How to Scrape Manga Data in 2026 (API & Python)

The fastest way to scrape manga catalog data in 2026 is to call a structured API that returns title, score, genre, and ranking data as normalized JSON — instead of parsing HTML or working around a rate-limited GraphQL endpoint yourself. This guide covers DIY, no-code, and a structured API, and is upfront about where the data actually comes from and how narrow the surface is.

Why scrape manga data?

• Discovery and recommendation apps — attach canonical title, score, and genre data to a manga tracker or "what to read next" feature.
• Reading-list and catalog tools — enrich a personal or app-level library with normalized title metadata instead of hand-typing it.
• Market and trend research — watch rankings by popularity or score to see what's rising in a genre or format.
• Fan-community tools — power a Discord bot, wiki, or fan site with consistent title data instead of scraping fan wikis.
• AI/LLM pipelines — ground a chatbot or recommendation model in real title, genre, and score data instead of a stale training-data snapshot.

Is it legal to scrape manga data?

Option 1: DIY in Python (and why it breaks)

AniList exposes a public GraphQL endpoint, so a DIY script means POSTing a GraphQL query instead of parsing HTML:

import requests

query = """
query ($search: String) {
  Media(search: $search, type: MANGA) {
    id
    idMal
    title { romaji native }
    averageScore
    genres
  }
}
"""

resp = requests.post(
    "https://graphql.anilist.co",
    json={"query": query, "variables": {"search": "Berserk"}},
)
data = resp.json()["data"]["Media"]

It demos fine and then breaks in production:

• A 30-requests-per-minute ceiling right now. AniList's normal limit is 90/minute, but the API is currently in a degraded state capped at 30/minute — any batch job written against the higher number starts throwing 429 Too Many Requests.
• Terms of Use ban bulk collection outright. "Hoarding or mass collection of data" and "using the API as a backup or data storage service" are both explicitly prohibited — a naive crawl-everything script violates the ToS before it hits a rate limit.
• GraphQL query design is its own maintenance burden. Every field you want has to be spelled out in the query; nested fields (characters, staff, relations) need their own sub-selections, and a typo fails the whole request rather than degrading gracefully.
• No mass export path. There's no bulk-download or dump endpoint — every title has to be fetched by id or search query, one request at a time, inside the rate limit.

Option 2: No-code / ready-made tools

A handful of no-code scraper marketplaces and browser extensions offer prebuilt AniList/manga templates for a one-off export — fine for pulling a personal reading list or a small batch of titles into a spreadsheet. They're awkward to run on a schedule, don't give you a stable data contract to build against, and still have to respect the same 30–90 requests/minute ceiling and ToS restrictions underneath, since they're calling the same public API.

Option 3: A structured manga API

For a repeatable workflow with no GraphQL query-building or rate-limit bookkeeping, the Manga API returns normalized JSON across three endpoints: search, title detail, and rankings. Search for a title to get its id:

curl "https://api.crawlora.net/api/v1/manga/search?query=Berserk" \
  -H "x-api-key: $CRAWLORA_API_KEY"

{
  "code": 200,
  "msg": "OK",
  "data": {
    "query": "Berserk",
    "page": 1,
    "per_page": 10,
    "total": 50,
    "has_next_page": true,
    "results": [
      {
        "id": 30002,
        "id_mal": 2,
        "type": "MANGA",
        "title": { "romaji": "Berserk" },
        "format": "MANGA",
        "status": "RELEASING",
        "average_score": 92,
        "genres": ["Action", "Adventure", "Fantasy", "Horror"],
        "site_url": "https://anilist.co/manga/30002"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Then pull the full title record by id in Python:

import requests

h = {"x-api-key": "YOUR_API_KEY"}
base = "https://api.crawlora.net/api/v1/manga"

hits = requests.get(f"{base}/search", headers=h, params={"query": "Berserk"}).json()["data"]["results"]
manga_id = hits[0]["id"]

title = requests.get(f"{base}/title/{manga_id}", headers=h).json()["data"]

Title detail (real fields — check the docs):

{
  "code": 200,
  "msg": "OK",
  "data": {
    "id": 30002,
    "id_mal": 2,
    "type": "MANGA",
    "title": { "romaji": "Berserk", "native": "ベルセルク" },
    "format": "MANGA",
    "status": "RELEASING",
    "average_score": 92,
    "favourites": 60000,
    "genres": ["Action", "Adventure", "Drama", "Fantasy", "Horror", "Psychological"],
    "site_url": "https://anilist.co/manga/30002"
  }
}

/manga/rankings returns a sortable, paginated chart instead of a single title:

curl "https://api.crawlora.net/api/v1/manga/rankings?sort=POPULARITY_DESC&format=MANGA&page=1&per_page=20" \
  -H "x-api-key: $CRAWLORA_API_KEY"

{
  "code": 200,
  "msg": "OK",
  "data": {
    "sort": "POPULARITY_DESC",
    "format": "MANGA",
    "page": 1,
    "per_page": 20,
    "total": 5000,
    "has_next_page": true,
    "results": [
      {
        "id": 105398,
        "title": { "romaji": "Chainsaw Man" },
        "format": "MANGA",
        "average_score": 84
      }
    ]
  }
}

Page through rankings on a schedule to track a genre or format's popularity chart over time, or resolve id_mal on any result to join this catalog against a MAL-keyed dataset.

What you can collect

• Search results — id, MAL cross-reference id, title (romaji/native), format, status, average score, genres, source URL.
• Title detail — the same fields plus favourites count.
• Rankings — a paginated, sortable chart (by popularity, score, or trend) filterable by format, genre, and status.

Limitations

• Genuinely thin surface. This is three endpoints — search, title detail, rankings — not a full catalog API. There's no chapter list, no volume/chapter text, no character or staff data, and no recommendations endpoint (the sibling Anime API covers characters, staff, and recommendations for anime titles, but manga doesn't have that depth here).
• No user data at all. No reading lists, no reading progress, no reviews, no comments — this is catalog metadata only.
• Inherits the upstream rate limit. The underlying source is currently capped at 30 requests/minute; expect that ceiling to apply to any high-volume batch job.
• No bulk export. Every title comes from a search or an id lookup — there's no dump or full-catalog download.
• Public data only. This returns what AniList's public catalog already shows — never a way to pull chapter images or copyrighted manga text itself.

Where this gets used

• Manga discovery and tracker apps — attach canonical title, score, and genre data to a reading-list or recommendation feature.
• Trend and rankings dashboards — watch the popularity or score charts move by format and genre over time.
• Fan-community bots and wikis — back a Discord bot or wiki lookup with consistent title data instead of a hand-maintained list.

Sources

Start collecting

Try it first, free: run any public URL through the Free Web Scraper, or check whether a site blocks bots with the Anti-Bot Checker — no signup.

Test the search, title, and rankings endpoints in the Playground, check the schema in the API docs, and review pricing. Manga is the "creative work + catalog metadata" pattern for reading data — the same shape Goodreads covers for books, and Discogs covers for music releases. See also is web scraping legal.

Part of our how-to-scrape guide series — every platform we cover, in one index.