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Site History

Version 1.0
July 30/98-Feb. 13/99
 Version 2.0
Feb. 14/99-June 10/00
 Version 3.0
June 11/00-May 5/01		 Version 4
May 6/01-Oct 30/01
Version 4
Nov 1/01-Nov 2/02		 Version 6
Nov 3/02-Feb 19/03
[Blinding-Light design]		 Version 7
Feb 20/03-April 3/05		 Version 8
April 4/05-Oct 2009

In My Heart was originally named "A Song In My Heart: Rayearth Music". It is the third fan site I created and was launched way back on July 30, 1998. It's a traditional anime shrine with information on characters, the various versions of the series, an image gallery, and my pride and joy: the massive music downloads section. Rayearth was the second anime and manga I watched and read, after Sailor Moon. I discovered it completely by accident: I downloaded a video of the anime opening from a fan site and promptly decided that I had to see this series =) In the fall of 1997, Tokyopop put out their first manga in their debut magazine "MixxZine" and to my delight, it featured both Sailor Moon and Magic Knight Rayearth.

Since this was long before the anime was commercially available in North America (and in those days, girls' anime just weren't licensed in English at all), I purchased bootleg VHS videos of the entire first season (sight unseen!) from a local Asian gift store (they're still in business and selling bootleg DVDs now!). Of course, as soon as the series was licensed and released in English, I bought both seasons on DVD. MKRE was a break-thru in North America because it was a mahou shoujo anime that was released straight to home video, without the benefit of an English dub on TV. The show was already very popular in South America and parts of Europe, not to mention Asia, where it aired on public TV in the local languages.

Originally In My Heart was conceived as a mini site for Rayearth song downloads, but I quickly realized I wanted to do more with it and decided the 'net needed a general MKR combo site. With version 2 I expanded the site to serve as a general MKRE reference. The majority of the content on this site was originally created between 1998-2001. My collection of Rayearth CDs was far from complete at that time, and I continued to add albums and singles over the years. I've also add considerably to the informational sections since 2001.

The site changed hosts a lot from 1998 to 2001, including an enjoyable year as part of a female-owned network of shoujo anime sites on AnimeCity.nu. In My Heart found a permanent home when I bought my first domain (astraldream.net) in 2001.

Sometimes I wish I'd begun this site when I knew more about creating good fan sites, instead of learning as I went along :-) However Rayearth came out in the early 90's, so it didn't happen that way. Both the web and the North American anime/manga culture were underdeveloped when Magic Knight Rayearth was in its prime. Information was much harder to come by, one had to rely on fansubs and fan translations, and it was more difficult to order products from Japan. I'm very happy that anime and manga are so easy to acquire and enjoy in North America today. I have a great fondness for this site and for the series itself.