By: MrHighwind
You know, all this time I never thought that I'd have an
entire Lemures article within me waiting to be written, but
recent complaints about the mass-closure of several
top-notch Sailormoon websites has prompted me to write
this.
First of all, according to a recent article, the reason
most of the venerated Sailormoon webmasters are shutting
down their sites is because that's the latest trend. Okay,
let's quibble over semantics for a moment: In order for
something to be a trend, a mass amount of people must
follow it. Seriously, how many pages are shutting
down...about ten? That's hardly enough to consider it a
trend. However, if you take the amount of the Sailormoon
Webpage Elite (for lack of a better term) into account, ten
people is actually quite a few of them, which could
constitute it as a fad after all. There's just one
problem.
It's absurd.
I find it very hard to believe that people who have poured
their hearts and souls into their pages, all out of love
for Sailormoon, would simply give everything up because
that's what everyone else is doing.
Face it, people. Sailormoon is not only over, it's been
over for a good three and a half years now, the manga
longer than that. There's not much new you can say about
it unless you really feel like delving into the vastly
different world that is Sera Myu or DiC/MIXX translations.
Sooner or later, it happens to everyone. Creativity runs
dry. The biggest problem is that the mass of people out
there in webland don't seem to understand this. They'll
see that a page has been left stagnant for a couple months
and send a nasty letter to the page owner telling them to
update their page...although not nearly as politely as
that.
Yeah, the first course of action would be simple. Ignore
them. But then more people flame, and more and more and
more. (Believe me, there's no shortage of stupid people
out there in netland, or anywhere else for that matter.)
Soon the amount of mail one receives simply because they
haven't updated or finished a particular section becomes
overwhelming that creating a page ceases to be fun. After
all, why have these people spent so much time on their
pages in the first place? Was it for the free fish? Yeah,
right. They did it because they wanted to. These people,
these 'webpage elite' if you will, are the ones who have
paid us the greatest service to Sailormoon, and how do we
repay them? We whine and bitch and moan because they have
lives too and they'd like to move on.
Hitoshi Doi, Janelle, Apatt, Mara K, Ruk, Jupe, Jackie
Chiang, Rowena and all the other SM gurus have given us
accurate information without fail, inspiration for our own
sites, for those of us who have them, and in the cases of
the SM Toolbox and Team Venus, lovely graphics and
backgrounds for those of us who haven't the talent or the
tools to create them ourselves, not to mention tutorials so
we could learn for ourselves if we wanted to.
And now a large percentage of the above listed have decided
to move on. Guess what, that's how life is. You grow up,
constantly changing. Yes, people grow out of Sailormoon,
but it's not as much of a mental maturity thing as some
have implied. Maturing is gathering life experiences,
learning that there is more to anime than Sailormoon, and
quite possibly liking that anime better. Sailormoon is
merely a foothold in the anime world. And many have grown
out of Sailormoon and moved onto better anime (better being
in the most subjective of senses), but does that mean that
they hate Sailormoon all of a sudden? Not necessarily.
I'm sure that they, like me (even though I still rank
Sailormoon my second favorite anime), will always look back
on it like an old friend. Very much in the way that some
of us used to like Transformers or He-Man when we were
little, but grew out of it, but still remember those days
fondly, (I'm not ashamed to admit, when I was young I liked
She-Ra. Nowadays I call it my "shoujo roots," just as
Transformers, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors and Go-Bots
were my mecha roots) they can also see Sailormoon as such.
But then factor in those who refuse to understand this and
send flame after flame whining about the stagnancy of a
page, or the fact that the owner no longer deems Sailormoon
their favorite anime of all time, regardless of whether or
not they have come to hate it or still like it but simply
have found better anime. If anything will squeeze the joy
out of webpage making, these people will.
But these are people that have given several years for US!
They not only created their pages because they were fun,
but because they wanted to educate US on a show that they
loved! So now that they want to move on, do we really want
to hold them down and insist that they cater to us and us
alone for the rest of their lives?
Well, I'm not that selfish. I'm going to do what we all
should do. I'm going to support their decision and
understand that only they know what is best for them, so if
this is it, then this is it. I'm going to make them proud
of what they have done instead of having them leave the SM
community with a chip on their shoulder.
This tribute is to you.
RUK: No, Uranus isn't my favorite Senshi. In fact, she
ranks pretty damn low, but I always enjoyed your page
because you had completely unique psychological
observations that the common man could never come up with.
I'll miss your intelligence and wit.
JANELLE: God bless you for leading me to the deity that is
Fushigi Yuugi. ^_^ Thank you for answering all my
questions that I ever had about Sailormoon, even though
they were all really obscure facts that no normal person
would know. You put up with stupid people for a long time,
and the fact that you didn't kill someone in a fit of
insanity is nothing less than commendable. ^_^ But
seriously, I know I speak for many when I say that you're
gravely misunderstoodand. I've never met another who is so
tolerant of adversity and willing to listen to others even
when they didn't agree with you. (Does the Top Ten Reasons
Mercury is Better than Neptune list ring a bell? ^_^) I
mean, while everyone else bitched me out for even thinking
such a travesty, you actually listened, and even agreed on
some points, even though at that time you hated Mercury
with an unrivaled passion.
MARA K: Believe it or not, you were the one who inspired
me to make my own webpage. When I first came across Pluto
Planet Power, I decided there and then that I would make a
page good enough to deserve your Pluto Planet Award. I
can't say enough good things about your incredible talent
at webpage design. I hope that it really pays off in life,
but knowing your talent, I'm sure it will. Team Venus was
of great help to me, since I'm not the most adept person in
the world at making webpage graphics and backgrounds. You
are a smart and talented person, and I'm glad that you
created PPP and Team Venus for all of us out here in
Moonieland. You will be sorely missed by me and many
others, I'm sure.
As for Jupe and all the others who have moved on, your
sites are influential, inspirational and fantastic, even
though I never knew any of you personally. Best of luck to
all of you in life. I'm sad you're moving on, but you have
every right to do so if you feel that is best. Thank you
for your contributions. I only hope that one day my page
can be as good as any of yours.
Comments on this article can be sent to: MrHighwind.
