Eudial

Alright, I actually did this review a few days back, but this kid changed the layout of the site. *grumble* Makin my job harder, I see.

Well, since Im in charge of affilates and self-promotion, I cant rip this site completely apart, like I want to. There are two affilates here, B & B and SM Uncensored. Its on the right of the main under "Sites We Like." Hmmm, I think this can be translated to "Site that Dont Hate Us Yet." The links for these two sites work, but I believe that these sites are now burdened by having this one as there affilate.

As for self-promotion, we have only two buttons for the site. Its located right under the "Sites We Like." This kid originally didnt have self promotion buttons, so he got lucky. Though you have buttons, just having two of them makes the choice of selection rather...poor. I mean, im not fond of Uranus or Neptune, so for people like myself, you need to make different characters.

I grant you a 3/10. You need more buttons and DEFINITELY more affilates.

Mimette

I am greeted by a splash page. Splash pages are good. It states that I need my standard resolution (1024x768), I have to be able to accept iframes (I can), tables (what browser doesn't?), CSS, and that this site was designed for IE 5.0 or greater. This splash page also has Opera on here but with a dash through it. I guess that means that Opera isn't compatable with this site.... it doesn't surprise me as Opera is by far the most nit picking browser I have ever tried to code for.

Alright I hit this GIANT enter button only to see a huge picture of Naked Usagi. Nothing like a set of boobs in your face late at night. She looks like a screen set up behind the stage at a Three Lights concert. And what is with the pink everywhere? It is horrible. We are talking mass amounts of grotesque magenta here and what appears to be swirl brushes everywhere. There is also ANOTHER picture of Naked Usagi on the right, but she looks horrible squished. Not just that, but she looks like she is ready to take a load on her face with that stupid expression she has. Did I mention that the convenient placement of the letter "y" in the "back screen" image covers the vital crotch shot?

Alright, I dunno what crack you were smoking when you made that splash page (no offense to crack addicts, we know you need your fix), but this site does NOT work in IE. The navigation menu is almost unviewable. How the hell you EVER considered this IE compliant (which I might add is a standards compliant browser), is beyond me. However after your obvious bad taste in main images, it really doesn't surprise me all that much. I can't say this enough, but...

WHY OH WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THE ABSOLUTE LEAST TASTEFUL SHOT FOR A MAIN IMAGE???!!!

Alright now that that is out...

*falls over*

Yo, Eudial, you had your turn!!!!

Eudial here! ....wow...this site is horrible. My role is strictly self promotion and affilates, but I have to overstep my boundary and rant a bit now. WTF is with this site?!? How am I supposed to do self promotion when I cant even see the @!%&^ing naviagation!

First of all, "FAQS" are not clearly found. You have to explore his site in order to find it. Well, I found it and im disappointed. Here's what it says:

"Yes, I do do my own coding. I learned from my Max's HTML Beauty++ 2004. However, I'm going to start over from scratch because it is the reason why you may believe that I don't code everything myself."

.........What the HELL is this?!? Thats not proof whatsoever! Kid, get a clue! If u wanna prove u did something urself, here's a tip, get PROOF!!

When we, at PockyBox, do a report on drama, why do people believe us? Well, I'll tell you. Its because we show the PROOF!!!! That way, it becomes fact and not speculation!

*Gets out the shock stick*

EUDIAL BACK TO YOUR BOX NOW! *zap*

Alright, now that that red headed ugly has tried to steal my column I return to this review to say this.....

"Sites We Like" is just pathetic. There are TWO links here and well from what I can see, one of them is where the webmaster jocked the concept of this site from. SMUncensored is a very well known aand very well loved site by us fans. However, your site is a miserable attempt at something that they have been doing for a long time. In essence you are a copycat. Anybody that has ever even been to SMUncensored will know right off where you got the idea and that it isn't unique.

Your bottom navigation is not viewable either. I tested this layout in Firefox as well as IE and low and behold your site works in Firefox, but I can't stand tabbed browsing, so don't expect me to come to a site that lies about its requirements for viewing. However I can tell you this. This is probably the only one I will believe you coded as it reaks of badly done code that isn't standards compliant and somebody that doesn't know what they are doing. That being the case, you prooved my point that you don't code your code by hand. Good job for showing your true colors again.... wait, what color is that? The magenta vomit color on this site? Or the nude skintone of Naked Usagi? I will leave that up to the reader to decide.

Edit: May 9, 2005: Since we reviewed this site, the layout has changed. So you get two reviews in one from me on this review. Lucky you ^_^;

Tellu

Credits:

Alright, I'm on the main page. Has some opening stuff about the purpose of the site and updates. Pretty typical, I do this on my own site. Maybe there should be a 'purpose' page to the site, since I'm sure the idea for reviewing the dub didn't just pop up out of thin air and a site was created. I'm a little curious as to the entire story behind this site. Oh well. Moving on...

First place I'm going to go is to the 'site' section. There is a little heading for 'credits', one of which links is a works cited page. I won't mention the fact that you are only supposed to use the phrase 'works cited' for published works (like novels, poems, etc., websites don't usually count) but we'll continue on.

The page is broken down into little sections. The first one reads "Layout". The author of the website has created the awfully pink layout using Photoshop 7.0, the same program I use to make my layouts. Alright, not bad. I'm not incredibly inpressed with what they've used the program to make, but that's not my section to review. The author gives credits to VBrush and Angelic Trust for the brushes, which are pretty popular websites. I get some of my brushes from Angelic Trust myself. He credits the images in the layout to The Oracle and Mystical Senshi. Not bad, but do all of his layout images come from there? It's been the same credits for a while.

The author claims that the coding is done by themselves, and after reviewing the source code (which was a little hard to get, since this was coded so that almost the entire layout is image dependent, even on the background at the bottom where it doesn't need to be an image) it looks legitimate. The coding isn't great, but this looks to be like a beginning site anyway.

What threw me off with the coding was the fact that the tables used to set up the images are incredibly complex (for a novice, anyway), but the pages on the site are coded VERY simplistically. I thought that a coder who could figure out tables enough to code a layout with them would use more gusto when coding their pages, but I could be wrong. It could be that the tables for the layout were generated by Photoshop (which is possible, the program does have that function, and I use it pretty often myself) but the spacing seems a little off for that. The image names for the layout are a little too specific to have been generated, so I'm torn. whatever. The author is telling me to go look at his FAQ on his other website, Subarashii Dream (which means Wonderful Dream in Japanese, it's a phrase from the PGSM song "Friend"). Alright, let's go:

When you get to the FAQ page on his other site (which was a little hard to find, but I'm not here to review this site) it says:

"Q: Is it true that you do your own coding? A: Yes, I do do my own coding. I learned from my Max's HTML Beauty++ 2004. However, I'm going to start over from scratch because it is the reason why you may believe that I don't code everything myself."

Erm...alright. I'm not really sure how that was supposed to answer my pretty specific question, but whatever. I happen to know that the author says that he learned a lot of his coding from a website called Lissa Explains it All, but he doesn't mention that on either of his websites. He probably should. It is possible to teach yourself HTML over the internet, I did so myself 6 years ago, but when there are questions as to where you learned it's good to mention where you learned from. I guess you could learn from a program, but that seems a little difficult to do.

The last section on his credits page is for the Multimedia Files - Sailor Music. Let's go over to Sailormusic.net and look at their policy on sharing their files:

"Can I link directly to your songs? No. You may download and upload any of the songs to your own web space. I am unable to give suggestions for web hosts or servers."

Alright. I guess he's planning on downloading her stuff and putting it up with credit. That's not bad. I don't see anything on this website for download yet, so I'm guessing this is for something in the future? The wording isn't really clear.

I'm going to go over to the 'Rules' page. It looks suspiciously similar to my rules page from Ballads and Bows, but I can't prove anything. Why the author wants to know the gender of the applicants is a little beyond me - I don't see how it affects reviewing ability - but whatever. Moving on.

The 'Thank You's' Page. Alright. Some links to forums he frequents (ugh, I have not had a good experience with any of the forums he's friendly with, blah...) and a thank you to me o.O;; Well, I suppose he is trying not to steal, can't hate someone for trying. Ahh, here's the reference to Lissa Explains it All. This part should be under his 'Works Cited' section, not under Thank You's. Maybe these should be combined into one page? It's something to consider.

The rest of the website doesn't have much on it. There are three staff members, none of which have done anything so far as reviews. I'm a little confused as to why it says on the front page that they are going to review the dubbed version of Sailormoon (meaning the episodes) and then on the 'Opinions' page it goes on about reviewing the dubbed music. The webmaster should clarify as to whether or not they are reviewing episodes or music. I actually don't see any information about the episode reviews anywhere. Just opinions. Shouldn't this section be labeled "Review Outline" or something? Just a suggestion.

There are a couple of links offsite to Ballads and Bows and Sailormoon Uncensored. I'm not sure why they're there. Are they affiliates, or just links? This should be clarified. If you are using ideas from these sites, you should also clarify that.

The forums are pretty dead. I'm not sure why they're there. The site looks pretty unorganized, but at least the credits for the few materials there seem to be in order. Hopefully as this site improves their list of credits will grow as it should. The site concept isn't bad though - with hard work and a real staff and some organization this site could be a good idea. The author should work a lot harder on it.

Viluy

Ok, having a look at this site's content, I'm really rather disappointed on so many fronts. One is because you do NOT mix Japanese and English in your content unless you really know what you're doing. It just makes you look like an idiot. Also, pleeeeeeeeeeease use a spell-checker. What the hell is this: 'Staff members my start sending in their opinions on categories'??? It's such a basic error, webmaster. One would think you could get that right. No?

On to the staff section. OMFG, what the hell is this? Something in bright red so that it almost blinds me. When you're making a website that you want people to be able to visit, even your staff members, you really need to make it tasteful. Not lurid. Why have your staff announcements in slut red? That is just soooo bad. 'The staff is what makes the site go so well'? What tripe is this? 1. It is grammatically incorrect, and 2. it's just plain sappy. Lose it. NOW. Your staff may be idiots, but your viewers are not. Don't patronise them in incorrect grammar. Also, you might want to change this: 'Also, I'll offer you an e-mail account at Subarashii Dream as your contact e-mail address specifically for Horribbly Dubbed!' to something like this: 'As a staff member, you're entitled to an email account.' (Do NOT steal these words exactly or I'll nail your scrotum to the floor for theft!) Oh, and 'aquiring' (geez, that was hard to spell badly) is spelled ACQUIRING. (side note: who cares what sex (or not) your staff are?)

Ok, your rules are a bit lame as they go, and not very intuitive, but whatever works. The only one that particularly bothers me is this last one: '6: Lastly, don't flame me of all people. I'm just trying to help the community that has been poisoned by the dub to understand the truths.' This is where the fun starts. you need to learn proper puncuation in order to understand when your staff and forum members are using it (or not). There should be a comma between 'me' and 'of'. And puh-leese. Understand what truths? TRUTH. Singular. And anyway, there is no 'truth' to any of it. It's just a story.

The bit at the end made me smile. Honestly. It sounds like you are so wishy washy. It's amazing you have any authority on your site at all with wimpy rules like that. You 'can' be banned? How about you WILL? For ignoring lame rules like that? I doubt it, but yeah.

Site content. This is not a book review. Works cited? CREDITS, boy, CREDITS. For the layout, you really need to learn sentence structure. Having a sentence like the one you used to credit where your brushes came from, which ended so abruptly, is just plain criminal, grammatically speaking. For the thank yous (which does NOT contain an apostrophe!), there isn't much I can say except change that first sentence, as it really makes no sense at the end. Also, again, there's that Japengrish there again. Pick a language...any language (preferably one that most, if not all, of your visitors can understand), and stick with it.

In the media section, you really over-use the word 'example'. Learn to use a thesaurus. Unless you think that's some sort of dinosaur, which I can assure you it isn't. It is the section where you put your music samples for people (or staff). That is all you need to say.

Cyprine

Horribly Dubbed? Ugh.

Okay, first of all, I despise mindless Dub-bashing. Sure, the North American translations are inaccurate, fueled by hyper-conservative TV execs fearful of exposing delicate American childish sensibilities to the horrid, mind-warping Japanese culture, but "misinformation"? A "community that has been poisoned by the dub"? Come the fuck on; there was no malicious intent in North American dubbing. My soul has not been tainted by the evils that are the names 'Serena' and 'Darien'. Think about it -- without the terrible English dubbing, a lot of US fans would never have discovered BSSM in the first place -- the dub will always have a special place in my heart for that reason alone.

Moving past that little tangent of mind, I'm struck by the site's layout. Again, I say "Ugh". The putrid magenta background is ugly and the images have been brushed to hell. Naked, winged Usagi in all her boobalicious glory is surrounded by blindingly-nuclear-pink squigglies -- it's like a tentacle-monster bukkake fantasy hentai gone horribly, horribly wrong. And maybe my mind is in a very, very bad place, but that 'y' of the site title is placed in such a way that it ... kind of looks like Angelic Usagi is sporting a huge, purple, flopping and erect penis. O.o

The navigation frames are not high enough -- the webmaster needs to reset some padding and margin CSS to "0" because the padding around the nav links push it out of the window. But, since the little Witch on my shoulder is Cyprine and not Mimette, my job is to comment on the Visual Media content of the site.

*clicks her left mouse button and pushes down on the nav window until the navigation links recenter*

*clicks Media*

There's actually no Media in the Media section -- how disappointing. The little Cyprine on my shoulder feels cheated... she seeks her instant gratification by ripping apart the grammar of the section description instead.

"This is the section that example pictures, music, etc. will be hosted for example use."

Huh? How does one "example use" something?

"These are only to be used as examples that support a staff member's opinion."

Ohhhh! Well, why didn't you just say that? Did you really need to use "example" three times when one time would do?

"I will supply the music. Video clips can be made by the staff member(s) who use(s) them."

As opposed to video clip(s) which have/has not yet been made and cannot be used by (a) staff member(s)? Can (a) staff member(s) who don't use (a) video clip(s) not make one? Why do(es) the webmaster(s)/mistress(es) use so many unnecessary bracket(s) to establish the ambiguous singularity/plurality of the rule(s) section(s)?

Lil' Cyprine is bored, as am I. We go back to watching Winged Dickgirl Usagi's dick swing in the wind.

Edited May 9, 2005: Since this review was written, the webmaster changed their layout and made a previous screen capture unavailable. I'm sure some of the other Witches will have some choice words on the new layout -- meanwhile, Lil' Cyprine and I are disappointed that the webmaster finds enough time to change their layout at lightning speed and yet still doesn't have the time to put any Visual Media content up.

Here's a tip: instead of spending so much time changing the look of your site, it might be good to spend time building some reason to make viewers actually want to look at your site.