Layout

Below are all the custom (i.e., MS Paint for the most part) layouts I have ever made for this blog, ad seriatim.

1. Sendoh the First (2008): My first ever custom-built MS Paint layout. Reconstructed, because I couldn't find the original HTML. It hadn't occurred to me at the time of making it that the header ought to have been longer, as a result of which an unsightly band of gray runs through the otherwise uninterrupted expanse of blue at the top.

2. Byakuya Kuchiki the First (2009): The one-pixel-wide strip of green was not always present. There was doubtless some error in saving the image online.

3. Byakuya Kuchiki the Second (2009): The first version of this layout was without the three smaller images, which were added later to compensate for the bleakness of the header.

4. Sendoh the Second (2010): Fucking JPEG. It took me way longer than it should have to to redraw all this and save it as PNG files.   

4.0.1. Sendoh the Second After Defeating JPEG (2013): This is the improved version of Sendoh the Second alluded to above, though still far from perfect on account of the awful color scheme.

4.1. Sendoh the Second in Brown (2013): JPEG defeated, and layout changed to one centralized column rather than an ever-repeating mess. 

4.2. Sendoh the Second in a Different Shade of Blue (2013):

4.3. Sendoh the Second in Green (2015): I've used the same text here as in 4.2. The font is US Declaration, and is, in my opinion, simply outstanding.

5. Spinda (2013): For the record, this is a joke. Joke. Nikki finds it annoying, but I think she secretly likes it. The joke in question is explained somewhere in an entry, and I shan't repeat it here.

6. Sendoh the Third (2013): The consensus among my readers seems to be that this layout sucks. The longer I stare at it, the more I think they are right. 

7. Ulquiorra (2014): The motivation to once again go to the effort of making another layout of this kind had oneiric origins. The MS Paint treatment of the images was hastily done, but it's hoped that its defects aren't too noticeable at this scale - and where they are noticeable, that they don't seem like poor editing.

8. Sendoh the Fourth (2014): Addressing the criticisms of Sendoh the Third.

8.1. Sendoh the 4.1 (2015): A slightly more sophisticated version of Sendoh the Fourth, if I say so myself, complete with the illusion of transparency. Most of all, I'm glad that I was finally able to get rid of the conspicuous inch of emptiness at the top. Unfortunately the mobile versions of the layout leave much to be desired on account of the fact that the amount of logic that goes into rendering CSS on conventional browsers seems to be ZERO.

9. Terminal CSS d'Après N. M. (2015): Terminal CSS d'Après N. M.

10. Sendoh the Fifth - Parchment (2015): My latest layout featuring Sendoh. This is more of an experimental layout, whose intention was to evoke a sort of primitive HTML feel, with the weird background texture, the single header image, and the invisible text column. The silhouettes in the header image are from Chapter 258, when Rukawa is going through several moments of well-deserved crisis on account of being completely eclipsed by Sawakita. What Rukawa doesn't seem to be aware of is that he was eclipsed by Sendoh long before he could be eclipsed by Sawakita, and that if Rukawa is to go to America at all, it will be in the capacity of an inconsequential benchwarmer like Hikoichi, or - more likely - not even that.

10.1. Sendoh the Fourth Meets Sendoh the Fifth (2015): Combining the header image of Sendoh the Fifth (which I'm extremely taken with) with the general all right-ness of Sendoh the Fourth.

11. Bankai Attack (2015): This is one of those novelty layouts (c.f. Spinda) that I made without any intention of using it for an extended period. Feel free to admire and be confounded by the psychedelic colors and lame MS-Paint artwork.

 

12. The Pianist (2016): The pianist featured here is Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, one of the titans of the piano from the last century and one of the greatest technicians in history.

13. Fairy Tail (2016): Featuring some of my favorite characters from Fairy Tail. The header was made on GIMP, with effort that was perhaps disproportionate to the final outcome.

 

14. Jellal Fernandes (2016): One of the Fairy Tail's most awesome characters. The reasons range from his cobalt-blue hair to his immense strength. Jellal x Erza is also perhaps the only mainstream pairing I can suffer. The layout contains my attempt at drawing one of Jellal's signature spells: Grand Chariot.

  

15. Rin Okumura (2017): The protagonist of Blue Exorcist/Ao no Exorcist - a personage unique among shonen manga protagonists for being likeable. One must note, however, that his virtues don't end there.

16. Magi: Aladdin and Judar (2017): Magi is my new favorite anime/manga. I can be found from time to time posting flowery encomiums of the show on this blog, so I won't say anything more about it here except to urge the reader to give Magi a shot. The sharp-eyed reader will also have noticed that, with this update, I've finally moved on from the tiresome box frame layout, as I call it, that adorned my blog on and off for the past seven years.

17. Sesshoumaru (2018): I used to think Inuyasha was a childish cartoon; then I watched kids turn into skeletons and realized that my initial impression had been wrong. Sesshoumaru in particular is a character for whom I feel a great deal of empathy. Classic tsundere, but there's something special about him.

18. My Hero Academia (2018): My latest anime flame. I went into this series believing that Todoroki Shoto would be my favorite character, but as it happens, my favorite character ended up being Bakugo, though Todoroki is a close second. Midoriya, to his credit, is rather likeable, as Shonen protagonists go. He breaks the mold rather decisively by embodying brains rather than gut, which is unprecedented in Shonen manga.

 

19. Thanatos (2023): The comeback kid.

 

 

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MISCELLANEOUS LAYOUTS:

1. Ulquiorra: Constructed from one of the default Blogger templates.