AnimeOnDVD revamp is horrible
Have you seen the new look animeondvd.com? Earlier in the year, Chris Beveridge sold his site to this rather generic entertainment brand called “Mania.com” and just last night, their engagement was finally ‘consummated’ with… less than satisfactory results. Basically, the site looks abysmal.
When I started reading anime websites around 2002, mostly for reviews (and explanations!) of hard to fathom series like Neon Genesis Evangelion, AnimeOnDVD was the first website I really liked. Their style was never flashy or loaded with PR-speak, it was down to Earth and easy to digest. All that, and with their constant stream of updates, they were a pillar of the anime community, but looking at the site now, one feels that this “sell-out” might be the beginning of the end. I don’t blame Chris Beveridge for taking the money, we’d all love to write about anime for a living (and in relative comfort too, not out of a cardboard box on a street corner), but I wish he had been a little bit more discerning before deciding to cash-in.
1 comment
Eh, okay…at first glance it looks all smart and shiny - a bit corporate perhaps, but shiny nontheless - but still…”what the hell?” is all I can say.
To be honest I never liked the green colour scheme but with that personal preference aside AoDVD was an informative and user-friendly site that I always had bookmarked. There was a lot of info on-screen but the reviews were helpful and listing comprehensive - it covered a wide range of topics but did so in an effective way.
The thing I have the biggest issue with right now (aside from small layout glitches like one or two link menus) is the navigation, or lack of. I’m guessing someone thought absorbing one of the oldest and most extensive anime-related sites into a completely separate site was a good idea. It isn’t. Maybe I’m missing something obvious here, but the archives I found to be so handy in days gone by are well-nigh inaccessible! Call me pedantic, but when visitors can’t *find* things, a website has failed in what it set out to do.
I can only agree on what a real shame this is.
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