About Archen's Anime Page
Information
History
In Internet terms this site is a living fossil, and like a fossil it has a lot of history. This site started in 1996 as a simple Sailor Moon page (yes that's right, Sailor Moon), using the Geocities automatic page builder. Figuring out the Internet thing, I felt ambitious enough to create a "main page", along with pages about the good and bad guys of Sailor Moon. That's a total of 3 pages with a few pictures here and there.
Around this time I discovered Comic Junction
rented anime, and I went totally crazy watching anime (rather cheaply). I
got fed up with people associated with Sailor Moon, so I moved that page to a
sub-section and re-titled my site: "Archen's Anime Page". While this title isn't
very cool, back in 97 anime sites had names like "Bob's Xena page", or "Cindy's
Ranma Shrine". For a while I tried more artistic page names, but then I thought
Yeah, who am I kidding? I'm not that artistic.
I just call sub pages
Archen's {blah blah} page too now.
Making pages about anime became a full blown hobby of mine. Why all about anime? That's what my mom used to ask me all the time. I have other interests, but anime is the biggest of mine. Combo pages of unrelated topics lack focus. If you want to read about anime, you look up anime. You probably don't care to see if a site is about both garden gnomes AND anime. Although back when I started, those Internet home pages were pretty common.
"Anime Pages" like mine don't exist anymore. For a while I concentrated on less popular series, but in today's environment even the most popular series have few, if any shrine sites dedicated to them. Currently I make pages on series I like, but with some potential for an interesting layout. I still focus on content, even if no one bothers to read it. Some prefer generic dry wikipedia style websites, but the Internet I loved back in the day, had pages written by people with a personality. Speaking of "back in the day" I try to adhere to a 1990s anime website philosophy. This means there are some really dated concepts here, like a page of links and anime reviews. Websites in the 90s often had these. A dumb tradition to keep alive, but there you go.
This site is a patchwork of different layouts instead of one format. When I started, it never occurred to me to use one layout, then cut-and-paste the rest. I've never really liked that approach. I feel that each section should be distinct with its own feel. I try to define this site through craftsmanship. Many disciplines have time honored, labor intensive traditions. They differentiate themselves because they were made by human beings. I think of my site the same way. I may not pump out content like web blogs, but I do try my best to make a quality website. Hopefully you'll find it informative and interesting enough to be worth your time.
Site Information:
Archen's Anime Page Brochure - Compact, Adorable, Fast, Educational. This started out as a joke, but I ended up taking it to heart. It's now a sentiment I try to employ in all my web pages.
Since 1996, AAP has moved a few times. This site was first located at www.geocities.com/Area51/9235/, back when they gave you 800Kb of space. While free, Geocities had huge problems with going down all the time. From there I moved to belldandy.net/archen/ back when my girlfriend owned that domain. Due to bandwidth issues I decided to move to scythe.net. Formerly I had a European mirror at archen.animanga.com, although that's now down. Why not use my own domain? Laziness I suppose.
If you haven't noticed, this is the official site logo. I'm amazed it looks as cool as it does, but I guess even I have my moments. It was probably the only productive thing I did in trigonometry class.
Newer pages are mostly HTML 4/5 compliant. Older parts are HTML hacks and follow no standards. Standards compliant web browsers work (Firefox / Chrome / Opera), although Internet Explorer didn't qualify until version 9. I currently assume a resolution of at least 1024x768. And yes I still take care the other 4% find the site viewable. I create my pages using Paint Shop Pro 5 (yeah, seriously) and Vim.
A look through the past:
So here's a fun thing to look at: What my page looked like through the years. Keep in mind that the target browser on some these sites was usually Netscape 3 or MSIE 3, so they don't exactly look exotic. Almost everyone at the time had 800x600 resolution settings which made things easier if you ask me. This only shows the index page; the only one updated throughout the history of my site. I'm not planning on updating the layout of that page anymore, but you never know.
| Years 1 to 4 | Old Layouts | Other Stuff |
Disclaimers:
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- No responsibility will be held against this site for domestic disputes, riots, small scale wars, or unusual military combat tactics inspired from this website.
- This website takes no responsibility for Elvis being kidnapped by aliens, and does not accept responsibility for the actions of those aliens.
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- This website in no way advocates violence towards antelope.
- Viewing this website will not result in gum decay or tooth loss!
- This website takes no responsibility for corrupting hard drives, morals, politicians, daughters, frisbees, sheep, food items, or anything else this site may manage to corrupt.
- This website claims no responsibility for not claiming any responsibility.