When I first saw the picture of that straw, I was all ready to type up a snarky comment about how it wouldn’t work as a straw unless you sucked up on both ends.

…but then that’s exactly what they did.

Well done everyone. Good work!

Are we still doing phrasing?

Totally fine. We are all wandering the post-MD wilderness at the moment.

it can’t understand a link to a specific chapter

This is exactly why I couldn’t figure it out. Thanks!

With how these SL groups are all going to different places, I am going to have to finally figure out how to use cubari.

Alright, updates to my experience with Suwayomi for those that might stumble upon this in the future. Turns out a lot of my problems were solvable.

The biggest fix I made was running it from SSD rather than straight from my HDD array. This fixed a lot of the slowness. My SSD cache drive on my NAS isn’t the biggest, so I was able to use docker volume mappings to stick the downloads folder onto the array while leaving the rest of the app files on the cache SSD. This has dramatically helped speed things up.

The other main thing that helped was enabling websockets in my reverse proxy. It turns out that the main reason the web ui was so unresponsive is that it heavily uses websockets to do things like update progress bars and the like. I have to deal with CGNAT, so it is a bit involved to set up (some extra lines in a couple nginx config files), so it isn’t something I do by default for each of my services. It helps dramatically with Suwayomi.

Since making these improvements, it has been much nicer to use.

TIL about suwayomi. I just set it up now and it is interesting. Basically, it is like a hosted version of mihon that lives on a server (it uses the same extensions and can even import a backup from mihon). It works exactly like mihon and many of the menus/settings are exactly the same. Chapters are downloaded and the library is periodically updated exactly like in mihon. You could basically put this on something like a NAS at home and use it like a web version of mihon. Optionally, you can figure out the hosting side of things and have it live at a domain you own, like manga.yourdomain.com behind basic auth.

The most interesting part of hosting it on the web is that you can install a suwayomi extension in mihon on your mobile device. Then, your mobile device can browse your suwayomi library just like it does any other extension. Reading chapters on either your mobile device or on the suwayomi web ui will mark them as read. Additionally, it means that you can exclusively use the suwayomi extension on your mobile device and leave all the other extension management to the suwayomi install, migrating as needed when sources appear/disappear. All of that would be completely transparent to mihon because it is still just pointing to the same title on suwayomi.

I am going to be messing around with this. There are some rough edges I have run into. The main issue I am having is that chapter downloads are really slow and the web ui isn’t the most responsive at updating things like download percentages or library updates. I also couldn’t get flaresolverr to work. Disabling that part of the docker compose file got downloads working again (just slow).

I’m doing my part! I was just in Providence a bit this weekend (I was kind of all over New England) and am always happy to help the local scene where I can. Anime Herald has some great, high quality articles; the kind that are in-depth, well researched, but aren’t clickbaity enough to survive on ad revenue alone.

First things first, this whole situation sucks, and not just for us (users of MD). It is going to suck for these publishers as well. Without sites like MD spreading manga to international audiences, those audiences are simply going to stop reading it and consume some other form of entertainment. The official avenues to get this content largely don’t exist in many parts of the world, and where they do exist kinda (very much) suck. As readership drops, the value of their IP for licensing will also decrease.

I have a lot more understanding for these companies issuing takedowns for IPs that have been licensed, but the vast swath of unlicensed content (that is almost guaranteed to never be licensed) makes this feel punitive to the community as a whole and vindictive.

As for the future, I fear that scanlators are going to go a couple different routes:

• Some scanlators will likely just stop.
• Some will move to uploading to a different aggregator.
• Some will only upload to their own site.
• Some will probably only post on less public forums or chatrooms like a discord server.

In any case, it is inevitably going to fragment the community.

Trying to catch up on things. I have managed to make a dent and get caught up with most of the shows I wanted to. Still to be caught up on are Gundam and Kowloon.

• Apocalypse Hotel - This show is shaping up to be something truly special. This most recent episode was outstanding. It has blown my expectations out of the water.
• Ninja and Assassin - Studio Shaft continue to deliver some really great and creative animation to one of this really dark comedy. This most recent episode was overflowing with bountiful jokes.
• Apothecary Diaries - Has done a really great job of paying off a lot of things from earlier in the season when things felt a bit slow. Looking forward to the coming climax.
• Evil Lord Isekai - This is just so dumb, but like, in a funny way. There is no substance, but I have had a couple chuckles.
• Too-Perfect Saint - Overall, this continues to be a solid adaptation. I have liked the way the story was rearranged a bit and have really liked Mia’s side of the story.
• Rock is a Lady’s Modesty - A bit of a less profanity-laced episode this week, but it ended on a bit of a cliffhanger.

Weekly ranking roundup:

1. Anime Corner - Full Results - Weekly Winner: Fire Force Season 3
2. Reddit Karma - Weekly Winner: Apothecary Diaries
3. Anime Trending - Weekly Winner: Witch Watch

Credit to /u/Abysswatcherbel for making the chart for reddit karma and /u/Nooble5 for the Anime Trending chart.

I managed to grab the AT chart this week as well to compare against. I think I am realizing again how different the audiences of these different sites must be. There really isn’t a lot of agreement between them. Also, my viewing seems to be much more in line with reddit’s chart than the others. I am currently only watching 1/10 for both the AC and AC charts, while I am watching 4/10 from reddit’s top 10.

Alright, reading between the lines, it looks like Mangadex is pretty much dead as a platform for scanlations. They seem to be now owned by NamiComi, a platform that allows creators to self-publish comics. Then, in this FAQ, the Mangadex staff write:

We will continue working on the features that make MangaDex great, to make it an even better platform for content creators.

Combine this with the recent updates to their uploading policies which require an uploader to be the legal rights holder, and it looks like the end of Mangadex scanlation uploads except in very particular circumstances (some twitter series have explicit author permission for example).

As for this community, in the short term there are no changes other than that I slightly relaxed the rules in the sidebar. Previously I had a rule about preferring mangadex or scanlators’ home sites if possible. However, in light of these events, I suspect there are going to be a wider array of sources for reading.

The most relevant community would likely be !animation@lemm.ee. Alternatively, simply !Television@lemm.ee could work.

That post was a post from a scanlator noticing a policy change when uploading a chapter. This page is a newly created FAQ by the Mangadex Staff attempting to clarify things about that policy change and answer questions about recent events. They are related, but not exactly duplicates.

I have been meaning to implement score tracking by rikka like this for ages, but it keeps getting put on the backburner for one thing or another. I will try to get some work done on it, I promise!

I can start making those posts again. I had kind of rolled the Friday AC rankings into this post in the general thread because the reddit chart doesn’t come out until Sunday.

This is a really good question.

I am traveling right now with really limited internet access, so I can’t really type too much. When I get home, I am going to be keeping an eye on how the manga subreddit is handling this. I don’t really want to put hitagi in a tight spot, but I also feel like we are such a small community that there isn’t a big risk.

I welcome any other members of the community and their input on this.

Official promotional art like this is totally fine as long as it is timely. Posting official art months or years after the fact wouldn’t be relevant. This is really no different than a key visual or PV.

I am a big fan of her taking in a cat. It’s a great sign of how far she’s come.