I've taken the liberty to update the "What's New" section. It now shows releases that are dated for 2008 and you can sort them 3 ways, by date added, by rating, and by past 3 month activity stats.

Hopefully this will be more useful than what was there before.

Although it is April Fool's Day, we at B-U [color=red]WILL NOT[/color] tolerate any fake releases being announced/reported to us. If we, by accident, allow a fake release to get through, please report the mistake to us. (This includes manga and anime releases)

If any group attempts to keep posting fake releases as a joke, we will take severe action against the said group. We wish to remain as accurate as possible for our members

-BU Staff

New poll suggestion came from member Dubby, who submitted the idea today~
Simple poll, so no need to explain it.

Previous Poll:
Question: What makes a manga?
Choices:
Art - votes: 1396 (19.9%)
Plot - votes: 3199 (45.6%)
Characters - votes: 1637 (23.3%)
Originality - votes: 743 (10.6%)
Popularity - votes: 36 (0.5%)
There were 7011 total votes.
The poll ended: March 29th 2008

So the interesting plot wins~ I think I should have put stuff in like "humor" and some other choices, oh well...

Some of you may not have realized, but back in the beginning of October, we disabled download links for all series marked "licensed" into the English language. The original news post can be found here:
http://www.mangaupdates.com/news.html?id=276

Now you're wondering why I'm bringing this up now.
If you submit a manga release to us that is for a licensed series but an unknown scanlator (we define that as not being listed in our group database), even if there IS a download link, we will [color=red]REJECT[/color] that release. Likewise, if you add a new group that has no website or IRC link, and is without any approved releases, unless you state a reason for this (through a pm to me), the group will also be [color=red]REJECTED[/color] (if any questions about this, pm me).

(On an unrelated note, "Anonymous" or any variation of it will not be accepted as a group name in the release entry. Please use "?" for unknown groups)

For unlicensed series, releases made by unknown groups (as under the previously defined definition) without download links will be [color=red]REJECTED[/color].

In other words, don't try and submit anything that crosses the bounds as stated above.

Thank you for your cooperation (and if you don't, we can always press the "Delete" button)~

-Mangaupdates Staff

To all the Christian/Catholic people out there, happy Easter! If you guys are on Spring Break, lucky you too~ (As for me, my Spring Break is in 2 weeks still...)

We (the admins) decided to rearrange the way the series Gacha Gacha is presented in the database. Now, the two different arcs are separated correctly:
Volumes 1-5: Gacha Gacha Capsule
Volumes 6-16: Gacha Gacha Secret

The original series entry has been left alone so that votes and comments still exist. If you favor one arc over the other, now you can vote differently.

-Mangaupdates Staff

This week's poll is more about why you like manga. Just choose the option that MOST fits your taste. Thanks go to member Razril for giving the poll suggestion.
Note: The option of "Popularity" means you read the series because everyone else does (which brings to mind the Naruto/Bleach/One Piece argument)

And the results for last week's poll:
Question: How do you choose to read a new series?
Choices:
The magazine where it's serialized in - votes: 64 (1%)
The artist/author and his/her previous works - votes: 889 (14.2%)
The scanlation group - votes: 336 (5.3%)
The associated anime or related media - votes: 118 (1.9%)
The popularity of the series - votes: 274 (4.4%)
Recommend- ations from others - votes: 562 (8.9%)
Same genre as my favorite series - votes: 1275 (20.3%)
I just read random manga - votes: 1319 (21%)
I come to MU and see a new series on the release page, so I decide to try it - votes: 1445 (23%)
There were 6282 total votes.
The poll ended: March 22nd 2008

I can't believe how many people just come here, see a new series being released, and just choose to read it...

According to Yahoo! News, Japanese internet service provider, facing complaints from big media companies, are planning to cut off the Internet connection of anyone who downloads files illegally (like through Winny/Share, where most raws come from). Go here for more info. However, Danny Choo is reporting that instead of disconnecting users downloading files, but users who abuse bandwidth:

"The Japan Internet Providers Association released a press release which states that they are after heavy users of Winny and similar P2P software due to the load that those users are placing on the network and not because of any illegal copying. The extra load caused by heavy P2P users causes instability for other internet users."

Okay, so I decided.. what's the use of having a website if you can't abuse it once in a while!?

I'm using this little space to advertise a novel series I've been following. It's called the The Twelve Kingdoms by Fuyumi Ono. Published by Tokyopop in the USA, these novels follow the lives of several characters as they deal with living in an alternate dimension. If you're interested in fantasy, action, and adventure, you might find this interesting. They just released the second novel recently, and you can find them here:

Twelve Kingdoms Novel 1: Sea of Shadow (click for description at tokyopop)

Twelve Kingdoms Novel 2: Sea of Wind (click for description at tokyopop)

I love this series, and I hope they keep translating them. They're releasing them at the rate of about one a year, so maybe we can help give them a bump to pick up the pace!

(and just in-case anyone gets any ideas, i do NOT do paid endorsements of series in news postings, so please do not send me requests. thanks)

We have a new poll for the week! Unfortunately, the long words kinda broke up the site formatting...but who cares? (Edit: Thanks Manick, for fixing the problem~) This time, we're wondering exactly how you guys choose to read a new series. The poll was submitted by MajorMarmot. If anyone wants to submit their own poll question, here is the place to go: http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3903

Now for the previous poll:
Question: Who knows you read manga?
Choices:
Everyone - votes: 1917 (31.1%)
All of my friends - votes: 1494 (24.3%)
Only a few of my closest friends - votes: 1644 (26.7%)
Only the people I know online - votes: 291 (4.7%)
Only my family - votes: 390 (6.3%)
No one (I don't tell anyone) - votes: 422 (6.9%)
There were 6158 total votes.
The poll ended: March 15th 2008

A fairly even split. Not too many people are keeping it totally secret due to embarrassment. Don't forget guys, if you spread the word of anime/manga, then its popularity will spread~