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So I have a list in notepad that I use to keep track of what episode I have watched:

********** Latest episode that I have watched: **********

  • A Certain Magical Index Season 1 Episode 24
  • A Certain Scientific Railgun Season 2 Episode 24
  • Absolute Duo Episode 7
  • Accel World (anime) Episode 23
  • Accel World (light novel) Volume 2 -all-
  • Accel World (manga) 11
  • ... etc.

And some other headings like:

*********** Finished (hopefully not) ***********

and

*********** To watch/consider: ***********

Is there a good tool online to do the same thing that I am doing but better, and will update automatically when a new season is automatically added, such as moved from the finished section to the latest section?

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Aequitas
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    MyAnimeList is decent -- I use it because I don't always follow shows closely enough to remember the exact episode I'm on, and like some other sites, it's decent for keeping track of things I'd like to watch at some point. But it tends to use the romanized Japanese title in a lot of cases, which is annoying. (Sure, I remember _The Flowers of Evil_ as _Aku no Hana_, but it's difficult to say the same of whatever the Japanese titles of Studio Ghibli films are.) – Maroon Jun 20 '15 at 02:43
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    Pretty much every anime site listed [here](http://anime.stackexchange.com/a/4697) provides these features. It's a matter of choice which one(s) you use. The most popular choices are MyAnimeList, Anime-Planet and Hummingbird. – Gao Jun 20 '15 at 02:46

7 Answers7

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MyAnimeList is a fantastic option. Of every site I've tried it's by far the best. In addition to allowing you to track your anime according to a number of headings, it also allows you to specify a ton of other information, like times rewatched, rating, start/end dates, and how you have it stored (for example, if you own DVD's or BluRays of a show). Your ratings are actually aggregated with the rest of the community too - which is a very active community, I might add.

Furthermore, the site will help you track manga in the same way. Not to mention favorite characters and staff members.

Plus they have news, and there's even a blog attached to your account should you choose to use it.

If that weren't enough, it has a massive database of just about every anime and manga you could ever imagine, complete with character lists, plot summaries, staff/stuido information, user reviews, and recommendations for other similar anime.

In conclusion, MAL is exactly what you are looking for and more. Switching from a notepad document to that has saved me quite a few headaches.

anonymous
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  • Hummingbird.me is similar and also worthy of mention. It looks a lot nicer and functions very similarly. – Cattua Jun 20 '15 at 06:00
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As mentioned by Gao and キルア, Hummingbird is also worth a shot. At least as of the time of writing, it fails on a few points:

  • Unlike MAL, Hummingbird does not really support keeping track of manga well: its focus is on anime. You can easily click on an image of animated shows on the front page to move the "record" the site has of where you are forward, but it offers nothing similar for manga.

  • A lot of the additional information you can input into MAL (such as start/end dates of when you saw something) is not present. I don't care about which set of subtitles I used or my rewatch priority for a series -- I mainly use sites like these to keep track of where I am in a series or what I want to watch in the future -- but things like when I saw something are kind of interesting to look at.

(This is why I only mentioned MAL initially.) However:

  • You have a choice between the website showing "canonical" titles, the most common English translation of the title, or the romanized Japanese title. This is immensely useful: MAL often only features the romanized title in its main listings (although it does list alternative titles) and no form of the English title except in cases where the Japanese title is some transliteration of some other language (e.g. Girls und Panzer or Excel Saga, which is listed as Heppoko Jikken Animation Excel Saga). This can become incredibly confusing in series (such as various Studio Ghibli films) where the Japanese title may not be well-known.

  • It offers machine recommendations for anime based on what you've watched. This feature can get kind of wonky because it depends on the various "lists" you have of anime: for instance, at one point, I had a lot of recommendations for various Evangelion productions based on my "watching" list because I was rewatching the Evangelion anime, and moreover, if I've already seen Evangelion and liked it, I probably already know of the existence of the additional films. But this makes for a nice additional feature, and, at least personally, I tend to trust machine recommendations a bit more.

I am unsure if MAL offers anything for light novels: I am inclined to suspect that it does not, as it only has an "anime list" (for anything animated) and a "manga list" for each user.

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Maroon
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  • As far as I can tell, MAL has no story at all for light novels. It doesn't seem to recognize their existence. – Torisuda Jun 20 '15 at 08:54
  • It looks like the link died. I believe Hummingbird was relaunched as Kitsu: https://medium.com/heykitsu/hummingbird-is-dead-long-live-kitsu-bda6ccfbbcce – ahiijny Jul 07 '20 at 04:18
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Another large one is Anime-Planet. This has similar things to MAL & Hummingbird, but also has some additional features.

  • Recommendations of shows based on other shows
  • Recommendations of shows based on what you've watched

(Similarly for manga)

  • Watch anime on-site - legally thanks to their partnership with Crunchyroll, Hulu and some other video providers. If you watch anime through this feature, you can let it automatically update your stats.

  • Track the anime/manga you are watching, have watched, want to watch, do not want to watch, watching-but-stalled-halfway-through... (it covers most bases - even rewatches)

  • Add favourite characters, artists, staff, etc.

  • Read reviews of shows you might like

  • Create custom lists (e.g. "Anime for showing someone how hasn't seen any anime")

  • Discuss anime things in their forum (I don't use this much, but it's there if you want it)

  • View lists of upcoming anime and the currently most popular shows.

  • View graphs of your anime/manga activity. Here's mine for an example:

enter image description here

There is also a smaller selection of light novels and music videos (like Miku) that you can track as well.

The site has a very active owner, who continually makes changes to the site to improve the experience.

Quill
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Toshinou Kyouko
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I find the AniDB the best choice by far, when it comes to tracking watched or planned to watch anime. It also contains some useful tool when you are downloading anime. The tool will scan the file and if it is they database and you marked check box it will automatically add the episode into your list.

user3163749
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You may want to try Kitsu

Pros:

  • A modern UI (much much better than MyAnimeList)
  • Official Android/iOS applications
  • You can import/export from MyAnimeList (including others)
  • It can automatically update your MyAnimeList (and other) library whenever you update your progress on Kitsu

Cons:

  • The community is currently smaller than MyAnimeList (but still considerably large and active)
Akshay Anurag
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(This is only my way of doing it.)

I'm downloading every episode I watch (mainly because my internet is too slow for streaming) so I'm sorting them in folders on my HDD. Also I have a normal text file in the root of my anime folder where I list all the anime I want to watch.

This method has pros but also, unfortunately, cons:

Pros

  • You don't have to care about any 3rd party service.
  • You can watch the episodes everywhere. Offline.
  • After downloading an episode, It won't use any bandwidth when watching it. (useful for people with slow internet, like me.) This includes rewatching.

Cons

  • You are not able to make such nice graphs as @moegamisama showed.
  • If your HDD dies, you lose everything.
  • It overall isn't as fancy as on a website. It might look like this: That's how it looks for me.
Shaymin Gratitude
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H4X0RZ
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    This is explaining how you consume your media, rather than how you track it. Can you focus your answer more on how you know which episode you're on? What's the layout of your text file for example – Toshinou Kyouko Jul 20 '15 at 12:43
  • I know which episode I'm on by checking which episode is the last one in the corresponding folder. The text file is just a simple list. Also I name the episodes after this pattern ".EP..". – H4X0RZ Jul 21 '15 at 01:19
  • I've never heard anime sites that allow the users to legally store the video offline... unless you're ripping your own DVD/BD collections... – Aki Tanaka Jul 15 '20 at 12:44
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You can use SerienGuide to track your TV shows.

  • You'll get recommendations based on the shows you have watched.
  • You can track:
    • The shows you are currently watching
    • All watched series
  • You can also create a watchlist and much more.
Akshay Anurag
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Daniel
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    Can you elaborate a bit more about the site. It seems to have very little content in terms of anime, the only series I found were Naruto and One Piece. What would make me want to use it over the other ones already mentioned? – mivilar Dec 27 '15 at 10:52