History
In the Beginning
Ranma ½ Perfect Edition was created by Harley Acres on June 5, 1998 as a site on Geocities. To understand the motivation for creating Ranma ½ Perfect Edition, we first need to take a brief look at Harley's background.
For Harley, Ranma ½ is the series that introduced him to the world of manga and anime. Harley first discovered Ranma in 1993 while in 7th grade. Unfortunately, being from rural Mississippi, there were literally no other anime fans and no information to be had about anything. Everything changed in June of 1997, when the Acres brothers were introduced to the World Wide Web.
A whole new world was opened to the Acres brothers. Information about manga and anime, and specifically Ranma ½, were ripe for exploration.
Back in 1997, before anime and manga gained momentum in mainstream media, a few series like Ranma ½ were wildly popular online. Information and images of the latest stories from Japan were posted years before the official version would set foot on U.S. soil, and tons and tons of little, and often not well-designed, Geocities sites were the norm. The sheer amount of information available intimidated Harley from creating his own Ranma site, so instead Harley taught himself HTML while making a site for Please Save My Earth. The experience proved to be beneficial, as it would allow Harley to make a much better Ranma site a year later.
1998 - 1999
Fast forward to June of 1998, Ranma ½ Perfect Editionrfect Edition debuts on Geocities. In the beginning it was just another Ranma site in a sea of Geocities and Angelfire fan sites. As time went on, the site grew. On January 3rd 1999, Harley completely revamped Ranma ½ Perfect Editionrfect Edition in what he dubbed a "Total site update!", and thus began the transformation from a casual fan site to a general information site.
November 15- We will now have a new index image each month, starting with this one.
And so began one of Ranma ½ Perfect Edition's most amazing feat - creating a new index page every month. The tradition would continue until autumn of 2001, when the rate of new index slowed down after Harley moved away for college. Time was short for "non-essential" updates as Harley adjusted to living away from home for the first time.
2000
On May 23rd 2000, Harley acquired the domain Furinkan.com through the free domain name service Namezero (the domain would later become the home of Rumic World). Ranma ½ Perfect Edition was still hosted on Geocities, but going to Furinkan.com would lead to the Geocities site. The intent was to create more credibility to the general information site that R1/2PE had become, and also to help obtain a better link positioning at Anipike, which at the time was THE anime link directory site.
July 31- Well, we changed the site title back to "Ranma ½ Perfect Edition" from "Furinkan.com". The whole change in the first place was an attempt to get a little credibility and good link positioning, specifically at Anipike. That didn't work... so the old title is back. If this site isn't a "General Info" site I don't know what is. It's certainly not a "Personal/Combo Site". Whatever... Anyway, that's what was behind the name change in case you were curious.
The quest to get a better listing at Anipike would later come true:
August 22- Great news today! We were added to the General Info section of The Anime Web Turnpike! Thanks to everyone for making our site a success!
2001
2001 was an important year for Ranma ½ Perfect Edition. In April, Ranma ½ Perfect Edition launched the Ranma ½ Messageboard." The forum would eventually evolve into the current "Rumic World Messageboard." Throughout 2001, service from Geocities degraded, with images, midis, and other files on Ranma ½ Perfect Edition abruptly removed for draining bandwidth (at the time some of the volume covers were also stolen by other sites).
October 29- A very special day for Perfect Edition! I'm permanently moving it to it's own server and off of Geocities. We can now be found at Furinkan.com. Please update your bookmarks!
Toward the end of October that year, in order to escape Geocities' newly implemented ads, Harley purchases the domain Furinkan.com outright (before with Namezero, Harley did not technically "own" the domain, when one goes to "furinkan.com," it was essentially just a window that showed the site with ads on it), and moved Ranma ½ Perfect Editionrfect Edition to the new domain. This move marked a huge turning point in the history of Ranma ½ Perfect Edition, as the Ranma site finally set itself URLically apart from other Geocities sites.
December 6- Mr. Toshifumi Yoshida was kind enough to let us know about the casting of the new Inu-Yasha anime. You can read about the cast, which includes some familar faces in our speical report.
In December of that same year, Ranma ½ Perfect Edition conducted an interview with anime producer Toshifumi Yoshida about the English casting of Inuyasha. The chance to interview someone from the industry was something that didn��t come by often, and later the interview proved to be more far-reaching than anyone had anticipated. After the interview, Yoshida became acquaintances of the "Rumic crew." Almost a year later, Yoshida provided exclusive information to the crew on Inuyasha voice casts, which put the then newly-launched Rumic World on the radar.
May 28- We've redone the index in celebration of a new colaboration, Rumic World!! Ranma ½ Perfect Edition is proud to be the Ranma cog in the collection of greatest sites on Rumiko Takahashi's works. Look for more big things to come of this.
2002 - 2004
On May 28 2002, Rumic World, a collective of many Takahashi sites, officially debuts, and Ranma ½ Perfect Edition became the home page of Rumic World.
January 22, 2003- Celebrating Ranma ½ Perfect Edition's fifth year online, the entire site has been rebuilt from the ground up. More information, images, CDs, Specials, Games, Characters, Summaries... more everything! It's all new!
The creation of Rumic World also saw Mason's Tomobiki-cho join the crew. Tomobiki-cho was the oldest of the Rumic World sites, and gave a lot of inspiration to both Harley and Dylan's fan sites. In January 2003, Ranma ½ Perfect Edition received another face-lift, this time with a new themed based on the new Tomobiki-cho.
May 28- A big, big change has come to Perfect Edition, as I am sure anyone reading this has noticed. We've moved from the main page, to a subsection, so that Rumic World could move front and center.
2005
On May 28 2005, Ranma ½ Perfect Edition retired from the main page of Rumic World to its own subsection, while the Rumic World received its own homepage.
December 20- Well, that's it. As far as I can tell there are no more updates to make, no more characters to add. I've added the Phoenix People to the character section, and a few new minor characters as well. Those will be the last updates until something new gets released in Japan. Otherwise continue to check Rumic World for new news. Its been a pleasure working on this site for the last eight and a half years, and I hope it continues to bring as much joy to its visitors as I had in making it.
With the Ranma manga and anime long finished both in Japan and in the U.S. Ranma ½ Perfect Edition has finished updating all its contents and announced its "completion" on December 20th 2006. Unless new Ranma releases appear, Ranma ½ Perfect Edition will remain the way it is, a complete and useful Ranma guide for both veteran fans looking for nostalgia and new fans looking for a new series to explore.
2007
On October 26th, Ranma ½ Perfect Edition was relaunched with a new layout:
Ranma ½ Perfect Edition Relaunch
After weeks of working, I've relaunched our Ranma site, with a new design in the vein of Tomobiki-cho and the Inuyasha Companion. I hope you enjoy the new look and new information!