Comics and Manga Metadata

Comics and manga use a “comicinfo.xml” file for metadata.

This file must be named ComicInfo.xml and be at the root of the archive.

The XML schema of this file can be found on the Anansi Project webpage. We support v2.1 (draft).

ComicInfo

Conversion table

Non-standard tags

• <LocalizedSeries>: Contains optional localized series name which will display in Kavita. Will allow searching for either series name. Will group files that have the localized name and the series name together as one series.
• <SeriesSort>: The sort title to use for the Series. Kavita will prefer this over <Series>

Count

Kavita will set the Publication Status on a series for you based on this tag

• If you have at least one “Count” defined within any ComicInfo from the series, and it is not 0, then Kavita will assume the Series is Ended. Otherwise, it will be assumed Ongoing.

• If the Count matches the Volume count or Chapter count, then Kavita will assume the Series is Completed (you own all items of the series)

• Ideally, the value of this field should be the total number of volumes (manga) or issues (comics)

At any time you can hover over the tag badge in Series Detail to view how many issues or volumes you are missing.

Release Year

Likewise with Age Rating, Release Year is a summation of the minimum year defined within a series that is at least 4 units long (> 1000).

Format

If a Format is specified, that issue or volume may be forced into being treated as a Special.

The following entries will cause this:

• Special
• Reference
• Director’s Cut
• Box Set
• Box-Set
• Annual
• Anthology
• Epilogue
• One Shot
• One-Shot
• Prologue
• TPB
• Trade Paper Back
• Omnibus
• Compendium
• Absolute
• Graphic Novel
• GN
• FCBD

Trade Paperbacks and Comics Library Type

The main Comic library type assumes an organization similar to that found within Comic Vine, Grand Comics Database, and Metron. They routinely list the trades as separate volumes, whch translates to a separate series when you use ComicInfo’s Series appended by volume, presumably tagged by year as the primary comic library type does.

If you’re autotagging or using Mylar3 to manage your archives Kavita will detect your trade paperbacks as separate series.

To include them within the main series, our users have found two different approaches.

Method 1:

The first is to tag the Series and Volume for your trade just as you would the individual issues, putting within the Number value the span of issues covered. In the below example, this would indicate issues 1-5 are collected in that one file. This will sort so these trades are in the correct series reading order when reading from the series page.

Number: 1-5

Method 2:

The second method, for those who collect trades as well as issues and want it all in the same series within Kavita would be to again tag the Series and Volume consistent with the rest of the files, and for the Number a value like TPB or TPB# for multiple TPB bearing series. This will not mix the trades into the reading order, leaving them separated within the individual issues but still accessible from the series page or loading next after the end of the issues.

Number: TPB1 Number: TPB2

SeriesGroup

The SeriesGroup tag can contain comma-delimited strings that will either create or update existing collections in Kavita if the Library has Manage Collections turned on (default is off).

Age Rating

Age rating may vary between different files within a series. The Series will take the highest Age Rating (aka most mature) and use it from the files contained within. So for example, say you have:

Current tags from less restrictive to most restrictive:

• Issue 1 - PG
• Issue 2 - PG
• Issue 3 - M

The series will be M as that is the most mature rating in all Issues.

Age Rating from least to most mature. The order is fixed according to the ComicInfo.xml standard.

• Unknown
• Rating Pending
• Early Childhood
• Everyone
• G
• Everyone 10+
• PG
• Kids to Adults
• Teen
• MA15+
• Mature 17+
• M
• R18+
• Adults Only 18+
• X18+