Back in 1996, the one type of SM website reigned supreme. Just about every SM site was of the "combo" type, sites that attempted to cover as much SM content as possible. They were possibly inspired by Hitoshi Doi's already large BSSM Encyclopedia. However, by the end of 1997, new combo sites became more and more rare. Many realized how work it would take to put together the huge amount of quality content. Therefore, speciality sites became more popular, like character shrines and download sites. Only a few of those first combo sites have hung on and still update today. Those that have are now huge resources of information, files, and fun. "The Sailor Senshi Page" is no exception, established 4 years ago this month, it is without a doubt, one of the largest SM pages in existance.

Just one look at the index page tells you how much there is to do here. Luckily the index is well organized, with a full list of sections on the left of the page. The index becomes cluttered a bit as you get to the bottom by several different ads, but none of them really get in your way. Plus, thankfully the owner is not pushy like many other site owners to get you to click that lovely All Advantage referral thing.

The info sections contains stuff on the anime (including the movies and seiyuu), the manga (including stuff on SailorV and Mixx), the musicals, the video games, the English SM, the other dubbed versions, and also features an extensive items encyclopedia. I liked how the "Good Character" Sections in the anime info includes a navigation bar on the top of each that allowed you to jump the manga, seiyuu, and sound clip info for that character, without having to go back to the index.

That brings me to another point. The layouts throughout the site are very simple, but effective. They have no fancy designs, but far from ugly and easy to get around. Another site which proves you don't need overly fancy designs to have a good site. You just need clean, easy to follow layouts, filled with good quality content. Now on occasion you may run into a picture that may take a while to load, which could be a problem if you are using an old version of Netscape, say version 3 or below due to how old Netscapes have to load pics on top of a page before it will give you any text. However, if you have a newer browser, just start reading while you wait for the picture to come up and you hardly notice the loading time. I don't think most of the pictures can be made much smaller, but there are a few very large ones, like the one on the updates page, that could be made a bit smaller.

The English SM section includes a sample of "what could have been", in other words the infamous Saban trailer video. There's more movie downloads in the multimedia section, plus a fairly large Fanfic section that's larger than some fic only sites I've seen. The treat in the Opinions section has to be the dumb rumors section, but be prepared, the list is now ten, loooong pages. Funny how so many rumors can happen...