Add "Magazine" section for each Manga's page + Serialization Info.

[Republicman96]

Alongside the other sections on the left side of the screen (thinking of the desktop version) like "Author/Artist", "Demographic", "Genre" etc., there can also be a "Magazine" tag, showing the magazine(s) that the work was serialized in (Ex. Dragon Ball - Magazine: "Weekly Shonen Jump") and bring you to a page with other works of that magazine. This would in appear in edit mode like everything else and, to reiterate, you can add more than one magazine if applicable. Additionally, like with mangaka, there will be a description for each magazine as well a profile pic (for the magazine's mascot, or representative iconography i.e. the Shonen Jump Raider) and banner of one's choice.

This thought process came about from some personal projects of mine. One of them being when updating the pages for manga adaptations of Nintendo properties I add "Nintendo" in the "Author" section (in addition to the mangaka/manga writer's name), leading one to a page serving as a central hub of sorts for those adaptations.

There would also be small icon next to the magazine (an icon like ℹ️) clicking on it shows serialization and behind the scenes history on the manga when it was serialized in that magazine.

It would look something like this:

Page: Death Note

Author:
Tsugumi Oba

Artist:
Takeshi Obata

Genre:
Mystery

Theme:
Cooking (...AND EAT IT!)

Demographic:
Shonen

Magazine:
Weekly Shonen Jump ℹ️

click

Serialized from X Issue _____ Year to Y Issue _____ Year. The duo said ______ when interviewed. Break was taken on ______. Often rumored that . New one-shot was published _. Etc.

This extension came to mind because of the soon-to-implemented description feature for volume covers. Which is a great addition because you can include information related to that edition of the work.

The benefits when incorporating a feature like this is two fold:

• For one, you gain a much better understanding of the manga and its history and see how many stellar and incredible works were in just one magazine. I brought Jump up as an example as it's the most famous, but also the only one many might even know about. Even the oldest of Jump's lineup many would be familiar with are only Fist of the North Star or Dr. Slump. --So you can get familiarity of magazines like Weekly Shonen Sunday or Weekly Shonen Magazine, magazines many only know about in passing but nevertheless have a poor understanding of, and to also see the complete lineup of the magazine throughout the years. I'd say a lot of folks would be earnestly shocked at what was in early Jump's lineup, or be shocked that works like these in Shonen Sunday were only four years part from each other.
• Second, if one wants to only read works from one magazine, then it makes it easier to see what's running and popular, this also accounts for any new one-shots published, and keeps one up to date with what's going on and, in the long term can serve as something of an alternative to the web versions of magazines that don't have an English or other language translated equivalent. For example, Shueisha has Manga+ and Viz, the Jump App, but there exist no exact equivalent with Champion, Sunday, or Magazine, in the Anglosphere.

That's why, for MangaDex, it can also have the benefit of serving as a source of information even outside of trackers, where you can read about a work and proceed to actually read it right after. While some may think that the free form nature of the site when it comes to editing info might work to its detriment, the forums and comments section exist for a reason. Discrepancies can be handled directly, and can lead to faster results than to wait for the staff when they may have other things to attend to.

To prevent any issues, I don't wish for the staff to think I'm telling them what to do, or to give the impression that I'm trying impose a personal vision of the site to anyone. I've observed the features of the site for the last couple of years, and from what I've seen, I would say the features I've suggested would be beneficial for the userbase and will help to continue to foster manga culture internationally.

The MangaDex staff, from Admins to Moderators and so forth, have done a stellar job with the site throughout the years and I hope to do my part.

And, of course, any feedback is welcome, this is all for the betterment of the site.

Let me know what all of you think.

 

[RogueKitsune]

Sounds like a good ideas, but please God no.

MD would have to maintain a list of all magazines, which sounds like a maintenance pain, or it would have to be free form, which means tons of cursed data.

Better to leave that stuff to dedicated tracker sites like MU, MAL, etc.

 

[Republicman96]

I figured that would be the response 😫.

My reply is this. There are a myriad of issues with the tracker sites in terms of information accuracy, information repetition(where the tracker sites just share the exact same info with each other instead of doing their own research), lack of information (Many, if not most of the pages on MangaUpdates lack even the most basic of basics for tags), them being Anime-centric in nature, so coverage on manga is by default treated more secondarily, to the point where a manga character's profile picture can be their promo art from the anime adaptation.

MangaUpdates is the exception to this (in terms of the Anime-centrism), but still puts a lot of emphasis on where an anime adaptation starts and ends, and often doesn't account for international releases of a manga (from countries other than the US) unlike MangaDex, where every language edition of a work (along with its corresponding language title) gets covered.

Additionally, descriptions for separate volume covers is a feature none of the trackers have, despite that being such a big informational tool. It's because of these issues, from using the tracker sites (have accounts on every single one, I use MangaUpdates most often) that MangaDex could benefit from having more emphasis on information based features internally and independent from the tracker sites (not suggesting that the trackers should be removed, but should be supplemental).

Also, I know I'm going to come off as a jerk for saying this, so please don't take this the wrong way, I say this impartially. This is a manga website. Manga Magazines themselves have a longform history alongside demographics, genres, themes, etc. I don't wish to comment on the technicality of it, but demographics as a category also seem very maintenance intensive, but it's a decision that has paid off for the MangaDex staff, I'd say.

This doesn't mean I don't understand that it will be a taxing endeavor, but it's a worthwhile one in the long term. Learning about the works plays just as much of a part as reading them.

Of course, I wish to emphasize that what I think doesn't matter, fundamentally. Whatever the MangaDex staff ends up deciding, will be their decision to make. I only wish to do my part, like I mentioned.

 

[AthK]

It’ll be pretty good to have managzine section tbh. MD has much higher community than MangaUpdates. So, if MU can maintain that magazine info for all these manga, then MD community can easily do that as well.

 

[slch]

Multiple magazines per title sounds nice
Having exact dates there would be a bit cursed: (bi)weekly, monthly, releases, hiatus times...
Rather, magazines have years and per year numbering... that could work.
Then connect each magazine release with chapter numbers?
Would work for popular titles at least, for smaller ones filling all details without some kind of automation (in bulk) seems mega cursed.

tldr
Would be nice, but can't imagine a proper implementation atm.

 

[fchiisaia21]

As someone who regularly read manga by magazine, I definitely want this.
It's easier to find manga that catered to my demography with magazine tag.

Demographic tag is not enough, as magazine with same demography tag can entirely different from each other, as well as other demographic tag.
For example: Young Magazine and Manga Time Kirara, both are seinen magazine, yet the content are heavily different from each other. One is targeted to general adult male, while others are targeted to otaku and moe connosieur.


---------------------------

Also, I believe people will add one magazine under different name, like Weekly Shonen Jump, Shuukan Shounen Jump, Shounen Jump, and Shonen Jump. There has to be a system to avoid this.

 

[Tanukischarm]

MD would have to maintain a list of all magazines, which sounds like a maintenance pain, or it would have to be free form, which means tons of cursed data.

Seconded to this.

Ideas like this are always tempting to implement but maintaining them is the main problem. It's a pain. I can say this as an admin myself. Even if there is a good system, I think users also need to be educated and supported with manuals. But who knows, I think it's up to the developers.

 

[fchiisaia21]

Just giving a reference

Among every manga related database that supports manga magazine info, the most superior one is Bangumi, a Chinese tracking site.

Instead of merely giving info like "Weekly Shonen Jump" or "Morning", they actually have proper page for the magazine with necessary info like this one:

Magazine info provided is not merely text info, but also proper magazine change info+date, like this one from Chainsaw Man page:

PS. Bangumi.tv is one-for-all otaku culture related database, from manga, anime, game, dorama, music, etc.

 

[erova]

I think I would like a feature like that, I feel like most sites don't do this well and if done right, it could be pretty cool.
You've already mentioned some ideas and arguments I had in mind as well, like alternate names and when a work moves from one magazine to another, which usually means a demographic change.

Personally, I feel it would be good to work with the publisher's page as a base and in a subgroup for the magazine
example:

Shueisha Page
Filters
State: Discontinued, Publishing
Type: Digital, Physical
Period: Weekly, Bi-weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Irregular, etc.
Demographics: Shounen, Shoujo, Seinen, Josei, Kodomo
Year:
(this could be applicable to advanced search engine as well)

➡️ Magazine List:

• Weekly Shounen Jump
• Young Jump
• Margaret
• Ultra Jump
• Ribon
• Cookie
• Office
• V Jump
• JUMP+

This is just an example of a publisher, it works with most publishers and magazines, with exceptions, which are lolicon magazines Hentai magazines, BL magazines, among others, if you set values to the magazines, these could be applied directly to the manga within that magazine
If we select Weekly Shounen Jump data, for example, as Shonen and Weekly, then all the manga we add that are published in "weekly shounen jump" will be shonen and weekly.

If we go deeper we can put the date when each magazine is usually published and automatize chapter counters... Continuing with WSJ, it is published every Tuesday in Japan, which for most of us would be Monday. For biweekly and monthly magazines it is more specific with the dates, Big Comic Original is biweekly and is published on 5th and 20th of each month, Ultra Jump is published on 9th of each month, each magazine has a specific date or period in which they are published.

 

[rhinne]

For example, WSJ, Jump Square, Shoujo Comic, Gangan Joker, etc. Then you could filter these in Advanced Search if you wanted to browse a magazine's listings. If it's not in a magazine, the closest thing could be listed, like LINE Webtoon, Pixiv, Twitter (now called X), or simply a "self-published" tag.

Practical uses for this could simply be to make sure someone picks up a manga that say, updates weekly instead of every 3 months. Or to make sure someone doesn't pick up a Twitter comic that will probably be of dubious quality or update at incredibly random times.

mod note - merged into relevant thread