These changes don't make a whole lot of sense.

I understand why this needs to be done, since MU is primarily a manga site, but maybe there's a more elegant solution?

I still read manga, manhwa, manhua, and web comics, but I've also branched out into light novels and web novels.

It was great having one site for everything.

Ultimately, it's up to you guys and what you think is best for the site. If this change comes into effect, I'll simply have to find an update site for translated foreign novels.

It's not like I'll stop using MU. You guys still have one of the best search systems in place, after all.

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Couldn't agree more.

I use MU for two things, mainly. The primary use is discovering new stuff to read. As for updates on my follows, Batoto and WordPress takes care of 80% of that part. Throttling the scope of the content available for the sake of purity would marginalize a considerable part of the community and their reading experiences. MU is really convenient as it is, and adding simple filters would increase the degree of convenience and user-friendliness. Not a few people read both manga and novels. And it is clear that in the coming days the interest in and support for novels would only continue to increase. MU doesn't need to feel threatened, but rather look forward to the future. Novels are not "invading" the community.

I agree with the doujinshi. There has been a lot of heat from the pixiv community about people translating their stuff. It's not like we're taking stuff from big publishers, these are random peeps just drawing things for fun. It's pretty damn rude of scanlators to be snatching them.

As for Novels. I would like to keep those around. They are pretty closely related to manga and light novels tend to come with a fair share of comics and images.

regarding novels:
I like getting updates about them, and the only place I get that is here.
Clearly, novels and graphic-novels are 2 different things so I can understand why there might be a move to not have them on this site, however I really appreciate having them here.
If they are to be rejected in the future, would it be possible to have a subsection of the site dedicated to novels? like in the menu on the right beneath the manga search, possibly in the same style as the Baka-Updates tab.

Eh, I disagree with the second change. There is really no other site for compiling novels. Instead of going searching 15 different sites if I'm trying to find a novel, I just come here. Kinda sad that's changing. :/

(Note that this is not true for doujinshi.)

Have you thought about launching novelupdates.com?

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I personally read chinese novels(in chinese), and a lot of the "no-name" authors are actually quite popular on their respective sites, enough so that some actually get signed into a contract( or something similiar?), get assigned to an editor, and where reader pay money to read chapters. When the webnovel get really popular, they many actually release a printed copy...so there is a thin line Imo...
I believe some translators just translate whatever they like though, so this will be interesting...

Last edited by Tiannu at 8:29 pm, Jun 15 2015

I'm somewhat conflicted about the change to web/light novels.

While the change might encourage some replacement for tracking LN updates, A LOT of people are using B-U to track new releases and their favorite novels, and this change would pretty much destroy their main source for organization.

I know B-U has historically been about manga, but I just don't really see a reason why it can't incorporate web novels when it already has light novels in the database. No harm in adapting to the times that I can see.

But if the admins want some physical evidence that users dislike seeing novels mixed with manga updates, you could always put up a poll.

As I mentioned in a previous comment, webnovels are a grey area in that anyone can make one. Light novels are fine because you can trace them back to publishers, but I guess that isn't always the case with webnovels. You will probably argue that this makes them no different from doujinshi, but with the proposed changes to how doujinshi are treated it still will not be considered by MU.

In other words, MU is just trying to be consistent (and therefore fair) in how it treats all submitted media.

Long story short: if the webnovel in question can be 1) traced back to a publisher or 2) published and sold as a doujinshi it will most probably not be affected by this move. But if said webnovel just appears in some personal site it's gone. Same thing with doujinshi/webmanga.

Keep novels but add filters so you can exclude them if you don't want it. Keep webtoons too cause I still feel it kinda falls into manwha.

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Just to clarify - would the new restrictions on what constitutes an acceptable doujin be applied to self-published, original works as well?

In other words, would releases from a self-published, original comic that is freely available online be approved?

Last edited by hahhah42 at 1:19 am, Jun 20 2015

In regards to the proposed policy changes, I'm strongly against the de-listing of novels, folks.

In the case of doujinshi, I don't read them so can't comment on them so much (a lot of them are hentai and should belong in their own genre section anyway, just like there's already separate web listings for releases of anime series that Baka-Updates also moderates - see link: http://www.baka-updates.com/releases.php ).*I love the anime listings, by the way: I'm glad baka-updates still reports on the latest anime releases, since after the SubWire folded, there's nothing else quite like it. (Another reason to put doujinshi, or at least hentai titles, in their own section: do you honestly want ordinary readers to come to baka-updates and see a disturbing hentai title like 'Private Rape School,' for example? It makes all the regular manga titles look bad just by association, at least to innocent public eyes. That's why I think this category needs its own [red-lit] space, heh. I recall that the old Lurk IRC channel did something similar, putting it behind a web portal link called 'Innocence Lost' or some such.)

With regard to novels, which I've become a fan of recently, I note that many manga in the past are derived from them anyway, so no one can say that novels don't have a relation here. Also, having novels listed is just as crucial to the fun and utility of this place as manga, manhwa and webtoons are. With regard to traditional content, I note that a lot of scanlation groups have gone bust in recent years and there are fewer and fewer quality titles available to be read now, even though the series may be left unfinished (there are too many of these to count already). I guess all the original scanlators have graduated school and gotten real jobs now, maybe that's why. Because of that, with the recent popular influx of more novels lately, maybe it seems like novels are drowning the rest out, but I think that's only because traditional manga titles are becoming fewer and fewer (or am I wrong?). It's sad and frustrating but I'm definitely seeing such a trend. I'm glad that webtoons (mostly Korean right now) are starting to make real inroads in this space as a partial replacement, and the quality of many of these titles are high (*see The Gamer, Song of the Cloud, Orange Marmalade, for examples of this). In my opinion both webtoons and novels are providing a welcome alternative for all the readers to enjoy even if there aren't as many traditional manga titles to read now. Thanks to webtoons and novels there's more life to the website than there would otherwise be, I think.

In the case of novels (my particular focus here), they definitely have their place and should be honored as such. How to filter out 'amateur novels' from the quality, professionally-supported novels is an issue, of course. I guess by researching/keeping track of pro novel publishers (both online and print organizations), that's the best way to do this so that the quality of the novels can remain good for everyone without also reporting the junk. (Just so long as great titles like the ones I've listed below in this post won't get left out and ignored, that would be far too tragic.)

With novels generally, if it annoys the traditional-minded minders of this website, they could simply create an alternative section (a sub-page) listing like there already is for anime, then we'll still be able to keep up with the newest releases of both manga and novels and no one can complain, can they? And a third for doujinshi too if you like. (The archive listings in baka-updates are also valuable for both manga and novels, that's why having baka-updates listing the novels here too is needed. No one else is providing such a service, right?)

The owners/moderators of this website should be trying to make this website more fun and useful to its fans, not less. Over the past five months, I've discovered the following great novel titles thanks to the baka-updates website: (K=Korean ; J=Japanese; C=Chinese)
- Ark (K-novel) *****
- Death March (J-novel) ****
- Konjiki no Wordmaster (J-novel) *****
- Douluo Dalu / Combat Continent (C-novel) ***
- Rakuin no Monshou (J-novel) ****
- Risou no Himo Seikatsu (J-novel) ****
- Knights and Magic (J-novel) ***
- Overlord (J-novel) ***
- Mushoku Tensei (J-novel) ****
- Zhan Long (C-novel) ***
- Altina the Sword Princess (J-novel) ***
- Log Horizon (J-novel) *** (also an anime already)
- Isekai Mahou wa Okureteru (J-novel) ****
- B Group no Shounen (J-novel) *** (so far)
- Kenja no Mago (J-novel) ***
- Magic, Mechanics, Shuraba (C-novel) *** (so far)
- Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei (J-novel) **** (also an awesome anime already)
- Close Combat Mage (C-novel) *** (so far)
- World Teacher (J-novel) **** (so far)
- Yuusha Party no Kawaii Ko ga Ita no de, Kokuhaku Shite (J-novel) ****
- Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (J-novel) ****
- Hachinan tte, Sore wa nai Deshou (J-novel) ***

All of these titles are pretty great in my opinion, even if the translations for some of them still suck a bit. Also, even though a lot of the newer novel titles seem to involve the same theme of someone being kidnapped/summoned/reincarnated into an alternative fantasy world (with RPG elements, heh), that doesn't mean the stories in question are boring. Far from it. A lot of them are engrossing and leaving you begging for more.

So don't make it hard for us readers to find these interesting titles, I implore you, that would make things a lot less fun for everyone. And a fun read is the whole point of having Baka-Updates here at all, isn't it? Otherwise why have we kept coming here every day for so many years? Just to admire the fonts?

UPDATE: In the case of doujinshi, as some commenters have just suggested to me, maybe I'm being too rude to them, but I'm nothing if not fair. Their own listings within baka-updates would also work (on a sub-page), even if I have no personal interest in them. (Their quality and scope is usually inferior to both manga and novels, however, so I see them as third tier titles at best. That's just my bias, however, so I shouldn't talk about them any more than this.)

Last edited by In Valen`s Name at 3:10 pm, Jun 16 2015

Not all are getting the axe. It's clear from your post that you did not understand the announcement.


You should actually care because what MU is proposing to do to doujinshi is exactly the same as what it is proposing to do to (web)novels. For you to say that it's okay with doujinshi but not with novels is - I'm sorry - hypocritical.


Then why shouldn't the progressives be the ones to create their own site?

I'm neither traditional nor progressive (and I think it's stupid for anyone here to categorise members as such), but this proposal of yours is just hilarious and self-serving.

I think you should give filtering manga/novels a try first before scrapping anything. There is indeed a huge increase in novels lately but that just shows that novels are getting more and more important and popular to readers. It would be a rash response to delete them just because the site is called "manga"updates. So yeah, I think it's time MU tries to integrate novels.

As for doujins, I have no idea so no comment.

Also, this would be a very good subject for a poll.

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Again, novels aren't getting scrapped. What would likely get scrapped are webnovels that can't be traced to publishers.