OUR LAST WORDS


For someone that uses many words to describe things... Here I am not knowing what to say here. Yumemiru was a great experience for me. It was so much fun doing reviews and meeting new people and writing about various unknown manga that I love. From the very beginning our goal was to help. I wish that with all those reviews we have done, I hope that even at least one of them were helpful to a siteowner. For those who flamed me and told me I was immature, called me by various names and hate Yumemiru, thank you. I thank you the most because you made me stronger. For all the people who said "thank-you" and e-mailed me with just those two kind words... I really appreciate it because you made me smile. For all of you who talked to me to just to say "hi" I love you guys. This closing of ours isn't really a big deal to many of you or you are probably just passing this site and don't know what I'm talking about... But this is it. I will miss everything here. I look at the past reviews we have done, the extremely funny ones with misc. characters showing up (the wise owl from the tootsie pop commercial even made an appearance here, did you know?), those story reviews that sometimes no one got, I look at our past layouts that were just weird (The New Kids on the Block and Forrest Gump? Gosh, what were we thinking?) and the ones that were funny and the ones that we managed to make pretty (all with the help of Anna and Maureen) and yes, I'm going to miss doing this. Yumemiru was never really a serious review site from the start. We gave you advice but there was humor, there were the odd comments and just other various oddities. It was funny only to us I think but I still laugh whenever I read those humorous reviews. I really wonder what those owners thought about those. That is it though. We have no extras here, no interesting thing to do, it may have been boring to many, but it's ok. We lasted didn't we? Thank you all who liked this site and who hated this site. Thank you. No matter what, all the 400 plus of you who we have reviewed, thank you for letting us be opinionated. Good review, bad review, mediocre, excellent. Either way... we had fun.

But enough of my blabber. I just wanted to say thank you also to everyone who was ever a part of Yumemiru... From Rei and Suiren in the old days, Usa-girl, Daimira, Claudia, Cassandra, Kelly, Chiori, and the great Rachel who left us, and to the reviewers I have now. Anna, Pera, Rebo, Amberlin, and Maureen... You guys.... I don't really know what I would have done without any of you. Thank you so much for being a part of the Yume to the Miru. I will miss you all and I will miss reading your reviews. All you guys are so different in the way you review that it's interesting to read your point of views. It's great getting to know all of you too. Though Yume ends here, keep our Victoria's Secret Blog going, ok?

*Turns off the light and wishes everyone a goodnight.

~Cindy
Feel free to talk to me:
MSN Messenger: yreviews@hotmail.com
AIM:iheartbakaneko


I joined Yumemiru almost a month after it began. I was known as Sailor Pallas then and I would review with Aurora. I didn't know much about WPRs then because it isn't like it is now where there are hundreds of WPRs. I was always opinionated and but reviewing for me was a change. I got used to it though and I started to mature in my reviews. There were times when I wanted to quit and times were I loved to review (like that time when I was in a Souma Haru phase and reviewed as many sites I could to show my love for him), but even though I will miss Yume and all the fun we had, I think it was for the better. I'm glad I was part of Yumemiru because everyone is nice here, we never fought, and we always stuck together.

I'll miss the good times we had here especially our out of the ordinary layouts like Ninja Turtles and Forrest Gump... we even had one on our dear Rivers Cuomo from Weezer. *sigh* the good old days and that review where a commerical interupted me and those stupid introductions I would always do. I'll miss Yumemiru when we had those icons in our introductions and pictures of our reactions to the reviews and those sublimital messages in a certain layout. *sigh* Memories.

Yumemiru was a great experience for me. Although we had some rough times by getting flames and such, I still enjoyed being apart of a compromising community we had here in Yumemiru. I'm glad I got to visit other sites and voice out my opinion and help the site owner's webpage in any way I can. I hope we all can still keep in touch with eachother with the blog of ours. You guys are great. It's been fun and take care all of you.
~Maureen


I joined Yumemiru in February of 2002, after I got reviewed from Yume itself. I was never really interested in the workings of WPRs, but of course that changed when I found Yume and their beautiful Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou layout that absolutely enticed me into submitting. (Note to Aura, you were right about layouts bringing in the queues). I really enjoyed the site and decided that I should possibly try and submit my own site to it. I was actually reviewed by three different people due to some mistakes, but it was great. I thought each of the reviews were very helpful and wonderful. That’s why when Aura put up a notice about how she wanted to find some reviewers, I couldn’t help but jump on it.

But yes, I joined Yumemiru and I had a lot of fun. Reviewing has been an interesting experience for me because I got to visit many sites that I would not normally visit and really voice out comments about their sites that may actually be used and considered. Of course there were many times where I did become emotionally distraught by the comments that some of the owners said about my review. I mean, I know that it shouldn’t have bothered me, but I’m only human. I do care what others say, as petty as some may be.

I made great friends though, with this WPR. Of course I never really got to know much of the other reviewers, I did get to make really good friends with Aura, which I’m really glad happened. She’s such a great person to talk to - I just love her. And now with this blog, I’ve been able to talk more to these wonderful people and find that it’s so much fun! I love them all and their wonderful reviews. I did go through a period of time where I would read each and every review Yume did, although when life became hectic I did have to quit that habit. I believe that Yumemiru has had a great staff, a great leader, and a great lifespan. Although closing down Yumemiru is tragic, I know it’s all for the better good.

Thank you to everyone for making my time at Yumemiru a great one.

Goodbye Yumemiru, I knew you well.
~Anna


I initially joined out of upset with some of the WPR scene. Any of the regular SMULC visitors probably know I had a hell of a time dealing with reviews at one particular site being unduly harsh towards my site despite the fact I had taken alltheir advice and more yet kept getting a low score when I knew I deserved better. Ifelt that if I really wanted to make a point, I should take up the WPR mantle and show what I felt a good review should be. YumeMiru was a stand out in helping SMULC and it floored me to get the Eternal Dream from them after I'd spent a few months overhauling my entire site. So I volunteered and became a part of the staff. It's a lot harder than I imagined, actually, writing these reviews. A really lousy site tends to have a review done in a matter of minutes. A truly great site, however, would take me a long time, when I had time, because I had to really explain what worked and what still needed fixing. I learned a lot more about my fellow webmasters in these few months of reviewing than I have in the year since I opened my own site. I hope that the reviews I did write at least lived up to what I expected of a WPR - constructive, helpful criticism. If a site has a low rating, there better be a lot of tips and advice within the review to justify that. I only got a few bad sites, but I always made an effort to think of ways to make the site succeed. I hope the entire WPR scene understands that - people are submitting their sites not just for noteriety, but in order to improve them. I know SMULC has only improved because I wanted it criticised and I trusted the advice of the people I asked for. And I learned that the people submitting to me generally thought that same way. I have kept the bookmarks of all of the sites I reviewed for and have revisited more than once just to see how things are doing. It felt great to see one with a low score, or even a medium score, jump in quality, to see the creator realize their real potential. YumeMiru found the balance between helping out and being funny and entertaining at the same time, and I hope I maintained that standard. It's been fun, and good luck to my fellow reviewers!
~Rebo


I'm not the type of person who talks on and on and uses big words, so I'm gonna keep this simple. Since I haven't been reviewing for a long time, I don't feel as if this was some kind of job as some of my fellow reviewers say. I actually thought this was pretty fun, and I enjoyed reading everyone's reviews and looking at people's sites and stuff. I thought Yume was really cool when I first came to it and mostly everything was so original and the layouts were really nice. I was really happy when I joined Yume. So, yeah I'm pretty sad that Yume is closing down, and I'll miss being part of such a dandy little place like this. :)
-Amberlin


YUME!!! *sobcry* If you need a visual for Fisheye at this moment, imagine a soggy mess clinging to the heels of a simple yet beautiful manga woman. Yumemiru Reviews....They were my inspiration! And not just for me. Many young people were inspired to start their own WPR after seeing what a WPR can be. Yume knew exactly what a WPR should be. Sites were reviewed honestly. Nothing was held back. Damnit you know I just don't know what to say! I could shower a thousand compliments upon YR and it wouldn't match what they've done. Over 400 sites have received advice on how to improve their creation. A WPR can change a shabby site into something great. Site owners weren't the only ones to enjoy our dear Yumemiru. Read the guestbook! Lots of people loved reading the reviews. Have I mentioned the layouts? ye gods. They are so beautiful! I am always impressed and awed by everything Cindy's worked on. It's the little things, y'know? The font, unusual colours and placement of the navigation. Creativity at it's peak! Not only do the layout look great, but they've been a vehicle for promoting little-known manga that are really worth taking a look at. I've really enjoyed reading the summaries all this time, I get a good feel for the story as well as how excited Cindy is about such-an-author. The articles are great. Yume comments on new things that I would have never thought about, like the layout trends. Hehe, ranting grounds are always fun. Especially in the middle of a review. XD
aaah, YUMEMIRU REVIEWS! How I'm really going to miss you.
~Pera


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