Note: The Official MAL API has been taken down by MAL itself due to security concerns and is therefore unavailable for use. This means that this API (which is a wrapper) will not work! Please check MyAnimeList for more information! In particular, this link should give you more information on what is going on.

An Introduction

The Official MyAnimeList API needs lots of work and is pretty annoying to use. Here are some of the many issues:

• Some of the documentation is just straight up incorrect (perhaps it was correct sometime ago).
• There are MySQL bugs on MAL's end that must be circumvented.
• There are severe limitations in what the API allows you to do, forcing the programmer's hand to write ugly scraping code.
• Some of the ways to do simple things like updating an anime on a user's list requires an esoteric knowledge of MAL URLs/queries that are no where on the documentation.
• The Official MAL API fails to provide consistent behavior.
  • e.g. When sending too many requests, the Official MAL API has unpredictable behavior.

Work and/or further development on it seems like a lost cause, since the developer(s) have far more pressing concerns with the site.

This API aims to provide an easy to use Python API that wraps around MAL's REST-API so that you don't have to experience any headaches.

Name inspired by Horo/Holo from Spice and Wolf.

API inspired by other attempts (which made their own REST API wrapper, while this one uses a pure Python implementation), such as crobert22's Railgun and chuyeow's myanimelist-api.

Install

$ pip install spice_api

Documentation

Authorization:

• from file: creds = spice_api.load_auth_from_file('filename')
• inline: creds = spice_api.init_auth("username","password")

Searching:

• search by name: You can use spice_api.search(title,spice_api.getmedium("anime/manga"),credentials) to search for an anime or manga. This returns a list of Anime or Manga objects by relevance to the search query.
• search by id: If you already know the MAL id of an anime or manga, you can use use spice_api.search_id(id,spice_api.getmedium("anime/manga"),credentials), to return the Anime or Manga object relevant.

Updating your list:

1. create blank Anime or Manga object anime = spice.get_blank(spice.get_medium('anime'))
2. Fill in fields like:

saw_data.episodes = 10 #you've watched 10 eps
saw_data.status = spice_api.get_status('watching') #you're still watching
saw_data.score = 9 #your rating
saw_data.tags = ['Holo is the best.'] #tags

3. Push the update with spice_api.update(saw_data, saw_id, spice.get_medium('anime'), creds)

Getting lists

Referencing a List object is as easy as spice_api.get_list(spice.get_medium('anime'), 'username', creds)

Anime Object The Anime object has a number of attributes:

• anime.id, the MAL ID of the anime, used with search_id and update methods.
• anime.title, the title of the anime
• anime.english, english name of the anime, if applicable
• anime.episodes, number of episodes NOTE: 0 if and only if number is unknown
• anime.score, The rating of the anime.
• anime.anime_type, The type of anime ( Movie, ONA, OVA, TV, Special)
• anime.status, The anime status (Currently airing, Finished Airing, Not yet Aired)
• anime.dates, tuple of anime start and end dates (YYYY-MM-DD) NOTE 0000-00-00 if and only if date is unknown
• anime.synopsis, MAL synopsis of anime
• anime.image_url, the cover image's url.

Manga Object

NOTE: Novels are also treated as manga.

The manga object has similar attributes:

• manga.id, see anime.id
• manga.title, see anime.title
• manga.english, english name of the manga, if applicable
• manga.chapters, number of chapters in the manga NOTE: 0 if and only if number is unknown
• manga.volume, the number of volumes in this manga. NOTE: 0 if and only if number is unknown
• manga.score, manga's rating
• manga.manga_type, format of manga (Manga, one-shot, manhwa, manhua, doujinshi, novel)
• manga.status, in what state the manga is in (e.g. Publishing, Finished)
• manga.dates, tuple of start and end date of publishing NOTE 0000-00-00 if and only if date is unknown
• manga.synopsis, synopsis of manga
• manga.image_url, cover image url

List object This object encapsulates an anime or manga list. It has attributes :

• mlist.medium, whether it's an anime or manga list
• mlist.raw_data, raw xml data of the list
• mlist.medium_list, dictionary containing 5 keys whose values contain 5 lists according to the key:
  • "watching"/"reading" - all manga/anime that are being read or watched
  • "completed"
  • "onhold"
  • "dropped"
  • "plantowatch" e.g - mlist.anime/manga_list["completed"] - returns all completed anime/manga in the list.

This object also includes some probably useless but potentially useful methods to analyze lists:

• mlist.avg_score() - average score
• mlist.median_score() - median score (score at approximately/exactly the 50th percentile)
• mlist.mode_score() - mode score (most often-appearing score)
• mlist.extremes() - extreme scores (high, low)
• mlist.p_stddev() - standard deviation
• mlist.p_var() - variance (square of standard deviation)
• mlist.get_total() - sum of scores
• mlist.get_days() - days spent watching
• mlist.compatibility(otherlist) - pearson correlation in percent of how high both of you rated the same anime/manga

NOTE: Raises ValueError if lists are of different medium type.

What's Left

• Add more information to Anime() and Manga() objects through webscraping.
• Add more list comparison methods.
• Make README even more pretty.