Oh so much to say

To start, if you can, dont link your Facebook with your myanimelist account. Im not sure if they have fixed this since last year but I originally did it and the app wouldnt let me connect to my FB profile therefore I couldnt connect to my MAL account. I ended up emailing them and unlinking them and that was the only way I could get the app and the website account to FINALLY sync when the new update came.

Speaking of update, when the app was updated and merged with MAL, finally the app and the website profiles were supposed to merge. And they did....deleting a large chunk of my information. I didnt update my website profile because I was updating on the MAL app and even though I was connected to my profile, the website profile didnt have my updated views. Like I got the username and the picture and the "base" that I made online but they never crossed paths after that this causing half of my watched anime to delete because of the "miscommunication" between website and app. I was not happy. To this day, Im not sure how many shows I will never know I wanted to watch that I added on the app and were deleted.

Now then, after I "updated" my profile as much as possible, click the profile tab on the app and nothing shows up on the screen. Its not like its loading, there just isnt anything. There is the framework like boxes for where a picture is supposed to be and a thick blue divider that probably separates a cover picture or something from my watched anime list and so forth. And then when I go on Notifications, again, nothing. Blank page.

The app says you CANNOT explore anime by classification, studio, or year without paying. You can go to explore season and then scroll through past seasons. You can pick explore all anime and then choose from "top-" categories but Im not sure how far that "top" distinction applies. Like will anime rated 5.00 be somewhere in that category? So say you do click explore anime and then top anime, you cant filter by genre in there. Like, way to make that about 50% less helpful. What if Im looking for the top shonen series, shouldnt the app make that possible for me so I dont have to scroll through a bunch? Instead you can click at the bottom of the home explore by genre ➡️click explore all of a genre➡️on the screen that pops up, top anime➡️then filter for popularity or rating. My point is, why have the option to look at top anime on the home screen and give filter options but not include in those, genre? Its wasted effort on my part and its confusing because different areas of the app are useful for only some things.

Lastly, I keep having this problem where Im on an animes page and I try to swipe down to close it and it wont pull down. Sometimes it pulls down partway and pulls the whole app down and I have to press the home button on my phone to readjust it. I pull at the images for like 30 seconds before it finally works. Happens at least once everytime I open the app and go on an animes home page. Also, I keep trying to add anime to my planning list or my watching list and when I click the option, sometimes it doesnt go through. Ill go back a minute later to the page thinking its now on the list and its now. Ive tried like 4 times for various shows and it just wont work.

Ok, so what is good about the app? Im having a hard time getting over my issues with it when the past app was pretty much perfect despite the inability to connect with FB linked profiles and to connect at all with website profiles. Nevertheless, anime tracker is unique now because you can chat in their forum about anime. If you want to pay, ($3 -$5 one time fee, not that bad but Im personally not going to do it), you get features plus ability to search by year and studio and classification. I like the clean interface, they made the icons bigger and installed a white background so the result is a sleek look.

Ill stick with anime tracker just because I dont feel like adding 300 to watch titles on another platform plus all my watched anime. But even as I say that all those problems have really taken a toll on my experience and i dont know if I want to stick around anymore. if I chose to rely on an apps service, it should provide for me out of principle. The amount of work I went through to set up a profile in the beginning and then reconstruct it after the changeover and then figuring out this weird app with all its many pages plus trying to get over all the glitches (sigh) thats just...ridiculous.

Anime tracker, minimize the number of pages I have to go through to get to an episodes description. I get it, you want me to be in the "home" page of a particular anime to be able to read it but it takes like four swipes and thats if its on one of my lists already!

So thats my story.

meganta about Kitsu: Anime & Manga Tracker