Interested in the nuts and bolts of this website? Then you've come to the right place.
Site Details
This site was originally a brainchild back in May 2003 (see the site history for full details.) It first became a real site (or at least a concept) in December of 2003, with a layout released on a private board for feedback. I later redid the layout because I found nicer images. Then I had a better idea and remade the entire thing...again! This layout features Kino and Hermes; the embossed image is a vector trace from the anime title image. The layout was designed in Photoshop 7.0 with the help of a CanoScan LiDe20 scanner. The HTML and stylesheets were written in Notepad by hand, with a lot of cut-and-pasting of code from my many sites.
You will encounter a lot of Japanese text on this site. All text is Shift-JIS encoded and requires a browser that can handle such encoding. You may need to set the encoding manually. In IE, right-click on the page and choose encoding->Japanese(Shift-JIS). In Netscape/Mozilla, go to View, Character Set, and Japanese(Shift-JIS).
Although this site was originally designed for IE 6, it should at the very least be functional in any browser with frames and CSS enabled, although older versions of Netscape handle the layout shakily, at a resolution of at least 800x600 (1024+ recommended.)
Site History
Note: Because my memory is spotty, I relied heavily on my blog's archives to piece together just exactly how I decided to make this site. It's a rather long story...
I first became interested in Kino no Tabi when I saw the first two episodes May 5th, 2003. In two days I had already made my first wallpaper for the series, which generally means I like a series enough to make media for it. In less than a week I had already made two more wallpapers, definately a sign of my obession. On April 20th I watched episode 0 and reconfirmed my love for the series and the serious issues it brings up.
Later that month, I went live with my first Kino blog layout, using images from a wallpaper, as the downward descent was speeding up. By the time I make blog layouts for a series it often means I'm staving off the urge to create a full-fledged website for the show. In fact, even during that initial craze in May I contemplated making a Kino website. However, I held off, instead making lots and lots of Kino wallpapers (and the occasional vector fanart trace and blog layout).
In November I finally was able to see the series in its entirety (marathoned over two days) and knew this would be one of my favorite series for a long, long time. Soon after I started buying the novels to get my Kino fix. On December 8th, I posted on a private message board that I was (finally) going ahead with the Kino website idea, as well as the first layout idea.
The website sat around for a month until I bought the visual book in February, which included a short CD with several songs from the anime series. One of my grievances with the series was the lack of a soundtrack but this revitalized my interest in the series. Realizing that ADV was set to release the first DVD on February 24th, it became my goal to finish the site (or at least all the major sections) in time to coincide with the launch.
So I threw together another layout, this time featuring artwork from the Visual Novel. But... I received feedback and ideas from friends which lead to yet another concept - setting the site up as a "passport" and letting the viewer visit each "country" to learn about Kino's world. And that's what you see here today. And I was able to launch 2/24, despite my initial doubts I wouldn't be ready in time. There's something to be said about short deadlines...
About Me
Greetings. I'm Tama-Neko, or Ming-Ling, take your pick. I've been making websites for nigh on 6 years now (not all of them good, mind you) and have been interested in Japanese animation for about the same amount of time (although the merging of webdesign with my interest in anime did not appear for more than a year.) I'm currently a graduate student studying to earn my Masters in Applied Biosciences in 2005, with aspirations of entering the biotech or pharmaceutical industries. Webdesign and graphics is purely a hobby, and I can't imagine doing this for a living - but as a hobby, it's a way to spend my time, work off my creativity, and provide something (relatively) useful to the public. Plus, it looks impressive on my resume. ^_~
Oh, and by the way, like Kino, I am female.
This site and its contents (C) 2002-2006 Ming-Ling, all rights reserved. Kino no Tabi and related properties are (C) 2000-2006 Shigusawa Keiichi, Kuroboshi Kouhaku, Dengeki Novels, ADV Films, and other respective owners. This is a fansite for fans by fans. Please read this site's disclaimer for more details. |
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