As I mentioned in my first blog post, I am a huge nerd. A few of my friends got me into anime a couple of years ago and I have been addicted since. The anime/manga culture is way different than watching T.V. shows on Netflix and Hulu. They are obviously released in Japanese first, but if the anime gets enough popularity, a dubbed (English) version will be released later on. Animes are also released by seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter and each episode of an anime is about 20 minutes long, a minimum of 13 episodes and generally one or two seasons. Because they are so short, anime nerds will watch anywhere from two to five, maybe six animes at a time. So, how does one keep track and up-to-date with the animes they are watching? Simple, they use a website called My Anime List (MAL). The website allows someone to categorize animes into groups: watching, completed, on hold, dropped and plan to watch. They can also rate an anime on a scale of one to ten once the have completed the series.
One of my favorite features about MAL is it’s super easy to look up the synopsis of an anime I don’t know about. You can also find out more information like what other animes the voice actors play in, statistics on how well the anime is doing overall, episode titles, opening/closing theme song names and the composers and reviews about the anime.
MAL is also a social networking site. Users can add their friends and view what animes they are watching or have watched. The layout of the website is simple and very easy to navigate between all the features MAL has to offer. I don’t have a single bad thing to say about My Anime List as far as the website goes. The one thing I don’t like about MAL is if you have an iPhone, there is a MAL app you can download, but there isn’t an app for Androids and I happen to have an Android. Other than that, MAL is great to use. For those who are curious or interested in what animes I have watched or am currently watching, here is a link to my MAL with ratings of each series I’ve completed. If you find an anime you would like to watch, you can do so buy signing up online at Crunchyroll (like Netflix, but for anime) or stream them for free at Kissanime and GoGo Anime. I prefer Kissanime because they have most newer animes and all the older animes and both subbed (Japanese) and dubbed (English) versions of animes where as GoGo Anime just has subbed and the quality isn’t as good. Crunchyroll is also a good website, but you do have to pay and they only have the more recent animes.
Hi Shelby, I enjoyed reading your post over MyAnimeList. To be honest I have never been into, or really understood the Anime culture. Although, after reading your post it opened my eyes to what it is. I try and respect things people enjoy, even if they aren’t something I am particularly into. Thanks for educating me on the world of Anime!
You’re quite welcome! Glad you enjoyed my post!
This is really awesome I always thought I wouldn’t really enjoy magna/anime shows, but my friend roman kind of forced me to watch shows like Attack on Titan and Naruto and I realized the writing is really good and worth watching.
Do you prefer the dubbed shows or shows that just feature English subtitles?
I’ve seen AoT and it’s pretty good! The AoT video game looks awesome too. Are you excited for the live action? I prefer to watch anime subbed. When an anime is in Japanese, it just sounds better. However, there are a couple of animes I prefer dubbed instead or think both subbed/dubbed are good. How about you?