MyAnimeList (MAL) is a social platform that allows manga and anime fans to share their tastes and preferences with the world.

The platform’s database includes hundreds of anime whose popularity is displayed in the form of a list or ranking.

MyAnimeList-inline-1

However, the website was hacked recently (on May 10), and since then it has been completely down or not working.

MyAnimeList website hacked and still down or not working

Several manga and anime fans are currently wondering when the website will be available again. Those responsible for the hack changed the name of all the animes to the ‘Let’s All Love Lain’ message.

The message in question is used by fans of ‘Serial Experiments Lain’, a well-known anime among the community. So, the hack could have been done by fans of the Lain series who didn’t agree with its place in the MAL ranking.

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Source

Good luck to the devs trying to fix this. 🙏🏻 Let’s hope the maintenance and investigation goes quick! 💕
Source

How long will maintenance last? #MyAnimeList
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It seems that this is not the first time something like this has happened. According to a user, the platform experienced another hack a few years ago:

When this happened a few years before, there was a file you could download off of your list (I don’t remember what it’s called) and you can import that into anilist. I have that but I stupidly hadn’t backed it up since then since I thought it wasnt gonna happen again ToT
Source

The MyAnimeList team published an official statement on the matter where they offer more details of what happened and the reason why the website is still down:

myanimelist-website-hacked-down-not-working-1
Source (click/tap to expand)

There are some users who are concerned that personal data has been compromised. However, it seems that only the anime database was affected and not the user database, so personal data should be safe.

There is still no ETA for the website to be available and working normally again. We will update this story as events unfold.

Featured Image: Twitter

PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on ‘breaking’ or ‘exclusive’ news. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Want to know more about us? Head here.

Jean Leon
1613 Posts

A tech enthusiast since ever. I like to always be up to date on the latest news in the industry and write about it. Twitter: @jean_ERdC

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