A NOTE FROM THE ISM ARCHIVIST:

The 2011 iteration of the Ice Sailor Moon website--known as "I.S.M. International," officially--is an interesting case because it was not at all associated with any of the original operators of ISMs past. Rather, it was the brain child of the ASMDA's Ethan Michael Crane and several of his friends who lived locally. As for what and how this site came to be, we'll let him tell that part of the story:

ETHAN MICHAEL CRANE'S TESTIMONIAL

In late 2009, a group of friends and I were hanging out one evening and pining for the good old days of the internet while surfing 4chan and watching News Radio on Netflix. Somehow, we got onto the topic of how much we disliked Sailor Moon, and I don't remember if it was me or Mike P (probably me) who came up with the idea of resurrecting ISM. Double O was into the idea right away, as was Don Giantonio, but the others (Tommo, Reefus, E-Machine, Jeanne, Zilla, and Katers) didn't know what we were talking about, so we explained the history briefly to them. Zilla, E-Machine, and Katers were out right away, but Jeanne, Tommo, and Reefus were interested to varying degress. So, it went from being a solo endeavor to being somewhat of a group effort quickly, but this wound up being in theory more than in practice.

The concept behind I.S.M. International was that it would be mostly a museum of sorts, not unlike what you guys are doing with the Ring of Power, but with some new content mixed into the updates. The sections of the museum were meant to be divided by affiliation, so those connected to ISM would have their own section, those affiliated with the NSE would get their own section, and unaffiliated solo sites would have their own area. That sort of thing.

Since the site was conceived in nostalgia, the aesthetic chosen was meant to evoke old VGA and Apple II graphics/interfaces while incorporating images used by other defunct Anti websites in order to really hit home a "legacy" feel. The navigation frames were meant to be maps of various nations (the U.S., U.K., France, and Japan), and each was a separate section of the site broken into three or four sub-sections. This was meant to remind the viewer of the "International" part of "I.S.M. International."

The most interesting choice we made, though, was to each use the names of old Antis as our staff names, sort of role-playing as these all-stars of the community whose names would strike fear into the Moonies who remembered them (myself excluded, as I am me always). More homage as it turns out than straight impersonation, though we did have some fun wondering about where these people would be now (in 2010 and 2011), what they'd be up to, etc. We even took out hotmail and gmail addresses reminiscent of what the original people would have used (or did use) back in the day. No harm was meant, of course, and no harm was done as we barely got off the ground and abandoned the project after two updates due to boredom.

In terms of the workload, Mike did the webwork and Don helped with some additional content. I don't remember if anyone else who was interested got involved to any significant degree, but I'd have to say probably not. I know that Pizza of Hut was approached about maybe writing a new essay on something or other, and he was receptive to it, but it never materialized. Had the site continued, probably there would have been more for the others initially involved to do (though Mike and Don remained until the end of its life).


ABOUT THE RECONSTRUCTION

Unlike most other reconstructions in the Ring of Power, this site is presented as complete, and is sourced directly from Ethan Michael Crane's personal archives. Therefore, much like a box filled with all the pieces you need to a jigsaw puzzle, this "reconstruction" is, quite literally, a case of us constructing the site again. That said, there are a couple of oddities that we need to mention.

A Note About the Layout

This is where the rubber meets the road with regards to this reconstruction.

Before the site was unveiled in 2011, there were three teaser images that were put up at http://www.icesailormoon.com, each progressing toward the "return" of ISM as an organization. These three teasers are linked here, as is the site itself. It's fairly simple and clean as far as these things go.

When you get into the site and view the museum portion of it, you will be presented with links to a couple of sites. These sites are archived here at the Ring of Power, but one of them--Alex ASM--isn't quite the versions that I.S.M. International featured. For the sake of internal consistency, the link to Alex ASM through I.S.M. International will take you to a screenshot version of that website as it was archived there in 2011.

When it comes to Sephiroth's Anti-Sailor Moon site, I.S.M. International presented two versions of that one: That which was on its own, and that which was updated and connected to the ASMDA. While the version we've kept on this site has been the more complete ASMDA version, we've now opted to present both versions, so that they could be connected to I.S.M. International and thus make our presentation more historically accurate.


THE TEASERS

Teaser 1

Teaser 2

Teaser 3

I.S.M. INTERNATIONAL - THE WEBSITE



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