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News Article
Baka-Updates Anime Closing
All,

For those who haven't seen, Baka-Updates Anime is now officially closed. It's the end of an era!

We're sticking around though, so don't worry!

The MU Team

Edit:
Re-posting the goodbye message here because the it'll be gone eventually.

Quote
One day a group of friends by the names of y2klizard, aZn_nUt, Platinum|Star, and ^_^Teddie thought it would be a great idea if anime fansubs were more easily found in one location. There were already other websites that did this, however the others decided they would only report unlicensed shows. These guys quickly went to work and on July 20th, 2002 Baka-Updates was officially released to the public.

The goal of Baka-Updates was always to inform the users of the latest anime releases. Throughout the years, we have noticed the anime culture grow at a steady pace. It grew so much that companies eventually gave notice that viewers outside of Japan wanted to get the content fast and thus new streaming services such as Crunchyroll were born. Shows would be simucasted as soon as one hour after it was broadcasted in Japan. This led to the amount of fansubs decreasing since it was so convenient to view the new releases compared to the traditional methods.

As well, the Baka-Updates team continued to grow older. An increase in responsibilities with work and new families meant that we could not commit as much time into maintaining the website. Therefore we have decided it is the right time to shut down.

The team at Baka-Updates would like to thank all of our visitors for supporting the site over all these years. Without you, we would never have had the motivation to keep going for this long. We never expected the anime scene to grow up to what it is today and we will continue being a part of it, only in the background this time.

The closing of Baka-Updates does not affect our sister site MangaUpdates. It will continue to operate as normal.
Posted by Manick on 
October 13th 8:07pm
Comments ( 16 )  
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Comments (limited to first 100 replies)

» Geese1 on October 13th, 2016, 8:24pm

Baka Updates was the page I had set to use when I first open Chrome. Nearly had a heart attack when I opened up the browser to see the message, as I thought at first Manga Updates was closed as well. Glad to see you guys are still up and running.

If, god forbid, you ever do decide to shut your doors, please give us enough advanced warning so that we can get all our reading lists saved.

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» drunkguy on October 13th, 2016, 9:51pm

Never thought I'd see the day Baka-Updates would close on its own. cry

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» RS456 on October 13th, 2016, 10:24pm

That was the site that actually led the way. It will be missed.

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» RoxFlowz on October 13th, 2016, 11:42pm

Good night, Baka-Updates.

Glad to see MU unaffected smile

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» deadphoenix on October 14th, 2016, 12:25am

I had already a feeling that it wouldn't live long anymore. cry They had barely any posts, it has something to do with crunchyroll being in existence, but their are other sites to that host fansubs as wel as rips.
I think a lot of people left the site, because their were barely any posts on it lately. As well as fansubbing dying out. And the existence of better sites that has everything that Baka-Updates Anime didn't have. For example you couldn't hold any watching list on it or it lacked information on the series it posted.
Unlike baka updates manga, a large and fantastic database, we do have it here. cool
Well, at least the day that mangaupdates decide to close down, is the day I would die of an heart attack. dead This site is much more important to me than Baka-Updates Anime.

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» Hostile on October 14th, 2016, 1:00am

The end of an era. Holy shit I've been reading/watching anime for a long time...

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» podlizurko on October 14th, 2016, 1:27am

Indeed , like 13-14 years for me , thats a bit more than half my live.

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» calstine on October 14th, 2016, 6:59am

I nearly suffered a cardiac arrest when I saw the notice because I thought it meant that MU would close down as well eek I've never used BU Anime, but congrats anyway on a much-needed service well done, and best of luck for the team in their future endeavours, whether manga/anime-related or not!

And on a purely selfish note: I hope the same never happens to MU, but if it does, a month or so of advance notice would be much appreciated.

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» Ryoga84 on October 14th, 2016, 10:13am

Been there. Loved it.
Best whishes.

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» Terr0rCakess on October 14th, 2016, 2:38pm

eek eek WOW! eek eek

I love my bookmarks and it definitely wont be the same with "BU-Anime" gone.
Hope everything goes well for the team.
I am extremely happy that this site will stay up! biggrin

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» Kurapica on October 14th, 2016, 5:42pm

Damn, sort of feels like the end of an era.

I hate for things to end, but i appreciate their hard work.

Now i will have nowhere to go to check for releases of older fansubbed series.

Feels bad. sad

I just hope mangaupdates will stay online for a very long time.

Its the best site i know when it comes to manga releases and indepth discussion of manga in general.

Never change!

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» makoz on October 14th, 2016, 7:43pm

That was my reference site back when it launched. I always went there to check the new release and find the irc channel. With the rise of torrents, fansub sites, social media, MAL, and the site staying mostly the same throughout its existence, it did started to decline and I honestly haven't checked BU in many years. It's a good time to retire and they greatly helped the fansub community.

Cheers to Baka-Updates!

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» Mamsmilk on October 14th, 2016, 11:11pm

RIP. Never really partook in the community of that place, but I did use it back then for Naruto when there were no good public torrent trackers for anything. Good memories. Back then anime wasn't over saturated fetishist garbage.

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» Anima on October 16th, 2016, 1:18am

I haven't picked up a new series in years as most anime these days seems more about sexy fan service. It was a great site in it's heyday, when fansub groups where still hiding in mIRC. And through it I found manga-updates. Always sad to see sites you used to frequent close. Never fails to remind you you're getting old.

And something of value was lost.

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» Vicis on October 23rd, 2016, 8:49am

Amazing how much the anime and manga scene has grown over the past decade. Seeing BU go down certainly does make me feel old. Anime is so accessible these days, it's easy to forget the days when we had to surf mIRC, or when direct download sites were a dime a dozen.

I too don't watch all that much anime these days. As others have said, the quality of story telling has significantly gone down. It's sad to see a medium with so much potential be wasted on tit's and ass, and 2 note battle shows. Having recently decided to finally watch LoGH certainly does hammer that reality in.

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» residentgrigo on October 23rd, 2016, 10:40am

2017 will see a LOGH re-adaptation by IG. The anime tv year of 2016 wasn´t the best, or the worst, but the movie side had noteworthy entries.
The biggest problem the scene faces is the unsustainable amount of shoveware.
40+ shows a season (up to 5 can turn our above average or better), crazy low wages for the creators, and abysmal destitution systems are the real enemy.

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