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  Second Look : April 2000


MoonShine (formerly Eternal SailorMoon Heaven)
Creator: Marie Kropf
General Info: Excellent graphics, lots of stuff to see and do. Includes some original files for downloading.
Reference: Best of April 1998

Comments:

CereCere

For the most part, our re-reviews so far have focused on sites that are still good, but to be really honest, haven't changed all that much in terms of design since we first reviewed them.

Well one day I was looking through the Archives, looking for dead links and sites that I could do for a new second look. I ran into "MoonShine", the new version of Eternal Sailormoon Heaven. It was quite a surprise! Only a few weeks earlier I had visited ESH, and was disappointed to see it had basically the same layout I first saw two years ago. One of the things we liked about ESH was it's unique, well-made graphics. However, even great graphic design tends to show it's age after two years. Well the new "MoonShine" makes up for the wait. Marie has come up with another unique layout, featuring more well made graphics.

The new layout is nice, clean, and easy to navigate. It's a refreshing change from a lot of other SM site designs of late, many which have been following the small "frame box" design trend. A trend which I personally dislike because it crams all the content into a little box, made with frames, in the middle of some graphic layout. MoonShine does use frames, but in a way that feels wide open. It's best described as a place that's "easy" to visit. It's just so easy to get around. You will have problems with the main design if you use a 640 X 400 screen resolution. However, you may use the non-frames site index to get around to all the sections without any problems. The link to it is located towards the bottom on the right side of the main index, or you can access it here.

As for content, MoonShine's new full title is: "MoonShine Eternal Sailormoon Heaven Galleries", so you can guess it's mainly an image gallery site. It does feature a large 600+ gallery sorted by character, however, it also contains a modest multimedia area, plus a "Goods Archive". The Goods Archive contains the collection of printable bookmark, T-shirt print, and desktop designs from the old ESH. It might be nice to see more additions to the Goods Archive, mainly more desktop designs. Maybe some full screen ones, instead of just tiled patterns.

MoonShine also has some information sections. It has been stripped down quite a bit from what I remember of the old ESH, but I think it's mainly because MoonShine is aimed at being a download archive, rather than the larger combo page ESH was. Despite that, it still contains a very nice dedication and information section on Naoko Takeuchi. It also contains some info on where to get SM merchandise.

If you're a file collector, or interested in some info on Naoko Takeuchi, MoonShine is a good, established place to visit.



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