Yanno, something that bothers me about the manga translation community, is how there is nothing like NU in there. Because like... NU is really really practical, and it's the main reason why I never considered using any novel aggregator site instead.
And like, sure, Mangadex is practical, and mangaupdates does put most of the information out there for the public to see, but... None of them are as practical as NU. I do use them both, but it still feels lacking to me, which is... Quite annoying.
Back in Batoto days it was even worse, because the site was very laggy and there were plenty of mangas missing from the catalogue. Mangadex at least has the lag problem solved and generally speaking, you can find anything that isn't licensed there.
But uhn... I still feel like it's not nearly enough! I need a better site than just one that functions! >.<
Like... It's homepage shows roughly the 40 newest updated mangas and 8ish featured titles and 8ish new titles, as well as the top 10 titles... Which is usable I suppose? (ah, it also has a top chapters function, that IMO is useless, but maybe somebody cares about it)
Meanwhile an aggregator that I use primarily to find new mangas has 25ish newly updated mangas, 10 featured mangas, 25 popular mangas, and a top 5 of eight different genres in the front page. (the top 5 is based on very recent popularity, so it's also very helpful in showing you whenever a manga you like has updated, because it pretty much always shows there whenever it gets an update) And it's all very clean and intuitive to use.
And like... I wanted to transition to mangadex to support the translators and stuff, and I do read some series there, but... It's really hard to just stop using the aggregator when it's just a lot more practical and gives me much more stuff that I want to look at in order to find interesting new mangas to read, while also making it easier for me to know when stuff I like was updated. (Yes, I know you can just "follow" a manga in mangadex and you'll be notified when it updates, but I don't use the site while logged in, so I look at it from the functionality of a guest user)
It feels a bit sad overall, I just prefer to use an aggregator because the site is plain and simply better than mangadex to me. Like... Not 100% better, mangadex has some really nice things, like links to the translator sites, links to raws, links to mangaupdates, an actual synopsis that often times isn't visible in aggregators... But it's front page feels really lacking to me! And that's what I use the most! >.<
Not to mention they for some reason like showing the latest cover instead of the first one, which can be spoilerish. Ah, and their forums are shit and don't have a search function, like... The hell is that piece of garbage? I know better forums on outdated software that were made in 2006! >.< (And I complain a lot about those dated forums btw)
Seriously, who makes a forum without a search function? It can't be that hard to implement that... And like, when a manga group disappears and I want to know more about it, what do I do? I google about it to see reddit results, because I can't find anything on it in mangadex because I have no search function to look for a thread! >.<
... Not like aggregator forums (if they have one) are much better though, but I don't expect them to be better... I just expected more from mangadex's forums I guess.
So uhn... There are a bunch of small qualms that end up frustrating me when I use mangadex, which makes me often times go back to the aggregators... Primarily to find new stuff nowadays, but this often means I end up reading it there as well... Or try going directly to the translator site as opposed to reading it in mangadex because... I dunno, I really can't like mangadex I guess, it feels lacking to me.
Oh well, that's just my rant, I still love the fact mangadex exists and does a great job for the community, I just wish the site was better than it currently is.
Manga Aggregators and Mangadex
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AliceShiki
『Ms. Tree』『Magical Girl of Love and Justice』, Female
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