What your first experience in Mangadex or any online manga site and what future do you think mangadex have. I'm depressed and want to know

[Admmi]

My first experience with manga sites started when I finished bleach, I really wanted to know what was happening afterwards and I couldnt wait for a new season that was probably not coming so i bite the bullet and searched on google bleach manga and I found a nice site that I'm pretty sure it's still up to this day unionmangas, through it is an useless site for everyone that doesnt know Portuguese.
After a while reading on unionmangas was not enough, I liked some niche stuff and while some people do translate it for portuguese, most of the times the English scans are way ahead and so I typed on google a certain manga that I dont even remember anymore and clicked on the first result, it was mangakakalot, nowadays manganato, and I had a blast, so many more works being translated.
Eventually manganato stopped working well for a while, no idea why, but not even that stopped me from going there, until a scan published an April first chap, and mangakakalot didnt change it ever, so with a link to mangadex provided on that same chapter decided to come here, but well, I still go to both sites even if the ads on manganato are cancer, I just like to see how both communities react to a chap.
About the future of mangadex, it's actually looking good right now, but for a long while I though it was not going to survive much longer, but now I have hope

 

[infinity781]

I have been reading mangas on and off my whole life now. The first was probably printed volumes of Dragon Ball. That was the first period (circa 2015 bc it was printed then). Then I went into a spiral of wasting my middle school away with games (Minecraft and some easy games here and there, sometimes mangas).

The second period came somewhere in 2018, this is the only period where I both read manga and watch anime. Only manga I could remember was Domestic Kanojo and boy was I angry when the author decides nah, they aren't getting married. I watched some popular animes like K-On, Horimiya, Maou-jou de Oyasumi, etc. And my immature mind was exposed to pornwa/hentai in general around this time.

The third period came in the middle of 2021, I was really bored at home and came across an ad of one of the most beautiful piece of art I have ever seen (not even exaggerating, read this for reference, a shame the art has fallen off since but it remains a fond memory) on Mangatoon app, which despite the name is an app for manhua. Then at the end of the same year, after getting a taste of the official environment where people were very nice, I decided to try out (illegal) comic web (in my local language) bc the stuff on the app is official so the release tend to be quite a bit slower than scanlation. And boy was it more toxic, people spamming, posting se\x links, etc. Then after reading locally for about 1-2 years, I decided manga and manhwa in my local language is really shit, because it was pretty much all MTL (manhua is good bc Chinese is so close with our language it pretty much works all the time). I then go to Mangadex for all that manga and manhwa need. After being here for over a year, I have noticed that simply mangadex isn't sufficient anymore and went on to a bot website like mangapark where they pretty much have all the mangas that are finished but lack a lot of chapters here on mangadex.

These days, I don't have a lot of free time now that I'm in uni. I tried getting my fill of manga by following local publishers and when they decide to license a certain mangas/mannhuas/manhwas, I evaluate it on mangadex by reading the first volume and decide if I want to pick it up or not. And I think I will keep it this way to avoid putting too much comics in the backlog. I don't think the situation will die down, as more publishers keep getting bashed for being stupid with their ideas most of the time, Mangaplus is good tho, I read Dragon Ball Super on there.

 

[Tony_Mushah]

Some context :
I live in Madagascar, a country where most of people doesn't care about manga and anime stuff.
Only rich people can afford to pay an internet router to watch anime,
but for me, and even have enough money to watch a Youtube video.
Still people here still believe in ghost, demons, witches...
so when parents doesn't let their kid watch anime here,
because they think that it make their kids possessed by demons...

With that in mind, i started reading manga in 2019 with Love Hina (french version),
the high school library has the first tome there.
But the other volumes is not available.
I searched online and found the 13 other volume somewhere on the internet.
After that, I was like damn, this manga is so sick man then the adventure begin.

By searching some manga to read online, I found Tonikaku Kawaii on some anime new site back in 2020.
I found some chapter on MangaFreak and it was really good...
Around 2021, I found MangaDex when searching for Kanojo mo Kanojo chapters
and started using it since then.

While starting college, I learned Computer Science and knew the existence of the MangaDex API
And I was I want my own manga reader desktop app to read my favorite titles offline.
I started the developpement with chaotic management and bad technology choices
but I'm still proud of what I did .
(I recently restarted the project though due to my lack knowledge)


With what it looks now, MangaDex has a lot of potential and interest for both reader and editor (+authors).
I know that scanlating is somehow illegal, but editors and authors closed theirs eyes.
At least, they are giving hype
It seems nothing, but a lot of title will be not on the mainstream without MangaDex.
I know that there is official translated version on MangaPlus, Kadosha Us
but most of which is already mainstreamed on Japan.
(It even sometimes happens that the scanlated version is better than the official translation)

MangaDex has still a lot of year to live with.
The worst case scenario will be that MangaDex doesn't have enough funds to maintain the infrastructure.
This is why we need to support them (even a little is appreciated).

 

[kohelemon]

Hmm... where'd it begin... back in the day when I was still into MHA fully (Barely getting back into it after 7-8 years) I would get the volumes from the library and just binge read until the sun went down. But of course, the Library stopped getting volumes after volume 18 which left me at a dry period for a while. Nervous I decided to go online and I found my first online site, and continued reading that way because we also stopped going to the library for quite some time. Then I discovered One Piece on another site.
As can be told, I've been with Mangadex for about 1-2 years now, Mangareader just became infested with adds and viruses and Mangadex has all I'm into. And nowadays I'm actually playing the 2 bucks a month for shonen jump so I can read stuff like MHA and OP Legitimately. As long as Baki and Fist of the Blue Sky remain untranslated, and as long as Viz is behind on Jojo translations. And as long as Hajime No Ippo and Kingdom remain untranslated in the US, I'll keep reading on Mangadex. May seem cheap, but I'm not made out of money! I want to make sure the series I want to read is worth reading.

 

[Basic_human]

I kinda forgot first manga experience. It's was long time ago, like 4 or 5 years ago, it's was local site with my mother language only. Back then I think I was recommended by people on internet, back then I would join WhatsApp group fill with anime lover, discussing and sharing anime. And some people send link to manga website and from there I'm addicted to manga. For EN site first time it's was my close friend showing me a manga and I ask him where you read and from there is start reading more manga. Im grateful to able to found EN manga site, the manga variety is so much better there