I host my own personal manga server that I use tachiyomi on my tablet to read from it with. The server itself does tracking, but I also plugged tachiyomi into MAL, so I have 2 lists acting as a backup of each other.
For anime I just let my media server track it, keeps track of every season/episode play status. When a new season of something starts it pops up ready to be watched.
I use tachiyomi but what is this media server thing you are referencing? First time hearing about this in this context, I would have thought it was like having a cloud in your home you can pull files from over LAN/internet but I dont understand how it helps with tracking. Just from what it sounds like, you download the files, create the entries (else how would you track?) and then some software tracks what you have already read/seen? If thats what it is do you delete the media after you watch/read or would that mess with the entries?
First time hearing about this, I knew tachiyomi could be used as a reader to pull local files instead of using the extensions but this kind of use has never occurred to me.
For manga the server is komga, and i use tachiyomi to connect to it to read. Komga does its own tracking, and I also added MAL as a tracking in tachiyomi itself.
For anime (and everything I watch, also movies/tv etc) I use jellyfin. It keeps track of everything you watched. So if I finish season 1 of something and a year later season 2 releases, once I have the first episode of season 2 it'll pop up on my list of things to watch. There's been series I forgot about until this happened.
what is this media server thing you are referencing?
take a look at plex or jellyfin for example. these are media servers that can be setup to automatically organize your media library and keep track of what you have downloaded, what series you are watching, what episodes you have watched, etc. also like you mentioned they also provide some sort of streaming service where you can watch your media over the network without having to download it on every single device.
I'd also like to mention that usually downloading is done using an external software like sonarr or radarr that fall in a gray zone in terms of legality so be careful if you ever plan to go that route.
I just hook my Tachiyomi installation into my AniList, and now I don't have to really manually track anything aside from my light novels (I completely skipped the spring anime season, and I'm on course to do the same for summer).
Does it work all the time or do you have to fiddle with it a bit? I never used this because I thought it would be janky and with all extensions being their own thing and having sometimes different tittles I thought it would trouble the automatic aspect and thus be no much more efficient than just logging in
Honestly, it's trivial. One login to AniList within Tachi itself, then I just have to tap the Tracking button, and it'll pull up a list of results when searching AniList for said work. I select the one I'm reading, and it'll grab the info so I can start tracking my progress, including start and finish dates.
Tachiyomi even if I didn't read it using Tachiyomi. I like things that don't require accounts to keep track of and I can export a back up of. Tachiyomi has been a useful tracker as a result alongside with other benefits. I do most my reading with the iPad due to the bigger screen aside from Webtoon type layouts where I don't mind smaller screen of a phone.
That's quite a few year using one platform! Out of curiosity, have you tried other platforms or since it's been too long it isn't worth it looking at other options?
It felt like the most accessible and clean one back when I started and I had logged so many entries in a short time that I didn’t want to redo it all elsewhere. So you’re correct, I didn’t feel like it was worth the effort to migrate!
I use the All Mangas Reader extension, since MangaDex had that issue. It works well for me, as I can read manga series from multiple sites through a similar interface; and if one of the sites goes MIA I can look for the same series elsewhere. It tracks reading progress and tells you about series updates, it's really comfy.
Mangadex, but it's crappy. That said I only follow some 3 manga and one manwha that aren't updated on MD. So it's kinda easy to remember that it "should have a new chapter already"
I wasnt much of a list person but after a few years I noticed I started repeating manga and anime unintentionally without remembering I had already experienced until I almost finishing which convinced me I had to keep a list in some form.
At first I just made a list in Excel, but I had to format a hard rive and lost the entire list, then I tested the sites so that it wouldnt happen again, I was going to go for MAL since I had visited their forums many times until I discovered their webtoons policy so I jumped into anilist which I use now everyday.
I’ve accidentally read a manga twice without realizing it, but honestly it’s very rare. And if the manga is good enough for me to read it again, I don’t mind that either.
So yeah, never had to keep a list of what I’ve read. And for things I want to read, I just add it as a favorite on the app I use (Aidoku)
Jaja probably not something that happens to everyone, but I consume a lot of trashy power fantasies and isekai, which many are extremely generic. I dont mind rereading, in fact I love it, I always read two manga at the same time, a new one to explore and an old one as comfort. But I hate doing it without realizing, I have felt like an idiot reading 40 chapters only to start getting flashbacks after I reached really important events, the feeling made me uncomfortable.
Also as a sidenote, having a list has helped me gamify my reading a bit, trying to score what I consume and also crafting a little note about each thing, so I remember the feeling and thoughts I had while reading has been an extremely enjoyable habit.
Used to be me, then I just built a habit of the instant I finish a manga, as long as I'm in my house, I write a little note about how I felt when reading and things I loked as well as make the entry on anilist, it takes a few minutes for sure, vut it has been fun