welcome to can you feel love hina...

... my fansite and personal blog dedicated for my misadventures and my favorite anime, Love Hina. Love is closer than you'd expect.

this fansite aims to promote the anime Love Hina.
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recent posts

Is your Computer a boy or a girl?
11.11.11
just a taste of the history
Blog Hina and Love Hina Project 5th birthday!
captain's blog : I'm thankful.
captain's blog : still here. still awake.
captain's blog : on your marks
captain's blog : summer summer don't go away... yet.
captain's blog : bump
captain's blog : face on the desk

main characters

keitaro urashima
naru narusegawa
mitsune konno
shinobu maehara
kaolla su
motoko aoyama
mutsumi otohime
sarah mcdougall
haruka urashima
seta noriyasu

minor characters

Amalla Suu
Ramba Ruu
Hina Urashima
Kentaro Sakata
Tsuruko Aoyama
Mei Narusegawa
Kimiaki Shirai
Masayuki Haitani
Ema Maeda
Nyamo Namo
Ken Akamatsu
Tama
Moe-chan

soundtracks

Egao Ni Mirai E by Yui Horie
Hajimari Wa Koko Kara by Hayashibara Megumi
Kimi Saeireba by Noda Junko
Kirari Takaramono by Horie Yui
La Moon Na Kibun De - Love Hina
Love Labyrinth - Noda Junko
Manichi Ga Otenki by Yui Horie
Sakura Saku by Noda Junko
Tsuki No Gotoku - Yuu Asakawa
Winter Wish by YUI
Yakusoku by Yonekura Chihiro

episode guide

episode 1: All-Girls Dormitory with Outdoor Bath
episode 2: The Hinatasou New Resident Shinobu
episode 3: Kendo Girl in Love?
episode 4: The Promise to Get Into Tokyo U was 15 Year Ago
episode 5: Close Contact! Travel to Kyoto
episode 6: Keitaro's First Kiss
episode 7: First Date, Keitaro's True Feelings
episode 8: Kendo Daughter and the Legendary Dragon Story
episode 9: Hinata Inn's Missing Money Case
episode 10: Identity of Wandering Beauty Under the Moonlight
episode 11: Fear ToudaiSei, Idol is a Reapplying Student
episode 12: Transform? Swordsmaster Motoko's Casual Look
episode 13: Did the First Kiss Taste Like a Lemon? Marshmallow?
episode 14: Is a Tokyo U Professor Meet Again? Naru's Dream Lover
episode 15: I Love You! Love Confession in the Cave
episode 16: House by the Sea. Hinata Tea House Monkey Performance
episode 17: The Sea... Heart Races for Naru, Knocked Out by Ghost!
episode 18: A Summer Festival With You in All Sorts of Yukata
episode 19: A Jade Palaquin? The Prince From the Other Side of the Ocean
episode 20: The Sleeping Girl and the Sepia-Colored Promise
episode 21: Jealousy Explodes? 2 Hot People On a Boat
episode 22: Younger Sister Mei's Scheme. Operation in a Locked Room
episode 23: Narusegawa Naru, the Shaking Heart and Keitaro Broken to Pieces
episode 24: Does the Sakura Bloom on Tokyo U? Love?
episode 25: Motoko's Choice, Love or the Sword

love hina specials

Love Hina Christmas Special: Silent Eve
Love Hina Spring Special: I Wish Your Dream

love hina again ova

episode 1: Kanako
episode 2: Keitaro
episode 3: Naru

screens

keitaro : page 1
narusegawa : page 1
shinobu : page 1

wallpapers

wallpaper : page 1
wallpaper : page 2
wallpaper : page 3
wallpaper : page 4
wallpaper : page 5

avatars

avatar : page 1
avatar : page 2
avatar : page 3
avatar : page 4
avatar : page 5
avatar : page 6

archives

love hina project

love hina project
hinata boardoms
hinata teahouse
mutsumi otohime's flat
seta's expedition
the park

diary

Visit Keitaro Urashima Visit Naru Narusegawa Visit Kitsune Konno Visit Shinobu Maehara Visit Haruka Urashima Visit Mustumi Otohime's House Join Seta's Expedition

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layout & design: kimikimkimster
blogged by: kimikimkimster
wallpaper by: obscureZodiac
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anime: love hina
anime by: ken akamatsu
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Saturday, December 31, 2011
a history of Blog Hina
  • 9:43 AM
  • LOOKING BACK AND GOING BACK

    It all started back in 2005. It was my freshman year studying in the University of the Philippines. And while I was just lying down on my bed, my roommate together with some of my friends were watching anime on the computer. By this point in my life, I've fallen away from being an 'otaku'. I mean I watched a lot of anime when I was in elementary. A lot. When I entered high school, I've completely lost interest. I never knew that my university friends would pull me back.

    They were watching Naruto in my room. My friend burned 100+ episodes and he had this stack of CDs with him. I thought, "What's so good about Naruto?" I heard about Naruto a year ago, back when I was in high school. But since I lost interest in anime during that period, I just ignored it.

    I found it difficult not to join in on them, because they were all watching the computer. "So what the heck..." I thought. I stood up on my bunk bed and watched along with them. Since I wasn't familiar with Naruto, I was kept curious. And little by little it made sense why they're watching it. The story was so engrossing. And we couldn't stop playing the next episode either. "So this is Naruto?" So this is anime? It was fun to watch. I asked my friend if he brought other titles with him. "What genre do you prefer?" he asked.

    I said "...romantic comedy." And thus the start of our journey.


    MY FRIEND NEIL

    Neil is responsible for the stack of burned anime CDs in my dorm room. They were all subbed. We preferred the subbed versions. My friend Neil showed me a couple of titles: Fruits Basket, Chobits, Onegai Sensei, and Hellsing. I've finished them in a just a short time and I needed more titles. I asked Neil if he had other romantic comedies and he brought Mai-Hime and Midori No Hibi with him. It wasn't enough, but I couldn't blame Neil. It was obvious that I had to find my own juice. I had to find other titles by myself.


    TARGET ACQUIRED

    When I went home on one weekend, I was surprised to find an anime channel on our cable. It was called Hero TV. That weekend was a time for me to work on my thesis. But while I was working on my thesis, the anime called Love Hina popped up. It was funny. It was somewhat cute. I loved Shinobu. I loved the simple premise of the story. Naru's a silly girl. And Keitaro's an idiot. I went to the mall and grabbed a copy of Love Hina.


    HOOKED ON MAKING WEBSITES

    Back tracking to the 2001, my older brother started a blog on blog-city.com, when it was still free. I was fascinated by it. "This is your home on the Internet?" I asked him. It was his space and people can read what he's writing about -- people anywhere. He could write what he wants. He had a website. I thought it was cool to have a website. And his design was awesome. It was so cool to see his work and I felt proud of him too. So that same year, I started one. I loved it. I loved the feeling of making one. It was fun.


    DISCOVERING WHAT A FANSITE IS

    The next year, 2002, I had a fair knowledge of designing a simple site. And my favorite cartoon, Disney's The Weekenders, was no longer airing on our cable. I felt the need to search for more information about the cartoon. I wanted to know if there were other episodes that didn't air on our cable, episode summaries, and some screenshots. I found this fansite on Yahoo's Geocities.com (which is no longer in service) about The Weekenders and I was still young back then. Despite it being a simple and straightforward website, the fansite was awesome. Back then, I didn't know much about HTML nor any designing. Still I found it to be a helpful site. When I noticed that the fansite was no longer being updated-- so you know where this is going-- I-- *laughs* I sent an email to the owner writing I wanted to adopt the website. AHAHA. Unfortunately, the author didn't reply. HAHA. I was such a creeper. That's when I marked my word: I will build more than a blog; I'll create my own fansite SOMEDAY.


    THE TERM 'MORE THAN A BLOG'.

    Forward to 2004, my friend Rey, introduced me to Blogskins.com, where I could find templates for my personal high school blog. 2004 was a very emotional year. It's also the start of my HTML journey.

    Basically, I taught myself HTML. No books; I just followed examples. It was a challenge, but I found it fun to code here and there. I played around with templates and I found my personal style of webdesign. I thank Rey so much for showing me everything I needed.


    THE JOKE THAT STARTED IT

    Forward to September 2005, back to the first year of university, I showed my friend Janus my blog and he also became interested on making a blog. But he didn't know how to write nor to code. He wanted a blog, but he doesn't really have the time to write too, so I made joke, "... why don't I write your blog for you?" then he laughed at me. "Are you going to play as me?"


    BLESSING IN DISGUISE

    October 2005 came -- I went home just in time because I had chickenpox. It took about two weeks for me to recover from chickenpox. So I was stuck in my room. At least I had TV and a computer. I also remember receiving a text message from my high school friends saying that they were throwing a party because it was sembreak. I missed out bigtime. But I wasn't at a complete loss. I just watched Love Hina on my laptop when it was still plugged into my dial-up connection. Take note: dial-up. Life was still good. And still no Facebook. Just Friendster.

    I found at that time that there were only a handful of Love Hina fansites. I wanted to know more about it. I didn't know that it had a manga back then, so I was missing out the ending. But after I finished the anime, I tried to figure out what I could do while I was recovering from chickenpox.

    I had the time I needed. I still wanted to watch other anime, know more about Love Hina or do more about the titles I was following. I wanted to do more, I wanted to express, write and design, taking into account that there was only a handful of Love Hina fansites on the web, I rolled up my sleeve and said, "Let's build that fansite."


    ANIMEXTENSION FIRST

    I started building the foundation to my fansite called Animextension, where it would be a portfolio -- a portfolio of the anime titles I followed. While doing the Animextension site, Fruits Basket was also airing on the TV. I already finished Fruits Basket at this time, and it was awesome as well. I decided to put Fruits Basket into my portfolio, but I started with the Love Hina site first. It felt daunting to create a site for Fruits Basket with some missing content. When a working link for my Love Hina proto-fansite was established, I continued making a link to my Fruits Basket proto-fansite.

    In another sense, Animextension was basically a portal. It was meant to be a portal for micro-sites. After a bit of polish, the proto-fansites (or website that was kind of a fansite) became micro-sites. Animextension contained all of the micro-sites for each anime title I followed.

    Before creating a micro-site for Love Hina and Fruits Basket, I wasn't really good at naming websites back then. Plus I just wanted to get it done. So I named a micro-site for Love Hina as Can You Feel Love Hina (a long name) and a micro-site for Fruits Basket as OnFruitsBasket. Several other titles followed, including a micro-site for School Rumble, InuYasha, Trigun and Samurai X. It took quite some time designing, debugging and adding content on each micro-site. I was doing this all by myself.

    Finally, after getting rid of chickenpox, I stopped working on Animextension for a week to hang out with my high school friends. On the last week of my sembreak, I re-watched Love Hina on cable and other anime titles as well. And after checking the Can You Feel Love Hina micro-site, I noticed that it was bland. You can only find character profiles, and some pictures. I thought that there should be more content to it. Definitely.


    BRAINSTORM AND REALIZATION - WORKING ON FRUITS BASKET FIRST

    One night, while I couldn't sleep, I had an epiphany. I had this surge of realization that it was hilarious. My joke on Janus echoed on me, "Why don't I write your blog for you?" THAT'S IT! Since I had some experience on blogging already, with my desire to express, design, write, build a fansite for Love Hina, "I will make a blog for Keitaro!... wait... how about the rest of the Love Hina characters?! Yeah! I'll blog for them!"

    There was still time left from my sembreak. So I went to work on it. What should I name the site(s)? I thought I should give a proper name this time; a name that's simple, easily remembered and easily understood. Normally people put the word 'shrine' together with the name of an anime character's fansite, but I didn't want to use 'shrine'. Putting a shrine felt like I was worshiping an anime character. Which is silly.

    Lord of the Rings was still popular back then. And I'm a big Lord of the Rings fan, so instead of writing shrine, I picked shire -- meaning 'a region'. It made sense. But after my brainstorm, I've already set up the shire plan for the Fruits Basket characters; I would use 'shires' for them. So this time, I wanted to go with something different for the Love Hina characters. And good thing I held back on using shires for the Love Hina characters... because later on, I'd be in for a surprise.


    PRIORITY ADJUSTMENT

    October 2005. Kyo's Shire, from my Fruits Basket project, was launched. I decided to concentrate adding more stuff with my Fruits Basket micro-site, while I kept searching for other interesting things to add.


    THE SEARCH FOR MORE

    My friend Jericho was writing a novel called the Art of Wardoms. And he's also responsible why I'm inspired to write my own novel. Anyway, he called his novel "Wardoms" in short. It was catchy.

    With my Fruits Basket project growing along with several microsites, it was time to add something different to my Love Hina project. It was in front of my face all along. Love Hina Project! Love Hina story was told different settings. Big brother reality TV was airing back then, but I am never a fan of the reality show btw. Chatrooms were also popular back then. I asked myself, maybe... I could write entries in script form and show as if they were conversations. I slapped my forehead when I realized that I COULD DO THAT! One night, when I came home again for the weekend, I was watching the TV to relax. Then I found one show that displayed the audience feedback in script form and they were scrolling their comments upward so that other comments would be read.


    ANOTHER EPIPHANY

    At this phase of learning HTML, I've come to discover the wonderful function of a simple code called 'marquee'. Like I said, back in 2005-2006, instant messengers were still hip. And I've wanted to do an 'experiment'.

    The term Worldplay isn't recognized and I guess people don't know what Worldplay is. This is where I've wanted to play the world of an anime setting. Play with the dates, the weather, the locations and the people altogether to form a Worldplay. (I coined 'Worldplay' here, haha. And that was back in 2005 or 2006, lol) Anyway, since chat was still popular and with the use of the code 'marquee', I've been able to format a chat-like entry for the Worldplay experiment. Just what I was looking for for my Love Hina Project.


    HINATA BOARDOMS

    It's December 2005 and I've finally decided to push through the addition to my Love Hina fansite. I'm a Shinobu x Keitaro fan. And just before the start of 2006, I've managed to write a small New Year's script entry between Shinobu and Keitaro. With the code and the design in place, I needed a name for this site. Wardoms... wardoms... it echoed. Hinata Boarding House-- Hinata Board-- Hinata Boardoms! Cool. Therefore, enter HinataBoardoms. And after checking out the fansite again, another surprise hit me. This is where Love Hina Project was officially put on my notebook.


    KWARTO!

    Despite having the Fruits Basket shires, I didn't know the term roleplaying at that time. Nor fan fiction. Seriously. I didn't. But it turned out that writing a diary for a certain character already existed-- nevermind-- still, I started blogging about Keitaro's university misadventures. Because I can relate to him, since I was already a university freshman. Since I can't use 'shires', I had to come up with another naming format. Hmm... I've been stuck in my room almost all of October, and I spent most of my time in my dorm room. Maybe I'll name the site, 'Keitaro's room?' Nah. Too common. I wanted it to be unique. How about kwarto? Kwarto! Kwarto means 'room' in Filipino. And I was thinking that there'd be a big number of Filipino visitors for my site anyway. Kwarto ni Keitaro, or Keitaro's room, was launched in January 2006 -- days after the launch of Hinata Boardoms.

    I found it really fun to write about Keitaro. And a stumbling question was shoved onto my face. Am I going to create 'kwartos' or 'rooms' for the rest of the Love Hina cast? It felt like I stepped on a landmine. The answer is -- certainly. Another stumbling block again, how could I write like a girl? Easy. Don't. Ask for help.


    ROOMS AVAILABLE

    Now I had a name format to follow in order to continue with the rest of the Love Hina cast. After Keitaro's room, I've talked to my friends about this fansite and they thought it was fun. I didn't ask them to write for me, I just asked them for ideas. I showed my girl-friends (friends who are girls) my 'girly' entries and they gave me a nod. But I also had some friends who were willing to write for me, they were Love Hina fans too and they also wanted to see my site up and running. I've considered anything they've suggested. When the entries were set, it was my interest to create a site for Kitsune next, because she's a novelist and I wanted to be a novelist -- until I was able to establish rooms for other characters.


    LOVE HINA PROJECT IS GROWING

    Around this time, I realized that the Love Hina Project was just concentrated on one location, the Hinata Inn or the Hinata Boardoms fansite. In comes the surprise -- rooms + Hinata Inn = Love Hina Project blueprint! It only made sense to me that I could set up a character fansite / blog for the other Love Hina characters as well, such as Mutsumi and Seta. So I've made a blog for Mutsumi in her apartment and Seta-sensei in his van. Again, the code 'marquee' gave me a reason to set up other sites such as the park. And the Torii Bowling alley at the latest.


    INTRODUCING SHIRECENTRAL

    I never stopped adding more content to Can You Feel Love Hina and onFruitsBasket microsite. Little by little, I've been able to find more information viable to each microsite. I was also making a blog for the Fruits Basket and Chobits characters. In an experiment, I've decided to put them in a portfolio site of their own, called Shirecentral. It would give you links to each of these blogs that I've created. Now that I think about it, I was such an otaku back then.


    GALLERY COMPLETE AND GOODBYE ANIMEXTENSION

    More and more content were added for each microsite of Animextension that it became confusing to navigate. It was time to retire my fansite. It was two years old. But it served its purpose well. The microsites were well enough to be on their own and they were too big to be called a 'micro'site. So I called in the decision to name a proper site with a clear purpose: to express my fan content and promote the respective anime title. onFruitsBasket becomes FruitsBlogsket (a mouthful), Can You Feel Love Hina stayed as CYF Love Hina (will be renamed Blog Hina soon) and Chobits became Chonegai (dormant and resting at blogdrive).


    CYF LOVE HINA [BLOG HINA] - A Love Hina Fansite ... and beyond

    Fansites that I've visited were only updated with news specific to that fansite. In effect, it felt like it was sort of dead because if there aren't any constant news, there wouldn't be many updates. In order to keep updating this fansite, I've made it as my blog too. Blog Hina is a blog and an experimental site, powering a Worldplay site called Love Hina Project. It started from a micro-site and left to be called as Blog Hina in summer 2006. It was still premature, but I continued to work on it further adding most of the content last October 2006.

    Love Hina Project is still growing. I forgot to mention that Blog Hina also had a small gallery that was launched last May 2006. Everything was organized in October 2006, adding my Love Hina gallery in Love Hina Project. The latest addition to Love Hina Project is the Blog Hina Station, a website for the Love Hina soundtracks.

    I admit that the Love Hina Project webpage was just a portal again. The site didn't have any text entry, just a site with pictures that could be clicked. I didn't know what entries I should put here. But when I arrived here in Canada, 2007, one of the first games that I bought is Animal Crossing, and that game had a bulletin board near your house. It made sense now what to do, a bulletin board that the Love Hina Project residents would use.

    Blog Hina is on its 5th year and it's my baby, and I look at it as some sort of reflection of myself -- take note: some sort. There has been a lot of stories that has been told, sad stories, happy stories, funny stories, frustrating stories, confusing stories, stories about the reality of life.


    ARIGATOO MIINA!

    What a long entry.

    You don't know how much I appreciate your visits. Thank you for the hits and it lets me keep going. Thank you for the comments and letters. Thank you for the inspiration. It's just awesome. Ken Akamatsu-sensei, thank you! It has been an amazing ride. And I intend to keep going. Again, thank you very much, everyone!
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    © Copyright 2005 - 2017. All Rights Reserved

    PROFILE
    sex: Male
    location: classified
    home country: Pilipinas
    currently in: Canada

    Jed David is a former BS Business Economics student in UP Diliman. He's working in the office to save for tuition fee and an airplane ticket. He's studying in the University of Winnipeg as a Business Admin and Computer Science student. He's a freelance photographer, a freelance writer, solo webadmin, webdesigner and an active blogger. He's a member of the modding community. He likes fastfood. He sucks at Math and Physics. He's no literary writer. He likes playing basketball but usually ends up with a few broken bones. He's so lame he gets nosebleed on his first step on the stairs. He's such a loser... *negative remarks*. Overall, he's eccentric. Oh. And he's favorite Love Hina character is Shinobu -- they're both Scorpio.

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