Site Update - 14th of May 2025

[Riazuri]

I survived the death of Onemanga. I can survive this. Shitty publishers can't even provide people all around the world a good site that has all manga series regardless of companies, that's not region locked or chapters split into parts, and no shitty lolcowlization. Unless they can give us a better experience than here and other piracy sites, pirated manga won't stop.

Backing all my reading list to other aggregator sites is a pain in the ass though

Yup... I am following over 2,000 titles... This will take a while unless a tool comes along

 

[kn4ll]

With how prevalent AI (reads MTL) is, most likely those new translations will be trash. This is another sad day for the community.

MTL has come a long way the past couple of years, especially with the help of AI. Both LLM like chatgpt and tools like panel cleaner for OCR have come a long way. It's completely different from the days when you had to use like scanlate.io.

I'm genuinely considering learning programming for python or something to make a program that combines some of these to make a psd that only needs to be edited before it can be released. Something similar to ichigoreader or cotrans, only that instead of making a page for reading, it makes a basis for scanlating. Honestly I think it's weird that no one hasn't made it already, though my bet is that someone has but doesn't have it public. Like how hard could it be, just feed the raws to manga ocr, let it clean the parts that can be cleaned like in panel cleaner and use AI generative fill (llama or whatever) on that which can't be cleaned, make a complete chapter script like with panel cleaner (probably needs to go manually over like in panel cleaner though), run the script through chatgpt in a table form so you keep the line consistency, and then just put them where the original lines were and save it as a psd to finish. It sounds ridiculously simple honestly.

Though considering how much I struggle with just installing stuff in the terminal, this might be a bit of a hurdle for me I guess.

 

[Gian]

I guess I lucked out, I barely lost anything. I thought it may be because I largely follow smaller titles, but many niche ones got taken down too and most of the large titles I do read are unaffected.

Well, for now, that is.

 

[JVick]

Yup... I am following over 2,000 titles... This will take a while unless a tool comes along

If the mangadex API still works, you could scrap everything with a python script. I did that last time the website was down for several months.

 

[besbin]

MTL has come a long way the past couple of years, especially with the help of AI. Both LLM like chatgpt and tools like panel cleaner for OCR have come a long way. It's completely different from the days when you had to use like scanlate.io.

Doesn't mean it will catch up to the quality of translation of the best fan translation. There's also other important steps in scanlation like type settings and redrawing that a lot of official releases cheap out on. If they are already using AI to save cost for translation then why would they want to pay more to get it done properly?

 

[shinytoast]

That's a shame. Mangadex, even with the stuff I disliked about it, has consistently been better than basically any alternative. Sad to see these series (and probably many more in the near future) go. Hopefully that library export tool that was talked about earlier in the thread comes out soon so I can fix my library without spending hours moving titles one by one.

 

[Bentoki]

Go a few extra steps, ban any group that accepts donations or scanlates something with an active english license. Scanlating a series with a simulpub should be a no-brainer.

 

[LeooNguyen]

Publishers really think that people outside of Japan are willing to pay for fragmented chapters with negative UX.
If anything, their lesser-known manga will remain the same until it's axed.

This will only encourage more aggregators to appear. If one site goes down, two more will appear with more ads.

 

[no168_92]

For the chapters/series taken down from MD, are they just 'gone' gone or simply hidden to the end users but still in their database?

Still everything is such a pity tho... and so short-sighted on the party that initiated this mass removal.

 

[kn4ll]

Go a few extra steps, ban any group that accepts donations or scanlates something with an active english license. Scanlating a series with a simulpub should be a no-brainer.

Nobody tell him about the new coin based paywall groups.

 

[KaidaChan]

Soon Mangadex will just become a glorified MAL used for ratings and forums until the creators pull the plug. Had a good run and was possibly the best site for manga in history during v3.

 

[PhatGus]

All my favourite manga are gone ;-;

 

[kn4ll]

Doesn't mean it will catch up to the quality of translation of the best fan translation. There's also other important steps in scanlation like type settings and redrawing that a lot of official releases cheap out on. If they are already using AI to save cost for translation then why would they want to pay more to get it done properly?

I don't mind simple and clean typesetting, it's what I do myself. Honestly if a release has more than three fonts or something it's kind of a pain to read. I like having consistent font size, only use a few fonts, and keep it as clean as possible.
Have you seen how good AI redrawing has become? I use IOPaint (llama) which isn't as great as photoshop AI generative fill, but it does a pretty good job and usually don't really need any work done on it afterwards, especially since you cover it up with strokes.

 

[jasohn07]

For the chapters/series taken down from MD, are they just 'gone' gone or simply hidden to the end users but still in their database?

Still everything is such a pity tho... and so short-sighted on the party that initiated this mass removal.

If it's still in the database, I would really appreciate it if they gave the original uploader/scanlation team a chance to retrieve it if they so wished so that the team could go and upload it somewhere else or just keep the files for personal use. For those uploaders & team's that don't want it, then give anyone else who wants to retrieve it a chance to do so for the same purpose(s). Oh, and make sure the window of time is a sufficiently long enough one, like say a month to three months.

 

[Basic_human]

Empty barren land huh....

Even reading it on other site there is a catch. The TL group that native here can't upload anymore so no new chapter for very long times huh.

Man.... I should've read those popular title billions years ago

 

[Bumblebeepee]

I'm not aware of any library export tools.
If no one creates one within the next week or so, I will do it myself.

I'm interested in this too, i didnt realise there isnt a built in export feature.

 

[KaidaChan]

I'm interested in this too, i didnt realise there isnt a built in export feature.

tbh it’s not like the staff have added many features lately. We’re still in a degraded state compared to v3 features wise which feels a bit funny but it’s true.

 

[Shot8manga]

I guess I lucked out, I barely lost anything. I thought it may be because I largely follow smaller titles, but many niche ones got taken down too and most of the large titles I do read are unaffected.

Well, for now, that is.

I wouldn't outright called my situation lucky even if my library mostly unaffected, think of those great series, old golds, more niche stuff you could have uncovered but can't anymore.

Peeps say go to aggregates site, but knowing some series may not be have backup site is regrettable since MD is the go to for group/solo scanlation to push their fan translation work instead of somewhere else due to reach and convenient.

Tbf, I rather forget that I know I missed something good rather than knowing all the missed opportunity 🥲.

 

[chromium2017]

this is genuinely frustrating and sad, I've used the OG batoto in the early 2010s then mangadex came along and been using this site ever since, also this is the only website which is the most scanlation friendly and user friendly and the only site where can i actually find good mangas. i hope this dmca bullshit doesn't continue if it does i blame that dogshit kakao and naver for starting this bullshit trend

 

[Kag5n]

I see that among the many Manga that were DMCAed, we can still see the very latest chapters (like the 3 latest ones). Does this mean that the site will work like Mangaplus? Like, we can still follow the Manga we read if we are up to date with them?