Pluto

Sailor Moon International Community...well, the page is very nice. Apparently, you must register and become a member...hmmm...i dunno really wanna so im gonna just do as much as i can. (reason is b/c i may never come back here)

Ok, this site is a multilingual community. Thats pretty impressive all on its own. As long as this person didnt use babelfish or something to translate. I've seen babelfish's work and its not good. I know Spanish & Dutch, and it seems to look alright.

You can choose which language you want for ur guide; chooses being English, Italy, Spanish, Chinese, Dutch, Japanese, and (i think) Greek.

Affliates are on the right, and log in is on the left. After nice layout and color is pleasing.

Ok, Uranus was kind and registered for us so now I can do a complete review. w00t! There appeats to be a lot more to this site now...a LOT more. a whole main menu is on the left side. So, im gonna go explore now...

The problem is that this stuff is mostly found without logging in. It seems that the only benefit of logging in is to have a chat, forum, and PMs. Oh, and an episode guide for the first two seasons.

I thought there was gonna be lots to discuss after I logged in...but I was wrong. This is a nice site, but tip...it needs more content!!

Saturn

Layout alone, this is a vast improvement over the last site I reviewed. Everything WORKS together. The images aren't loud and overly large or obnoxious. However there is one thing I don't care for. I have to log in, but that is why we made a Pocky Box account just to review this site. I will say to the webmaster that you might want to check your hosting. I am on a VERY fast connection and your page took a bit to load. That might not be your fault, but you might want to look into it.

Well layouts can be deceptive I guess. You see, there isn't much here that is really worth reviewing. This site is about the fandom. Nothing wrong with that, but there isn't much for me to review either. For a second my heart dropped through the floor. It looked like they were offering downloads of the first season. Highly illegal and not advised to those that are getting ideas. But upon insprection, it is a summary with images. Now that I can pick my jaw up off the floor, I am going to close this review quickly.

There isn't much to review here. The layout is nice, but it is more like a place for people to congregate and have a good time more than an SM site.

Uranus

It's sometimes easy to forget, when among the many pages dedicated to the original and North American Sailor Moon versions, that there are so many other places out there just as dedicated to the fandom. This site tries to impute some unity into that diversity.

The primary layout flaw here is that the images aren't sized out in the HTML so text positions are constantly changing as each page loads. Even the fastest connection isn't going to be able to fix that. As far as visuals, it's easy to read, but the colors are just odd. They seem too dull to really draw you in, and without any true graphics pages, there's never anything to make your eyes happy.

The content here isn't much. I suppose the best thing would be the transcripts and translations of anime episodes, with appropriate screen captures. They only have up through R, but as far as I know it's their own work. Other than that, all there is to read are a few polls and an update board.

Where the page tries to find its niche is in its multilingualism. To accomplish this, it insists you register as a user, then allows you to change the language in your profile. Which is all well and good, but the major content seems to be in English only, and I couldn't even find where to get into Japanese. That might be important.

So an audacious plan has yet to come to fruition. Without knowing how old this site is, it either needs to have a lot of work go into it, and as it involves a lot of straight translation, it won't be fun work either, or a lot of time to grow. If it can truly bridge the language barrier and bring international fans together I'll tip my cap, but right now I'm not sure it's possible.

Neptune

Sailor Moon International describes itself as the first "multilingual community that reunites all the sailor warriors fans scattered around the world", and it certainly seems to have accomplished this goal. Though, the site is still Anglocentric, it attempts to offer resources in quite a few other languages -- and unfortunately since I can't actually read any of the other languages it claims to offer, I can't make any comment on that, except to say that I'm disappointed that the multilingual 'guides' linked from the main page inexplicably load in a completely different layout. As far as I can tell from the English version, these 'guides' are actually little more than a walk-through for registering for the site, so there's absolutely no reason for the layout switch. Moreover, the links to the guides are inconspicuous; without having read the text, I wouldn't have even known they were there.

The main site's layout uses those new chibi Senshi drawings in its header. Webmasters can be like vultures -- throw us some novel material and we're tripping all over ourselves to be the first to offer something "new and unique". Nonetheless, SMI uses them quite nicely in an attractive, if incredibly busy winter theme -- evident by the fact that the site feels the need to include an annoying blinking snowflake just to draw our eyes back to the header and the site's title. While the layout has a pretty cool ability to collapse and customize the index page by minimizing various sections, it is a huge load-hog, demanding a load of nearly 30 images just to view the main site. My broadband snorted derisively at it, but anyone running a 56K modem might be running scared.

Without registering, I can't see what the site offers -- an unfortunate downfall. Online communities should at least allow a preview of what benefits registered members get to rationalize the bother of registering. Fortunately, the registration process is brief and quick. Upon logging in, however, I find that other than participating in the forum, the site doesn't offer many actual resources. Other than five English-language illustrated scripts of Japanese episodes in the original season (found under the oh-so-descriptive link 'Sailormoon'), the rest of the registered benefits are only supportive add-ons (such as an event calendar and messaging inbox) to the site's primary draw: the forum.

The forums themselves are very active, with subforums devoted to a different language, eleven in all. There are also over 650 members of the site, so, if you are looking for a place to meet and interact with Moonies all over the world, than, other than the disappointing load-time, SMI seems like the place to be. However, for actual multilingual SailorMoon content the only section of SMI that would be worthwhile is the extensive links list, sorted by primary language. Nonetheless, SMI certainly offers a wonderful and busy meeting place for international fans of Sailor Moon and for that, it should be invaluable site for Moonies online looking to expand their horizons and translate a mutual love for an anime into a launching point for greater friendships.