By: Jackie Chiang
Okay, I've been reading all these articles about Sailormoon sites closing
down. My personal opinion about all this? Trend. It's become fashionable
to close your site down since all the "cool" sites are doing it. You really
think that all these people, at the same exact time, decided "I hate my
page and/or I hate Sailormoon"? Hate to say it, but bull. Sailormoon's
become uninteresting? Nothing's happening with it? Double bull. Hey,
guess what? Evangelion's over! Hey, you know what? Ranma 1/2 is long since
"dead". Hey, person over there! Utena the TV series has ended! I haven't
yet seen anyone decide to tell the poor Eva, Ranma, Utena fans "Hey, webpage
owners, get a life! They're OVER! Move ON! It's not interesting!" I'm
into a lot of anime that's ended- Escaflowne I love; Nadesico is wonderful;
Oniisama E. is from the 70s or 80s, but I've never heard anyone to tell me
not to like them just because they're "over".
Oh darn, it's just so hard to be innovative with all these other Sailormoon
sites all over the net and with no new material coming out. You think that
by making yet another Evangelion page or yet another Utena page that you're
not doing the same thing? Come on! I don't have that much creativity in
me when it comes to websites, but if I possessed the skill and ability to
create elaborate graphics and set-ups, I'd hope that surely I could do
something new and inventive! (Or maybe if people weren't so intent on making
a new set-up for every holiday, month, season of the year, they'd have more
to work with?) Maybe I am privately glad that my page is not perfect- I can
always update, change, and redo it to make things better. I sincerely doubt
that most of people who are closing their pages had perfect pages.
Rats, unappreciative visitors being bratty and nasty and sending me horrid
e-mails. How about a reality check? The Internet (as well as in real life)
has a lot of crummy people. There are mean people, there are stupid people,
there are the immature and ignorant, there are the rotten and the selfish.
It's a fact of life, and if you expect to be given only happy e-mails all the
time, then there's something not quite right in your thinking. Sure, some
may sting and some may hurt, but toughen up. Make a flames page to mock the
idiots who try to get to you. Get comfort from your friends. Do whatever.
Just get over it. I find it really hard to believe that IF you have a
really good site, a lot of visitors and positive feedback, that one or two
flames or bad e-mails from idiots out of 100 is enough to drive people to
close their sites forever. I'm a fairly sensitive person, and I've gotten I
don't know how many flames and or criticisms. I haven't closed my page yet.
The whole flames/bad e-mails thing is just an excuse, one that doesn't beg
copying but somehow HAS made its way to many pages already. It's easy to
go with the easy way out. I prefer honesty to a cliche answer pre-made for
you. If you're closing your page only to make a new one to something else,
are you going to close that new one too at the first site of criticism?
You're naturally going to get SOME kind of flame or insult, it's pretty hard
not to!
These visitors are ripping me off and plagiarising me. So what? It's
happened to me before. I either report the pages or blacklist them. I've
had my images stolen, text copied, entire pages almost copied word for
word for word. You can't expect people to NOT steal your images, it's
going to happen. You can try to appeal to the decent folk out there,
but a lot of people aren't decent and will steal anyway because they're
lame. That's basically just what you say- they're lame, if they're
plagiarising me a lot, I'll report them to their server and/or a webpage
review site or whatever. Have a person who's direct linking? Change
your file names around, replace them with obscene images, have fun with
getting revenge, not mad and say, "Boo hoo, I'm going to close my page."
It's not fun anymore. "Damn, my SM page isn't fun anymore, so I'm going to
close it down/not update and make a new page to another anime, so that in
a year or two, I'll get sick of that one and say 'It's not fun anymore',
close that page down, start a new one..." That's a pretty stupid cycle if
you ask me. If maintaining a page bores you, WHY DO IT at all? Why even
bother to create a page? Face it, if maintaining your huge SM page bores
you now, your new huge pages to other anime are going to eventually bore
you as well. You may love your new anime right now, but in a few years,
"Pfft" and your webpage to that anime? "Pffft X2"
I happen to agree with the person who wrote the article that said that moving
past Sailormoon does not equal an increase in maturity level. That's
totally ridiculous. There's such thing as moving on, but that doesn't mean
you've become maturer. I know a lot of older fans who are mature people
and who still like Sailormoon. Heck, I know people who like Sailormoon,
Evangelion, Utena, and My Little Ponies! Don't say "mature", that's just
lame. Personally, I find it slightly immature to go bouncing around anime
series, one day saying that this anime is their absolute favorite, the best,
then the next day, "Oh, that old thing? I can't see why I liked it, it's so
boring" or "I've matured, I've moved on." I realize that loving an anime or
an object isn't like love between people or between pets or whatever; still,
there's something unnerving about claiming a love for an anime, only to turn
around and say it sucks or is boring the very next year. True story: I had
a friend a couple of years ago, she was an avid Sailormoon fan, liked
Jupiter a whole lot. Then suddenly, one day, she said: "Sailormoon sucks!
Only the Outers are cool! CLAMP rules! Worship CLAMP!" She became
extremely irritating to be around, thank heavens she never came around again.
(Insert Sailormoon promotion right here: I really think anyone who thinks
MKR is better than SM needs to have his/her head checked... like that
annoying leader from my HS anime club who screamed in anime-style voices
"Kawaii!" and "Kakkoii!" when she knew zip Japanese... *ahem*)
Sailormoon's gotten uninteresting. I read a notice by one webpage owner that
was extremely hostile. It said that everyone should move on past Sailormoon
and to get over it as it was over. I don't know. Personally, I think it's
interesting so long as you make it so. Fanfic writing is one method people
use to do that; fanart, I think to a lesser degree. My own feeling is that
Sailormoon is a great anime and manga. There are filler episodes, and it
got repetitious, and there was SuperS (though some people like SuperS, so
maybe that's not a good example), but if you look at it from an overall
perspective, I think it's pretty damn unique. The characters? They're
still fascinating to me- extremely well developed, great personalities. I
don't know, I'm not trying to change people's minds, just that I think
there's still so much in there, even when it's over... Do you read a book,
get into it, then afterwards, when it ends, say, "It's over, thus, it's
uninteresting"? This may be irrelevant, but the Sailormoon musicals
(Sera-myu) are still going strong, they're still popular in Japan. In fact,
there are new dolls being made based on the musicals with sets modeled after
the stages in the musicals. There are even going to be new anime comics
based on the musicals published. Not *all* of Sailormoon is dead is what I
guess I'm trying to say. I bet that not many fans even know about the musicals,
or if they do, they haven't seen them. (Recommendation of the day: Skip the
SM/SMR and SMS musicals and get right to the SuperS and beyond ones, you're
not missing much by not seeing the first two.)
If truly you can't stand Sailormoon any longer, you hate it so much or it
irks you, fine. Close your page. There's really no point in keeping
something that you're hostile towards. But why are some webpage owners so
bitter about it? They should be happy they get to severe the tie. But I
think it's a loss, really. It's my opinion that if you just off your page,
delete it, that's it, the end, that you've somehow wasted a lot of your life
on a page that you got rid of in maybe ten minutes. Well, to be more
truthful, I think if you can delete your page so easily it must not have
been that good to begin with, unless later you regret it. It happens. I've
thrown away fanfics and fanart only to realize later that I should have kept
'em, that they weren't so bad actually, were pretty good really, could have
been much better with some improvement. The things that I honestly can say
suck, I delete or throw away without thinking about it for too long, and I
don't regret those. I would keep the site up, space permitting, or burn it
onto a CD or something. Maybe keep it as a momento, if you're going to have
a job or a resume working with HTML or design, show that off. That's what I
really plan on doing if and when I ever close my own page down. I don't
foresee that happening anytime soon, Sailormoon is still my favorite
anime/manga.
Which brings up something else. Someone once e-mailed me saying that she
knew my interest in Sailormoon was waning, everyone else's was. I was
pretty ticked off about that, though I knew the girl didn't mean anything bad
by it, she just assumed that I, like everyone else, was getting tired of it.
I hate to break it to some of you, but not everyone has seen all 200
episodes, all 3 movies, all 18 tankubon, all five (six) artbooks, all the
musicals, all the specials, and has all the CDs. It's really a fallacy to
say that EVERYONE is tired of Sailormoon. That's just the fad working. I
can't tell if my interest has lessened- I'm rather obsessed at the moment
in getting more musical tapes, I want them over new anime, I'd like to have
a musical doll (preferably Outer, if they're ever made), and I waste a lot
of money on Uranus and Neptune doujinshi. ^^; But I do know that there are
people who still ask me where to get the original episodes, subtitled tapes,
dolls and merchandise, etc (because they don't read my page all that well),
and most of my friends haven't seen all 200 episodes either. And I also
know that I've seen all 200 episodes, 3 movies, 18 tankubon, five artbooks
and the sixth online, most of the musicals except for the lst one, and have
a lot of CDs, and I'm still not tired of it. Maybe I'm the exception, but
I don't think you can call the fad a rule either.
The following might tick more people off if you weren't already, so you are
warned: I really don't have anything against the Kraiders, but I'm slightly
pissed at some things regarding them. That is, namely, that people seem to
be focusing on these pages (and pages that are Kraider-like or Kraider-friends)
closing/not updating as some sort of apocalypse. My question: WHY are these
pages closing such a big deal? Some people are suddenly like: "OH MY GOD!
THEY'RE CLOSING/NOT UPDATING! THEY'RE CLOSING/NOT UPDATING! WE'RE ALL
DOOOOOOOMED!" Then a couple of them say, "Hey, wait a minute.. WE can be the
new generation of pages" or "THESE new sites are going to be the new
Kraiders." That's all good and well, but hey, yo, over heeereee. My page
has been around for three years or so, doing pretty well despite problems
with servers (new URL is http://sailorsoldier.cjb.net/ BTW for those of
you wondering). It has been up for a long time, longer than most of these
pages shutting down. Guess what? I'm not closing! I don't plan on closing,
I don't think I will either! Is my page's existence some sort of bad thing?
Do people not realize or care about the pages that have remained up,
before, during, and after the fall of the pages in question? Is being old
bad? This probably seems self-centered, but it is also quite self-centered
of many Sailormoon fans to think that these type of pages (pretty with
nice set-ups) are the only Sailormoon pages on the web.
I'm glad that some of the people seem to realize that there are new pages
popping up, like daisies though it's almost fall, and that newbies turning
into more die-hard Sailormoon fans will replace the ones that left. However,
I can't help but feel slightly bitter that there IS so much attention placed
on some pages leaving. No doubt some fans are thinking about what the page
owners said, about being unappreciative. By looking forward to new pages,
maybe they're thinking about what to do differently. At the same time,
they're giving off negative feelings about the pages that remain, who aren't
Kraider-like, who've remained steadfast for one, two, three, four, however
many years. There aren't, in my opinion, webpage gods. I think that some
people need to realize that these pages closing isn't some sort of huge,
all powerful, everlasting shift that will affect all of Sailormoon-kind
for the rest of their puny lives. Yeah, a lot of pages are closing at once,
it's a fad IMO, but it's still not some sort of doomsday, more like a cult
effect (I'm not calling them cults though). 30 pages closing out of
however many- 10,000? 100,000? - isn't going to create a huge deficiency in
the reproduction system of webpages. Maybe there won't be as many pretty,
nicely designed pages (though I think there are still many left), but the
end of the Sailormoon webpage isn't going to come anytime soon. I mean,
even the Amazoness Quartet has been as dependable as ever, they've improved
actually, done a lot better, remained inventive, and they were here for
three good years.
Now I'm back to the whole webowners versus visitors thing. Flames and nasty
e-mails already addressed above. I think that visitors have a right to be
peeved at owners who just suddenly decide one day to delete their page. I
think there are warning signals- no updates for a while- but really. The
owners should be appreciative that they have so many visitors who liked
their hard work and effort, not angry (so long as the webpage visitors remain
polite, polite being the key word). What if one day Hitoshi Doi just closed
down his page? I think that would make a lot of people upset. What if you
went to your favorite store in the mall, only to find it had closed down due
to lack of interest in clothes anymore (how unlikely is *that* ^^;;;)? The
point I'm trying to make is that visitors are mad because they *care* so
much. That's not really anything to become peeved at.
On the reverse end, yes, visitors should respect the webpage owner's wishes.
And, well, once a page is gone, it's gone, and it ain't coming back, so
there's no point in wasting energy about that. And, if your favorite
webpage's owner no longer likes the series, why do you want to visit that
page? The owner can't possibly share the same interest with you anymore,
you know it'll be updated by someone who's thinking "Oh, God, not this SM
page.. God, I wish I could be watching (insert anime name here) right now
instead...", and you can't force him or her to like it again. If the owner
hates updating the page or doesn't like unappreciative visitors, well, you
can't change that either. HTML *is* a rather annoying chore, I'm not too
fond of it myself. To prove that you're not one of the unappreciative ones,
just write a nice e-mail to the owner explaining that you're disappointed
that the page closed, but you really liked it when it was up, and thank you
for making it. That might make the webpage owner less bitter (though
probably not inclined to put the page back up). As for making yourself less
bitter, just remember that there are a lot of other pages out there, many
you haven't seen, some of which are making themselves into elite groups
right now. Yeah, most of them probably suck, but some will improve, and
you're bound to find a gem in there someplace, right? Who knows? Maybe
you'll find the next great page! And if not, maybe you should make
your own page!
I think the good compromise already suggested by CereCere of the Amazoness
Quartet is just to keep your page up but don't update it. That way, your
visitors can still enjoy your site, and you don't have to worry about taking
care of it- just take off your e-mail addresses, guestbooks, whatever, and
leave a message explaining the situation, etc. Sure, the dumb ones might
still bother you, but just brush them off as being dumb. (And if they
continue to annoy you, use the filters most e-mail programs/servers have.)
To sum everything up nicely:
- Pages closing right now is IMO a fad usually supported by flimsy excuses.
- Plagiarism and theft is going to happen, but just report the cases that
you find.
- If a page becomes un-fun, it's pretty damn likely your new pages are going
to become un-fun too.
- Not liking Sailormoon anymore doesn't mean you've become maturer.
- Just because Sailormoon ended doesn't mean it's uninteresting to everyone
else.
- If you honestly hate your webpage, close it.
- If you don't like Sailormoon, don't continue updating your page.
- In the two cases above, consider keeping a copy of the page someplace, or
keep it up if possible and just not update. That creates a win-win
situation: your visitors can still visit; you won't have to worry about
updating or pretending you like something that you don't.
- Pretty pages leaving SM isn't the end of the world. There are a *zillion*
SM webpages out there; like 30 leaving; and a ton entering.
- Life's short and weird, so be bitter for a little bit, get over it soon,
then go enjoy your favorite anime and manga.
Comments on this article can be sent to: Jackie Chiang.
