb is more complete. Although I started a A-P account a few days ago, I guess it's a smart move to check out anidb too. Bit sad though that I've so little time to watch anime nowadays.... T_T