| dec: makenai |
theme: stars season
It's Thursday and Fishuu has some time out of her busy OAC schedule, so here be a review done by someone talking in the third person. mmmm
Splash-nice.
Main-That club crap on the bottom can go on the splash page. Why not just make a 'useless crap' page since you have much of it? I know that sounded mean, but so many cliques and clubs is annoying. Nice layout. Nice pics. Nice used to mean very accurate, did you know that? Neil Gaiman did. The message board beg is the same as a guestbook beg, get rid of it. Why do I sound so mean today? *ponders* The Taiki doll is disturbing. tum tee tum..the updates page is interesting, i like updates that let you know the author. I'd read them if I had time.
Info and opinion could be seperated, but I see how it works with da layout. *yawns* why am ah so tired allva sudden...oh, it's 10pm. right. busy stude-*thud*
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After puling Fishuu's head off the keyboard, shocking her with electrodes....the rest of the review:
Intro-so that's why season five didn't suck. nice, good explanation, I know I hate writing things that are obvious, such as plots. this is good. a back button would be nice.
sum-the pics make a scrooll...ah forget it, I'm going to bed.
¤ Usesless splash. You recomend we use 1024 x 768, yet the text is barely unreadable. If you recomend a reolution make sure your font is easy to read. Many people think it's "cool" to use super and sub-script as the body text, but guess what, it's not (especially if it's not sans serif i.e. size 1 times new roman).
¤ There was a time when only enthusiasts would buy domains. Now everyone does, I guess I miss the professionality of domains. Point being, your frames are not lined up correctly and the images have bad compression. The main page looks unorganized with the solitary banner, it should be under the links, but you could add it on the splash as well. Why are the navigation links images? Image maps work wonders. ¤ The mast update should be on the main page, it's annoying to have to click through to see what's new. Your pathetic appeal (pathetic as in an appeal on pathos, not the current conotation) for you message board is uneeded.
¤ The 'site map' is functional as is the 'updates'.
¤ This is a Starlights site right? I'm surprised to see many of the graphics utalized have other characters. Anyways, the 'introduction' section is rather comprehensive. As is the "episode guide' though I can't really comment on the accuracy since I'm not familiar with the saga in question.
¤ The main picture under 'character profiles' is horribly aligned. For the inners, you have an interesting method of presentation. For the outers, the picture and text color blend easily.
¤ Finally, someone who lists the youma from the season. Well not much comment on the rest if the information section. It did keep my attention though, which is becoming a rarity nowadays.
¤ Hmm, interesting, you have a separate directory for your thumbnails, not a bad idea. Yay, someone who actually credits their sources for images.
¤ In the 'dolls' section, the text and Yaten pic overlap and are hard to read. For the winamp skins, creating thumbnails would be helpful so one could see the skin in detail.
¤ Your fanart is interesting. Not bad, I like it. There are a few broken links in the 'fanfics'. Once again, the art in the 'doujinshi' is well done.
¤ The bad thing about ikon board is that not many people use it so visitors are hessitant to use it. EZ borad is widely used and Bravenet does not require a username, but ikon board had the least disruptive ads (just a thought).
¤ Instead of even bothering to have thumbnnails for characters who have no look likes, why don't you just leave them off? Or don't link them.
¤ Well you idea to have a clique based on the musical is new.
¤ The divisions between the link catagories blend in. Try using a centered title or maybe a simple line divider (maybe size 1, or is 6 the smallest? I forgot).
¤ You have a page for you adoptions and cliques, so why are some of them on the splash?
¤ Informative profile. Most people add their email and SN on their bio pages (for convenience). You actually like eating rice? Especially with chicken curry? Eek how can you, oh I forgot, youre not forced to eat it every day (*_* sorry bout that), tandoori chicken or chicken tika is better with rice. Eh? Finally another Weiss fan (ain't Yoji hot?).
¤ You could link the pictures to an example page from the layout, but the pictures are enough.
Splash: The splash page was fairly useless. It just stated that the layout would look best under one resolution, but you could also view it in another. On the splash page you didn’t even say that your site had frames.
Layout: I loved the layout, it was fast loading and utilized profile pictures from the Manga. I’m glad you had ALT text on the links. The layout was also fast loading.
Stuff that put me into conniptions because it was horrendous:
- Very few back buttons on the site
- Some is still under construction
- It’s horrible when there’s a left-right scroller on the page that could have been avoided
- Where’s the Manga and Sera Myu info?
- Most of the pictures in the gallery didn’t have ALT text except Sera Myu
- In the Aino Minako and Kino Makoto sections the colours on the table section of the page were a bit bright, try a muted green and a muted colour of yellow, like cream
- In StarLights character profiles where did the fanart pic come from?
- Where’s the info on Galaxia, and Chibi-Chibi?
- Don’t use magenta, royal blue or mustard coloured text on a white background (you use all these colours in the villains section)
- The link back home in the villains section goes to the splash page
- In the Iron Mouse section you say “It's a shame Galaxia isn't fond of riddles.” Anyone not familiar with the Stars season wouldn’t know what that meant.
- “They are male in their normal forms” I’m sorry, I just don’t like the way you worded this because the StarLights ‘normal’ forms are female, they just became male to find their princess
- In your rumors section give a link to Layne for her info on the StarLights’ names
- In the rumors section you say “Read Chibi Chibi's profile in the character section.” My response is “What Chibi Chibi profile?”
- Black background in novel section doesn’t go with the rest of the site
- The back button at the end of the novel sent me to a page that didn’t exist and then I had to push the back button about ten times *o* how annoying!
- It might be good to have a few Manga pictures on this site
- Message board is kind of empty right now
- In the look alikes section I don’t understand why you would purposely
put up a dead link; take all the characters down without any look alikes yet.
- Might be useful to put a short summary on each page about the different characters
- I didn’t think that you needed quite that much info on Prof. Tomoe, you basically gave a short summary of the S series
What I loved:
- for the most part, I love the way you write
- I liked the fact that you had a page devoted to minor characters
- I like the rumors section, a lot of people think that Michiru and Haruka are lesbian cousins due to the stupidity of Cloverway, this section would clear up a lot of rumors for people who watch dubs
- Liked history section and info on site name (useful)
- I liked your article defending Seiya and Usagi, I am personally an Usagi and Mamoru fan but it was nice to see a different point of view, it was my favourite part of the info section :)
- StarLights novel is basically like an expansion of the episode summaries, I liked the screen shots
- layout is fast loading
- I like the screen shots on the episode summary pages except they make it so you have to scroll to the right
- Good, Episode summaries in your own words! I’m getting tired of always seeing the same Hitoshi Doi summaries around
- I like how you didn’t have profiles on the character pages, had poems and prologues
- Real thumbnails (cheers)
- In pics section at least you remembered as many credits as you could
- Like how you have ALT text on all Sera Myu pictures
- Nice wallpapers but for some reason they took forever to load
- I loved your multimedia section, I downloaded a video clip of knock’n down hesitation to watch
- Doujinshi was well done, I didn’t read much of it b/c the pages took too long to load and I don’t have mush time, I expected Doujinshi scans and I got a homemade doujinshi
- I love your fanart, I think I’ve seen it before on a few other sites like Healing Love
- You have quite a collection of multimedia
- The fanfictions are fairly high quality and I liked the fact that you had ratings and short summaries
- OMG, you made the Motoki shrine, I love that site :)
- - Previous layouts are nice
Overall this site was impressive. There’s a lot to be improved upon but ‘makenai’ (don’t give up) you can do it. Try to stay away from blinding colours and put some back buttons up, fix up a few dead links and you’ll find your site looking better then ever. I love the way you write and you had barely any spelling errors. That was a definite plus!
Ooh, I'm going to like doing this review. SailorStars! Woohoo! Now I have sites for the S, SuperS, and SailorStars seasons in my bookmarks. If someone makes sites for the first and R seasons, then I'm all set.
Layout- Very well done. I don't think the splash is needed, though. You could make a pop-up for the cliques. Ooh. I like the pictures on the subpages. Ack! The "Characters" page title banner is messed up. The two halves of it aren't lined up. The text on Tin Nyanko's page is a little hard to read. This layout is especially nice because it appears as if it will look good in most resolutions.
Coding- The splash page could use a TITLE tag. There's a broken link on the last page of the novelization of episode 173. On the Gallery 1 page, ab_voice_training.jpg is a broken link. On the Couples gallery page, ab_seiya_usa2.jpg and ab_turn are broken links. On the Seramyu gallery page, ono_hikari.jpg is a broken link. All of the links on the Songs pages are broken. On the Sounds page, lights_intro_musical.wav is broken. On the Wallpaper page, Starlights.jpg and Star.jpg are broken. More than half of the links to Winamp skins were broken. On the Fanfiction page, all four parts of "Kinmokusei" were broken.
Organization- I'd put back buttons or something of the like on each page to take the visitor back to the previous page, such as "Information." I know these links are already in the side bar, but this would be for the people who accidentally stumble onto your site from the subpages instead of the main page. The #1-11 links on the bottom of each gallery page confused me, because I thought they were links to separate pages within each character gallery, not links to the other galleries.
Content- On the "Introduction" page, I'm not absolutely sure but I think SailorStars received even lower ratings than SuperS. I'm seeing inconsistencies between the Introduction page and the first Episode Summaries page, with two different ways of spelling Nehellenia's name. Choose between the Japanese romantization, "Neherenia," or the English spelling, "Nehellenia." (It is spelled with two l's. The name comes from a Germanic goddess.) On the rumor page, I'd put a spoiler warning for Chibi Chibi's rumor or just leave out the juicy info. You know what I mean, hopefully. ^^ I like the Makenai page. The Seiya/Usagi page is explained very well... but you neglected to mention that Usagi never feels the same way about Seiya that s/he does about her. That's the big reason why I support Usagi/Mamoru over Seiya/Usagi -- because Usagi loves Mamoru, and thinks of Seiya as a friend. I like that you have a Japanese words page, especially since you probably use some of those words throughout the site. When no name suffix is used, can't it also mean disrespect as well as a close relationship? I don't know for sure because I've never studied Japanese. On the Images page, you say that a list of credited sites is provided below but they're not there -- they're on the individual gallery pages. It was just a little confusing.
Mechanics- Couldn't find any to correct!
I really enjoyed my stay here! Despite how I might sound in the review, mostly pointing out mistakes, everything else was wonderful. As I've already said, I'm definetly bookmarking you. Great job!