THE HISTORY OF SWEETUSAGI.COM

1996: The webmistress, at age 14, was heavy into the anime and manga Sailormoon, Ranma 1/2, and Tenchi Muyo. She had begun teaching herself Japanese, and began toying with the idea of translating manga herself.

1997: The webmistress, at age 15, began watching/reading other anime and manga series by attending after-school anime meetings, but remained an obsessed and devout fan of Sailormoon. It was at these meetings where she met her (now long-lost) friend Suzette, who helped her add enormously to her Sailormoon anime collection. She began taking Japanese classes and translating manga for herself in her spare time (including the entire volume of Sailormoon volume 4, which never appeared online in the later years due to the rough nature of the work). She also began toying with insights and research connecting Sailormoon symbols to the pagan/wiccan religion. She wrote up several preliminary essays on these topics as Word documents.

Also during this year, she recieved her first laptop and ventured onto the internet. At the time going by the handle of 'kohaku' in several Sailormoon chatrooms in a section of ICESPiN chat. It was there she was also directed to tuxedomask.com's chat room and forums by a mysterious girl known only as 'q'. She became friends with a fellow by the name of KaitouAce (owner of tuxedomask.com). She had finally succeeded in the completion of her Sailormoon anime and manga collection, and by gleening dates and info from each constucted a basic timeline of the Sailormoon universe.

1998: The webmistress, at age 16, assumed the handle of Yumiko/Yumi Kosaka, still chatting at tuxedomask.com and posting on various anime and sailormoon formus online. She taught herself basic MS Paint skills and rough hand-coded HTML using verious help books and online resources. It's because of this solid base that she was able to build a successful and well-known domain as her first website. She continued to teach herself Japanese with the help of her then-boyfriend Koji. At sometime during this year she met Ian Andreas Miller on an anime forum; she would later have him critique her website and through this interaction corrected several errors and learned some new things.

1999: The webmistress was now 17. Because of the intense work effort she displayed the previous year, her father bought for her a domain name and space for her very first website, sweetusagi.com in April of that year. Before long a holding page featuring a weeping manga girl and the text "Yumiko no Oheya! Coming soon! Hurry up! I can't wait!" appeared. Between April and August she worked to write up the core content and lay down the basic construct for future content. August 30th, SweetUsagi.com debuted online with the Complete Sailormoon Guide.

Also during this year she met a guy named Hans Schumacher (The Lunar Archivist) in the ICEPSPiN chat rooms. Together they researched several Sailormoon related topics, such as the timeline, "monsters of the day" (of which was later adopted and researched further, by Ian Andreas Miller) and other things. They shared info back and forth quite often via email and the chat room. During ther later part of this year she also added a similar guide to the series Cardcaptor Sakura. She also added a personal page which introduced herself officially for the first time online.

It was also this year that she became a member of the Sailor Senshi Domain Group were she affiliated herself with Rebecca of moonprincess.com, and became good friends with her now best-online friend Brian of the former usa-ko.com. Through Brian she learned several new design and optimization techiniques and advanced greatly in these areas.

2000: The webmistress, now age 18, continued to add and expand on the Sailormoon guide. She began translating and summarizing epsiodes, adding extra detail to the character, enemy, and other profiles, and adding newer insights on the series as a whole. She lost interest in the Cardcaptor Sakura series and removed the websites from the line up after adding DiGi Charat and Cyber Idol Mink to the roster in it's place. Shortly there after a massive website devoted to the punk-rcok band Judy and Mary debuted as JAM-net. Sailormoon, however, was still her site's number one draw. The website had attained a "well-known" and popular status, average over 2,000 visits a day.

2001: The webmistress, age 19, had graduated highschool and moved into a college dorm. It was here she spent many late nights working on updates for all of the websites, including a forum for JAM-net, a full personal website, and the beginnings of an online journal on a long forgotten service called scibble.nu. Before long she moved her journal to the domain with the use of the blogger.com service. Also during this year she changed her screen name to Natsuki Kosaka.

2002: Age 20, she quit college to work and save money for herself. She worked on the sites a little here and there, focusing mainly on the main page design and transforming JAM-net into Punk Girl (switching the focus to YUKI rather than the whole band... as YUKI began branching off into other projects, and because JAM was no more). After several of life's little mishaps took her offline for two months near the end of this year, she came back to focus heavly on journaling.

During the latter part of this year, full of poetic angst, her journal became somewhat of a popular read among former and new fans of her site. She did her best writing during this time, and even used some bits from her journal and inspiration from YUKI's music to begin putting the beginning puting major character development touches on her first novel. She began a Fight Club website project with Lusis Fall of refractorproductions.com. They did a lot of research and ground work, but then life got in the way once again, and so the 'Paper Street' project was tossed. The original content still exists with both of them, so there is hope for it at a later time. Her journal attracted a guy named Michael, who soon became her boyfriend (who she is still with today). During the latter part of this year, she bid a temporary adieu to the internet to move to Nashville and start life anew.

2003~2004: Living in Nashville, freelancing her webdesign as Pixel Minx Design Studio (pixelminx.com) and working as a waitress in a bar called Radio Cafe, the webmistress 21~22 focused on her life and relationships, and only browsed around a couple of forums before switching her journal over to livejournal where she spent most of her online time posting and chatting in communities of interest. She did, however, continue to faithfully update PUNK GIRL, which had been gaining a steady English AND Japanese fan base (the English speaking fanbase was drawn to all the wonderfully accessable info on YUKI and her projects and lifestyle, and the Japanese fan base was drawn to the 1000+ image gallery and the Japanese mirror "Tokyo Edition" that was available for a short while (and is being readied for a new debut). She also added Animal Magnet (a pokemon website) and began the official YUKI and Tommy february6 fanlistings.

2005: Right now, it's 2005. the webmistress is 23 and now living with Michael (her boyfriend) in the Fashion District of Los Angeles, California. She now lives just down the street from the Japanese culture mecha known as "Little Tokyo" which has revived her interest in japanese pop culture.