Sailor Moon Tribute: The Origin of IKK + January 1, 2008

   Okay, I'm a total sap---but it can't be helped, I HAVE to make tribute to the manga and anime that made this site happen and made it some easy to love Keiko. I mean, seriously, would Keiko be so noticeable if her first work was Mizu ni Sumu Hana? It woulda came eventually but PGSM sealed the deal. ANYWAY, since I missed IKK's birthday by some lapse of brain matter (bringing you the best of Keiko Kitagawa since October 14, 2005----HOLLA AT MY 2 YR OLD BABY!) I figured I'd make it up in more ways than one. BEHOLD---the biography of IKK!

   So as I was doing recovery work on IKK I noticed there was one area that the site was lacking EXTREMELY in information as well as in images. The PGSM area! Which lead me to look over how the heck I came to run this site. To this day, Sailor Moon remains one of the most recognizable, most loved (most hated), and most celebrated shoujo manga/ anime in all of Japan. In the flippin' WORLD! I remember in fourth grade turning of the TV, tuning into the earliest edition of Cartoon Network's Toonami. Everyday at 4:00 pm, I was glued to the TV. Why? 30 minutes of Sailor Moon, baby! I loved the glitter, the lights, the five different girls with solar powers who were friends no matter how much they fought with each other and always came together to save the day. It was shallow, yeah, but I was a young girl, what can you expect? I was OBSESSED with Sailor Mars, it was borderline psycho. Her and Sailor Jupiter were my absolute faves because they were SO cool! I mean, someone argue with me on that. Sailor Mars and Jupiter were the BEST in the anime. Credited by Tokyopop as the manga that drew attention to their company, hailed by Animerca as their own personal CoverGirl---Sailor Moon was EVERYWHERE once I got into it. SO many fansites, so much fan merchandise. Thanks to Tokyopop's former SMILE magazine (RIP---best shoujo magazine EVER---after Shoujo Beat), BEHOLD colored pages and the takebon versions of Sailor Moon in it's prime.

   Now, 18 volume of manga, 200 anime episodes, and 49 live action episodes later Sailor Moon is the anime/ manga love of my life. Do I like other anime (boooo---I don't even watch anime that much at all anymore, what am I talking about?) and manga better? Sure do. But Sailor Moon will NEVER fall out of grace with me. Again. Cause it did once (during my anime fetish age when all I watched was anime----FLCL, Fushigi Yugi, Tenchi Muyo, Dragon Ball Z, ect) and I wanted nothing to do with it anymore. I guess being made fun of for loving it during elementary school contributed to that too, but I buried my Sailor Moon love with a whole bunch of stuff. Then one day I was cleaning my favorites list on my AOL account when I stumbled on an old Sailor Moon site that was one of my favorites---dedicated to the leather clad Three Lights of the Sailor Moon StarS series. Yeah baby, Three-Lights.net. Only when I was looking at it this time, it was pink and 5 girls who looked like bad cosplayers were dressed as my favorite super heroines of all time. AND I FELL IN LOVE ALL OVER AGAIN! After I laughed my lungs out at how absolutely ridiculous they looked, my freshman year of high school was spent getting all the information I can on the new series and the five actresses that played them. I was a Three-Lights/ Shingetsu (RIP---both the best PGSM sites EVER) ADDICT! Naturally, I was drawn the the actress who played Sailor Mars because Mars was my favorite senshi in the anime and manga. Proved no different, Mars stole my heart all over again and in turn, so did Keiko Kitagawa!

   Long story made a bit short---I got jealous of those totally awesome fan sites that everyone visited and I was annoyed there wasn't one for Keiko. At least, the few sites that were in honor of one or two of the actresses were lacking in the information that I REALLY wanted to know. So I took all that frustration and put it towards making (this is me not bragging, at this point in time---what I'm about to say is quite literally a fact) the best Keiko fan site on the web. SERIOUSLY--there isn't even a single Japanese Keiko fan site that has jack on IKK. Believe me, I checked. Competition would be nice, having an monopoly here means ALMOST EVERYONE who wants to reference Keiko in any way  steals from your site (I'm serious) because very few give proper credit.

   Keiko is not perfect, neither am I, so I don't want to portray that with IKK. The most difficult thing about running something this big, is having to defend what you work for. As a fan and as the owner of this site, I AM going to defend what I do, I AM going to defend Keiko if someone says something bad about her. But I know when to give in. The BEST fan sites report the bad with the good. Erik over at FANTASY has his work cut out for him, covering all the negative (and positive) articles put out about Erika Sawajiri. And he reports both, and he comments when he believes Erika is wrong for her behavior and when he thinks the media is overreacting. So why haven't you seen anything bad about Keiko here? Well, unless someone is leaving nasty comments in my comments box that are racist and crude---Keiko is a good person with a pretty clean record. Other than rumors of romance, there are no negative articles that I've run into about Keiko. If I run into it will I report about it? Yeah. Cause Keiko is not this goddess and I don't think she'd like it if I portrayed her as so. From her now deceased blog to her Keytan newspaper articles, can't you tell Keiko is a deep and genuine person willing to fess up to her mistakes and able to learn from them? Why shovel dirt into a clean house? is what I say. It's been a pleasure running this site with my staff members Izzy, and Ryuu, and with help from outside fans like Lisa, Kun, DB, and dchart. I appreciate it 100% The best thing about running this site is the people I get to meet from all over the world. It helps when people say "Thank-you" or offer to help every once in a while, it really does. I haven't forgotten where I came from---does anyone remember the first layout for this site?! GOOD GOD! Hello, HORRIBLE! But it's come a long way, ne? Bow to Ryuu for that and CSS goodness. IKK IS HERE TO STAY!

  And that is the story of the birth (okay---and some of my opinions on things) of IKK. Good stuff, ne? Thank you all (and ESPECIALLY thanks to Keiko) for making 2007 such an eventful year. 2008 is sure to be a doozy---let's support Keiko all the way! And in a fit of my new love for the Korean culture, everybody say:


IKK FIGHTING!



<3 Sade

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