Site History
Anime Genkai was first established in August 2004 under the title of "G. Hiiragizawa's Anime Shrine". I have forgotten when exactly, since I didn't really keep track on what I have done in my web projects at that time. I learn the most basic of the basics of html in 2000, and Anime Genkai is the second site I have done, disregarding the ones I did for school projects.My first site was Arina Tanemura's Shrine. It was really a small one, and I didn't have much to write about. That was the time when I thought of making a general anime site, so that I can spread the anime news in a broader sense, and let more people enjoy the great animes out there.
I began planning on the layout. However, I was not really good at making webpages at that time, and it turned out to be a difficult task to make a layout with only the html codes that I know. I bought a book on html tutoring, and formed Version 1.0 of the site. It was a Kira Yamato layout, with a mix of some Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne pictures. Actually I was lack of images at that time, and the computer at home was running hell slow.
Entitled G. Hiiragizawa's Anime Shrine, I hosted it on Geocities ("geoshitties" by my classmates, the free webspace provider of Yahoo.com). It was not a successful project at first, since there were no visitors except me and my friends. I discovered that this was not a good place to host the site, so I changed host to Freewebs.com.
Simple as it was, the site didn't attract many visitors. However since I was not familiar with the more complicated html codes, I planned to expand the contents to attract more traffic. At that time there were only 4 animes featuring on the site: DNAngel, Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne, Gundam Seed and Fullmoon wo Sagashite. I added Gundam Seed Destiny soon afterwards, and gladly it got some more hits.
Then there came the time when I learnt about something called Javascript. I realized that many of the nice sites I saw out there were made from Javascript codes, in addition to html ones. I began to get my nerves on the more complicated Javascript codes, and get myself the hang on some of them. With this, I made Version 2.0 of the site - the DNAngel layout which if you are an old visitor to my site, might have seen it. The site began more popular with this nicer layout, and I received more hits than ever in my life at that time. I thought this was going well, so I add in more animes like Hunter x Hunter and Soukyuu no Fafner. I also changed the name of the site to "Yami no Kage", since the original name sounded weird, and later to the present name, "Anime Genkai" since the previous name had nothing to do with animes.
Not bad, but there were some problems in the administration inside Freewebs, and then I changed to Angeltowns.com. This was a good host as well, and it didn't require any link backs to their site. I have added a guestbook and music request section to the site, and then I received an e-mail from Falcon saying that he wanted to help me out with the music requests. I was not really sure if I were to accept or not, but I accepted anyways. It would be fun to have more people helping, that's what I thought.
Since the site was expanding, I again changed the layout to Version 3.0 - Gundam Seed layout. With this layout I can add more animes and contents with a vertical menu bar. However, I received some comments saying that the words in the menu bar were too small, and hardly able to be viewed. I wasn't willing to change the menu buttons for some time, since they took me a long time to make. At that moment, I came across a site with a layout that appealed to me, and I slightly changed the layout of the site to Version 3.1. In addition to the change in layout, I constantly add a few new series, like Fullmetal Alchemist and Tennis no Oujisama. Then Angeltowns announced that they no longer provide free hosts, and I finally change host to Freespaces.com, the one I am using till now.
I was planning to join some topsites to promote the site, and have some affiliations, and there they went. I have them up, but they looked a bit strange with the layout. However, I was reluctant to change since that layout took me a couple of days to finish.
I started to find some new animes for the site, and had my attention driven towards Matantei Loki Ragnarok. I quite liked the anime, and so I got a new layout with it, Version 4.0 - Matantei Loki Ragnarok layout. I also increased the side menu to two columns so I could hold more content and other things such as staff, guestbook, forums, art page and other stuff.
This was the time when more people send me e-mails wanting to join the staff, and I was glad that they were so kind to lend a hand. I also created a forum with a host called Zeeblo.com, which turned down on me after they said I violated their rules but couldn't tell me what I have done wrong. I hate that host. Anyways, I will not have a forum up again by myself, so I made use of the generous service provided by Invisionfree.com and got a free forum, unfortunately, with a little ad.
So here is the time when I finally don't want to use other people's images as layout and drew one on my own. You may find my art work similar to Tanemura sensei's. Well, I learnt drawing from her works, that's why (I am not her assistant, of course). This is the present layout - Version 5.0 - Love Game by G. Hiiragizawa (that's me). I got the menu bar up with tables so I don't have to make a picture for the buttons fo every page, and it can be changed easily and with the advantage of saving up more useless space. I have included really a lot more contents this time, for details, check the 08 February 2006 update. Although now I possess many other sites and a hell lot of fanlistings, I still like this the most since this can be considered as my first site (if you don't consider the Tanemura one I did in the first place with a crappy layout and crappy content <- deleted many ages ago). I will work hard on this one and hope to expand it to a informative site where anime fans or anime-fan-wanna-bes can find what they want.
Thank you very much for all your support so far and please continue to support us.
Written by Ki Hiwatari
14 January 2006
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After the 5th version layout, I became lazy and used the same template for several layouts, namely 5.1 to 5.3. I changed the layout every once in a while to give the page a fresher look =) However, sometimes it is really a pain to upload all the files again after every big update.
The site has been progressing gradually since then. All the staff members were contributing to the content and fanstuff, such as the wallpaper and music sections. It was almost at the end of 2006 when I discovered that our free host, Freespaces.com had some internal problems. Whenever I upload file, it was not guaranteed to overwrite the previous one. And the sad thing is that our free host was putting more and more ads on the site, although it first specified that a "small" link would be added back to the host. I got annoyed, of course, and on we go in search for another host =P
2007 had arrived, and Anime Genkai, which a new Kiniro no Corda layout, was hosted on a brand new host - Zexxo.com. This host, however, does not allow any web scripting language except html, and the upload system is pretty slow. I don't really mind, as long as the service is free and ad-free, I don't think any one of us here will mind too. I will try my best to make sites plainly from html. So, don't dare to ask me anything non-html LOL I will just answer with an "I don't know" *shakes head*
It is March 2007 now, and I am now preparing for our 8th layout - featurning Lelouch from Code Geass. I have been watching this anime at present and got addicted to it, that's why the layout. It is another pain changing all the settings on every page, and I will be changing the pages as well... resuming the music request page (which was replaced by a music download page previously, and it sucked), then deleting some useless pages like the contest, mini game and sent music requests.
Written by Ki Hiwatari
08 March 2007
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Another two years have passed and we are now in the year 2009. During 2007 and 2008 we have added a lot of animes to our site, thanks to the help of our supportive staff members. We have also been moving around changing hosts frequently before I settled on the present one - 110mb.com.
A few layouts has been used during these two years, D.Gray-man and Vampire Knight were the main theme because I have been watching those animes in 2007 - 2008. However for our newest layout version 11.0, a kind friend from the forum gave it to me as a gift, and we are back to another awesome Code Geas layout!
It was a sad thing that the anime newsletter needs to be closed... I didn't want to close it initially, but then I couldn't find enough writers to keep it going. Personally I have not learnt enough Japanese to read information on the latest anime releases. I used to guess them from the story pages on TV-tokyo, but then I found that the storylines of new animes were becoming more and more complex that I had a hard time understand them with my limited knowledge in the language...
I have also been spending more time on my other website projects, so updates for Anime Genkai now are official once per month, with occasionally (quite frequent =P) lateness in updating... I am trying my best to keep this website going because this is my first ever website. Even if my new Sakurahime Kaden fansite has to die I will not abandon AG!!!! >.<
Thinking of which I have no idea what Anime Genkai means when I first set up the name LOL I should have called it Anime Limit instead now =P But I like AG. It sounds original and I hope to keep the same name as long as the site goes =D
This time I have taken a large step in turning the whole site from html to php. I used to like html coding very much because it enables me to preview my site in my own computer before uploading it onto the host, however, as the site gets large, it is a pain to change layouts when you have to edit the code on so many pages. On the other hand, php gives an advantage in site updating because it only needs one header, one footer and one style sheet file =D From now on, AG will be hosted on php pages, and sadly I will not be able to check the pages before I get them out, but I will try my best to reedit and reedit the pages many many times to get them right XD
Thank you very much for all your support so far!!
Written by Hiwatari Ki
(now I start to write surname first according to Japanese custom =P)
20 January 2009
All pictures from the animes in this site are copyrighted by their respective owners.