Some of you may wonder what the heck has happened to The Leaf Forest Zone. And why I moved it to another place (it’s here if you’re looking for it). Let me clarify a few things.

That website was abandoned since 2005 as I gradually lost interest in sprite comics. I attempted to put a new type of gallery upfront, in the vain hope that little gems would pop up and awesome artists would come. Instead we had only a bunch of noobs always doing the same Sonic-related things. Worse, most works we’d receive for approval were completely subpar and eligible of the worst facepalm awards of all time. It looks a bit like the actual situation on the MMD scene that is over-saturated with the same MV clones over and over, the same picture-card shows (basically, MMD dramas with static images) and the same pun-based MMD dramas. Except that on the MMD scene, there are still some awesome and really passionate artists who really enjoy what they’re doing. Besides, quality works always pop up from time to time, either by new artists or existing ones. On the sprite comic scene (at least the French one), there were awesome artists and productions but in way too low number for my tastes. Also, sprite comic quickly became a very conformist and closed minded discipline, which really upset me, as that’s not what I’m looking after.

In the meantime I gradually lost interest in the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise, as every place I went to became either an elitist mess or a noob one, with no in-between. I guess this was the end for me for hanging around Sonic places on the web, as I felt I didn’t fit there anymore. Also, the quality of the games began declining during that period, which didn’t help. Don’t worry, I didn’t ban Sonic The Hedgehog from my interest, I happen to play the Genesis episodes from time to time and am still keeping an eye over the franchise.

What also happened during the period is the gradual interest I gained with another franchise, Touhou Project. The reason why it became my main centre of interest should be obvious to you all. This all began some time in 2007 where my first exposure was… ahem… you know… that flash video featuring a catchy upbeat techno song with Alice in it (I’m not going further, you all know what video I’m referring to). Then from late 2007, it never stopped. That franchise is one of the most amazing resource of high-grade and state of the art artwork (music, drawings, videos, animation, fan games, etc.) that exists. It’s hard to believe it’s based on a danmaku game series (that I only began interested in only a few months ago… because I became extremely lazy and even gaming was a chore for me). I still suck at them (because I’m bad at STGs not because the games are that hard) but I frankly realized I missed something by not playing them earlier.

So here am I now, with a stable job and possibly a new home outside that abomination of big city that is Marseilles (living with my mother at my age does stink hard) in the hope that my legendary laziness can finally vanish.

Also, the layout is still temporary. I still need to have a custom theme of my own.