Gomanga.com Turns "1"
By Adam Arnold
One year ago today, Gomanga.com burst onto the online manga scene in a flurry of debate. Be it our use of the term "World Manga," our decision to have our series read right-to-left or the fact that our titles just look so darn good, Seven Seas Entertainment made one heck of a splash.
Yet, Seven Seas Entertainment wouldn't be where it is today if it weren't for our web site, Gomanga.com. As a special birthday treat, we'd like to take you on a behind-the-scenes trip through the evolution of this unforgettable site.
A month prior to launch, a teaser site appeared at Gomanga.com that allowed users to search for buried treasure. We've offered up an emulated version of that original teaser site so you can search out the seven treasures yourself. (Click here to start digging!)
While the teaser site was leaving people curious for more, Seven Seas Entertainment was busy readying the actual site for launch. The left image shows an early mock-up of the site prior to being dubbed "Gomanga.com." The right image shows an in-progress mock-up of the site when various colors were being tested.
The site quickly shifted from darker colors to warm, light colors with a manga tone theme. The four images on the left show the progression of the top logo banner. The screen cap on the right shows how the Gomanga.com looked when it officially launched on October 25, 2004. Quite a difference from today, huh?
Over time, the site was tweaked slightly. The first change was having our main page banners rotate through a series of character images, but the banners were also tweaked further to better incorporated as our ship logo into the design. The sidebar would also be modified to include our trademark "Seven Seas News" box, which was known as the "Crow's Nest" at that point. Ad banners were also added when Blade for Barter, Amazing Agent Luna, No Man's Land and Last Hope hit stores.
In May 16, 2005, Seven Seas relaunched Gomanga.com with a new look and three new series. The new look allowed us to present Aoi House, Captain Nemo and Unearthly in a larger, full-page fashion that helped to solve many of the readability issues seen in the Gomanga Viewer. The image on the left is a design sheet we used in planning the site revision. The screencap on the right is how the revised site looked just prior to the re-launch.
Our next big transformation came just after Anime Expo and Comic-Con when we revised our trademark ship logo to better represent the direction Seven Seas was sailing towards.
October 25, 2005, marks Gomanga.com's one year birthday with Seven Seas on the cusp of several major announcements that are sure to alter the face of the manga world. There is simply no telling how Gomanga.com will look a year from now. But if past layouts have been any indication, then we're sure that it's going to look pretty darn spiffy!
Be sure to drop by the Gomanga Forums and wish us Happy Birthday!