theme: starlights
Better late than never? goman nasai, but things have been very stressful at my end. On with the review.
First of all, it really needs a layout overhaul. I've been a fan of this site for ages, and the layout hasn't changed in ages either. It's a great layout mind you. The reasons i was looking forward to and dreading this review are the same, this site is huge.
Primer-one thing i noticed is that the pictures have indentification, which is great. if i'd never seen SM before that would really help me out. skimming through it i see it is very professional, and not bogged down with details.
mission-wow, if i wasn't already into SM this would clinch it for me. it actually makes the season seem more dramatic than it is. angsty.
seiya etc-these are in depth. profiles at the end! simplicity rules. could you cite the quotes please? i thought they sounded like fanfiction. this is information, i'm looking forward to the opinions. those taiki quotes are depressing! i find i like the starlights more from this site than from watching the series. taiki's profile makes it much easier to like him when so many people are biased against him. the height thing is funny! yaten reminds me of an essay, using the quotes to prove your points. your teachers must love you! the image is broken, i'm shocked! biased? LOL! i love yaten too, no matter how much he hates it!
items-i can't see his ear ;_; great job on the images, having just the item itself looks so much better than if they were wearing it. the star yell is great, i didn't even know that thing had name. gosh, the information! i'm telling you my review sucks because i can't think of any way to improve this. maybe a link to a gif of it in action? *shrugs* hey, that toy looks so cool...hehehe gotta love Hammer Space, only in anime does it make perfect sense! hhmm, my theory for the henshin microphone is this: it looks so cool, they couldn't resist adding it. no wait, it's a symbol of their dual nature as boy and girl, as fighter and romantic, a symbol of their quest...sorry, too much english class.
senshi style-wow, i never noticed most of this stuff. it really adds depth. the paragraph about killing phages, is a bit confusing, you might want to seperate that from kakyuu's suspected power.
i'm skipping kakyuu for spoiler reasons.
essays-i've read this before and i'm still blown away at the effort. every possibility is covered. very well organized, other people's involvement, there is really no way to improve your writing abilities. everything is so darned great! ;_; *tears of joy*
*coughs* i was supposed to be reviewing wasn't I? I got caught up in reading. it's so interesting! most sites have a hard time keeping me interested, especially since i've moved beyond SM. this is a rare thing to see in a site, congratulations!
December 1st, 2000. A day that will live in infamy. you might want to change that.
uhg, mixxtakes, they suck! bad translators are the worst, the whole characer changes. >.< tein? what the heck is a tein?! (an hour later: my eyes hurt...)
okay, after looking around..this site is too extensive for me! the way i review is to look at every page, this would take weeks! and i'm only in the melody section! *dies*
OMG! i found something! in the multimedia section, the side navigation bar is ugly. i've always thought that only amature sites would put a scroll bar there. (fishuu feels slightly better)
myu! my favourite! i really need more of this stuff, it's so great. i'm so glad for the quality, it's usually terrible. OMG, why is yaten so cheerful?! scanned doujinshi! oh thank you ;_;
hmmm how to say this..i am inept! i cannot think of any way to add more or improve this site! i give up!
if had like, the ultimate website award, i'd give it to you. some sites are...historical!
¤ The introduction is well written and gives a sophisticated nostalgic feeling. The layout is clean and simple but not overly so. I do not kow if this was writted for 800 x 600 or not, but it looks very good in 1024 x 768. The updates are not listed on the main page, but the date of teh update is given so that is helpful. The sections are named cleverly.
¤ The web graphics are tastefully done and there is *gasp* actually information! The 'pirmer' is very meticulous. The same for the 'the mission' though a few pictures might not be bad. The profiles have support through quotations which is a nice touch. Interesting opinions on interdimensional pockets... Splitting the manga summaries up by volume was a good idea. Well know I have a full history on the development of tarrot cards... Interesting information about Takarazuka acting troupe. Hmm some of your information about the trimurti is a bit off but then again Hinduism is really big and vague. One major mistake...Sarasvathi is NOT Bhrama's consort...at times she is depicted to be his daugther (and at times Lord Shiva's daughter) but she is a virgin without a doubt. The major reason for Bhrama not having many devotees is becuase he fell in love with his daughter and tried to seduce her; while we may have written the Kama Surta, incest is still a no-no (also, she is the goddess of wisdom and war...like Athene). About the Das Avatars (ten incarnations of Vishnu) Kurma did not support the Earth on his back, only a mountain used in the churning of the ocean...water yet again! Also, Vamana was sent to humble Mahabhali, but he this might have been about depriving the Gods though I've never heard that twist of the story. About Shiva, sorry a linga is a stone with an interesting history but sorry the inferrence about teh male phalluis is incorrect, also tamas is not associate with darkness, more inertia and potential energy looking at it form the yogic point of view. The reason Shiva has a snake around his neck is to keep the poison (form the churning of the ocean from comming up, which is why his throat is blue; he is know as Neal Conta: the one with the blue neck). The idea of including information about the international was a good move. Overall these sections have all the information you could want and more, but tend to be text heavy (they need something to break it them up and seem less intimidating to the eyes).
¤ The songs idea is very original. And you include lyrics and an download of the song, convenient. I found most of the contents in the 'soda pop' section to be more than a little aggravating; frankly I doubt many people visit this section since each section has a lengthy cliche introduction. Wow your scanner really is bad...didn't it come with any image editing software? Mine scans bad too, but the editing software usually fixes the problems. In the 'merchandise' section check the border for the links because currently they are HUGE!
¤ Instead of having a list of the trading cards on teh bottom, teh information could just be put in alt tags, also making it more convenient. Well you certainlly have a lot of doujinshi scans. Interesting annonymous picture. The gallery set up is very organized.
¤ You even have sheet music and translated lyrics, I am impressed. For the kiss dolls: frankly I do not know what programs are compatible for LZH files (is winzip or winace?) perhaps some information on the file types compatability will be helpful.
¤ The updates section is helpful in linking to updated sections and providing notices on other going on's in the SM web community (a rarity these days). Listing memorable/ notable dates is a good idea, many sites do this but in a less organized fashion. The little rant section about teh 'stalker' is enteraining, but I didn't like the part about stereotyping Iowa (being that's my birthplace... *_*).
OMG…I can’t believe I get to review Starlight Pops, I can’t begin to elaborate on how much I love this site, but I will try to give a fair review containing suggestions, this just has to be my favourite shrine to BSSM characters in existence!
Main: The layout isn’t fantastic, but it does keep everything well organized and it would be easy for any browser to surf upon. Your layout is more practical then pretty, maybe you should think about spicing your layout up a bit since you already have great content. I love the different words describing aspects of music on the main page; they also have descriptions of where you are going (ie. Melody*Information) That truly is a great sign because I hate when people put something like “Chaos” on their menu with nothing indicating what is in that section.
Melody: Since your site seems near perfect (I’m so jealous) I hope you don’t mind me picking out every mistake because your site only needs the tiniest changes. I love how you include a through description of the menu item beside the title. First thing I have to say is that they summary of the BSSM series was very well done and is a good intro for anyone who is unfamiliar with SM (though I don’t know why they’d be in a Three Lights shrine if they weren’t). I like how you describe the Starlights’ mission in story form. I’m sorry I’m so specific about this mistake, I just finished sentence corrections in OAC English, in the following sentence, “Sailor Star Fighter is a prideful and honorable Senshi, but not above recognizing the fact that sometimes Galaxia's minions require . . . um, perhaps a bit more force than the Starlights alone could muster” you should use the word can instead of could because there are different tenses in the section. The sections on the individual characters were really well done and very descriptive. I was pleased with the fact that all the credits were noted on the bottom of the pages. Whoa…I love your time dimensional space-time theory in the items section, you also have comments from other people concerning the Three Lights’ items, it was very complete. In the Starlights, Senshi Style section you might want to put down a brief description or find some animated gifs of the Starlights attacking, other then that great info, not stuff you usually find. I love how you work the quotes into the various sections and make them separate by putting them in a different paragraph and using italics. I like the warning for the major spoilers on the Kakyuu page. On “The Truth” page the link to Vision is dead and there are two spelling errors Seiya is spelled “Sieya” at one point and often is spelled “oft”. Intelligence obviously resounds on this site, as you indent any input that anyone gives you and give them credit. “The Truth” would definitely be a useful section for anyone confused about the Three Lights. Materials Collection had some really interesting stuff that one doesn’t usually find in ordinary profiles. Info on mythology is interesting, most sites don’t have any information describing mythology and you went all out. I love the Starlights’ fuku, I didn’t know it was made out enamel though, I like the page comparing similarities and whatnot. Information about Seiyuu is fairly rare to find on any page, and you even provided links. Cool…info about the international dubs, this is why I don’t want Sailor Stars to be dubbed, I’m afraid it might be seriously messed up by any dubbing company that touches it.
Manga: I found the Manga section interesting, except for the little bit about tarot cards because I must confess that I don’t really care if the tarot cards were real or not. You might want the picture of Kakyuu’s introductory speech to open in a new window. Wow, you even found a place to buy the Sailor Stars translated Manga. In the “Nitpicking” section you put down “printy” instead of printing, it’s interesting to note just how much of the Stars Manga that Mixx screwed up.
Features: This has got to be my favourite section of the site. I love the Celebrity Death Match, Adventures in Wal-Mart and Feminism a Third Perspective, they were the most hilarious features in my opinion. The ULTIMATE Matchmaking challenge was pretty cool, though I didn’t agree with some of the results. OMG you have so much fanfiction and fanart it’s unbelievable, I have been checking out some of it recently though, and writing to the authors/artists for permission because I plan to open a Taiki fanfic/fanart site (because she’s so under-appreciated). The fanfics and fanarts are high quality, I can definitely say that from experience. Yeah for real thumbnails, but all of the pictures should have ALT text. Whao, if I ever had the money to buy a stars CD I’d definitely be here to figure out where to buy them and which one I should get. There’s even info on Sera Myu and it’s seiyuu. Lots of info on where to buy merchandise and commentaries on the merchandise. You even have a little wav from the Star Yell toy, just listening to that wav, I know that I’d make my mom so annoyed by that music if I bought one. In “Ye Olde Flower Shoppe” ye might want to think about putting the flowers in thumbnail form. Hurrah, a Taiki fan!
Accompaniment: This has got to be the largest Three Lights gallery I’ve ever seen, and there are real thumbnails too! The only thing I would like to see is ALT text on the pictures that describes the picture, even if it just says “Sailor Star Healer” it would be better then nothing, you can still keep the numbers on the ALT text too, just add something describing the picture. The scroll bar on the top and bottom menus is kind of annoying. If you’re talking about the Manga then you shouldn’t have to say Portrait of Seiya (female) because the Three Lights are always female in the Japanese version, I guess you’re just specifying that she’s wearing feminine clothes though.
Live Concert: I have seriously been looking for the music to the Sailor Stars theme forever, I’m printing this because I’m such a looser and I want to play the song on my piano (even though I’m not very good, it looks like fairly easy piano). Starlight treats galore, cool.
Rhythm: Wow, a site that actually wants to credit the places they originally got the images from, that’s definitely an unselfish thing to see in the Sailor Moon community, most people want credits simply for finding the images. FAQ answered any questions I might have about the site and was very complete. The website help section was useful, you have an impressive collection of links and there’s certainly no lack of buttons and banners to link with (some of them are hilarious).
Overall: I was incredibly pleased over the loading time of every page. This site is massive and every section was extremely well done. There were very few spelling mistakes considering the size of the site. Some of the sections were a bit boring, but with a site this big, you can pick and choose what you want to read and still be occupied for hours. The layout was fairly well done but could be improved a bit, it was simplistic but still pleasant to look at. Even if you don’t like the Starlights, there’s something here for everyone! I hope that all made sense, I don’t have much time this week. :)
Good Job,
Kaioh Michiru