image Awards & Reviews For You image Review 01

Review for: Chibi Land
Date Reviewed: July 24th, 2008
Score: 35/40

Chibi Land Screencap


About Chibi Land:
Chibi Land is a fansite dedicated to the chibified version of Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon.

1. Design (8/10 points)
The colors of this design work well together; none of the colors clash even with the different drawings changing on the top left corner. The navigation is clear and easy to see on the left-hand side; however, the size of the text makes it a little bit of a strain, but I'm also looking at it with a 1280x800 screen resolution. You may want to make the 'cbox', your affiliates, and the disclaimer the same width as the navigation to make the design more cohesive. On longer pages, it's somewhat repetitive to scroll up to get to the menu to go back. It might be helpful if you provided links to go back at the bottom. I also noticed that two buttons under 'affiliates' on the main page are a larger size than the others. Upon further investigation, I realized that these were personal links; but it still seemed a bit unfair in retrospect. There are not any images missing, and the layout is clearly unique because of its use of chibi drawings that cater to the website's theme. The heading on the design says "chibi land, chibified goodness x3" is a little distorted, but it's nothing major. And when I jumped over to the Romance Corner, I noticed that the fan art image of ChibiUsa and Helios is a different background color from the rest of the page. As I continued surfing Chibi Land, I found that it happens on other pages as well. Otherwise, the design is very neat and it doesn't take much time to load.

Multimedia: The Kawaii Collection is amazing. I never knew that there were so many different chibi out there. The images inside of the galleries don't take any time to load and the thumbnails look great. The Chisai Group Gallery was very interesting, and I enjoyed looking through all the different images. The Animated Gifs all worked and made me laugh. The next section, Chibi Downloads had a clip which was definitely a rare find and of great value towards Chibi Land. The only improvement to be made that I can think of for Music Theatre is listing the mp3s and the midis in alphabetical order.

Fan Archive: The forum and the fan art section both looked neat and organized. I also wanted to comment that the chibi comic was awesome, and I would recommend making more of them. The Exclusive Chibi Dolls were well-made; even though older Sailor Moon fans are familiar with who is who, it would be helpful if you made the names of the characters be directly under the character, which can be accomplished with tables. The Chibi Cosplay section was nothing but chibi goodness and yet another unique aspect to Chibi Land. The Chibi Luck Charms is another cute idea, but I wonder why all of the characters look the same when the charms are meant to have different affects? I noticed on the Adopted Play Room the fan art image's background on the left does not match the background color for the rest of the design. How to Draw a Chibi tutorial was very informative and wel-thought out. One thing that might help artists in the drawing process for the head is adding a vertical line down the center, and then a horizontal one, just for the sake of proportions; but everyone has their own style. Since there are currently no Contests, you could opt to make the menu jump to the Hall of Fame instead; but that is up to personal choice since having to click one more link isn't a big deal.

Site Stuff:In Awards I Won, some dates are listed as 12/6/06, while others are listed as 26/07/03. I also wonder why two of the awards are presented directly. Otherwise the rest of the pages in site stuff were organized fairly well. Again, loved the different chibi fanart on each page.

3. Originality (9/10)
The only section that seemed to lack originality was the character profiles, which provided similar stats and information that other websites have. However, as far as I know there is no other website that features chibiness the same way Chibi Land does. The different adoptable chibis and the various galleries are unique to this website. The overall design is also original because of the fan art created and implemented into this colorful, chibi-filled design. Chibi Land has its own unique spin, and is clearly loved by its owner.<

4. Technical tidbits (4/5 points)
In Awards I Won, the link to Anime Site Award is dead; instead of leaving a dead link, you can leave the name and make an indication that the website is closed. As far as I can tell, there were no other broken links and I didn't find any broken images. Under 'their story' for Seiya and Usagi there are various typos and misspellings to run through spell-checker. Otherwise, there are very few grammar and spelling mistakes.

5. Final Comments
I have always been a fan of Chibi Land, and it was an honor to review this website. Although the character profiles are lacking, I also realize that this kind of information is always a work in progress. This is especially so because of the effort it takes to draw and color images. However, there is so much more to offer besides data. There are some minor details of the layout design to work out, but none of it is enough to deter visitors. I believe that Chibi Land succeeds in its mission to do what it does best: provide high-quality chibiness.

Rules & Criteria Preview the Awards Read the Reviews Waiting List