Image Galleries!

When browsing, I tried to steer away from sites that were nothing more than a small collection of image galleries for a few different anime. No offense, but those sites are a dime a dozen. Instead, I looked for sites that set themselves apart, either by interesting themes or content, or just by sheer volume.

Let's take care of the "sheer volume" sites first. These general galleries are simply a collection of images from all over anime, but each have very large collections. The boasts over 1900 images divided into over 70 different galleries. Each gallery is indexed through several pages of fast-loading thumbnails, and each thumbnail has below it the dimensions and file size of the image, a nice feature. To make it painfully easy to download images, the author has considerately linked each full-size displayed image to the actual image file.

The outdoes the previous site by quite a bit on the number of galleries, with over 170 galleries for individual anime and manga. I assume they do better on total images as well, but they don't say how many images are archived on the site and I certainly am not going to count them all. They go further with 13 more galleries, each devoted to a specific artist. This site takes a different approach to thumbnails. The thumbnails for each index are composed into a single image which is used as a map, removing the need to download lots of individual images, one of primary reasons image galleries are slow. Better still, each index page has a "batch download" link. This is really quite brilliant. The interface allows you to select any number of images from a given page and download them as a single zipped file in one of four common compression formats. Be warned: if this feature is abused, the site author will have to remove it.

Other general image galleries of interest:

But by far and away the most numerous of this kind of site are those that offer animated GIFs. In alphabetical order:

For starters, if you're in a romantic mood, check out the . These two pages are a collection of images, primarily screen captures, of anime couples getting all mushy. To take the next logical step, go to the "Anime Wedding Gallery" at , where all the girls are ready to go to the altar.

You like cat-girls? We got your cat-girls! has all kinds of cat-girl images, from anime cat-girls, to video game cat-girls, to ordinary anime characters who once dressed up as a cat-girl! If the "girl" part isn't as important, try , which is devoted to cats in anime, girl or otherwise.

If you'd like to get a head start on the holiday season, there are some Christmas-related image galleries I can point you to. has, among other things, a "Christmas Gallery" featuring 13 yuletide images to choose from. is a Christmas-themed Sailor Moon site. In addition to pictures of the senshi in various Christmas costumes, there are also RealAudio files of the senshi singing Christmas songs. (Though that's beyond the scope of this column...)

If the angel atop the tree isn't animated enough for you, you can visit and download some feather-winged anime characters. There are galleries for eight different anime and one miscellaneous gallery. goes one step farther, offering a selection of animated angel images as well as standard angel galleries for six animes, and fan art.

Everyone loves cute little super-deformed (SD) anime characters. At least I know I do. So it's not surprising there are so many sites devoted to that sort of image, the most impressive of which has to be the . The site has image galleries for 120 anime, manga, and video games. Really fast-loading site, too.

Other SD galleries:

Some people aren't satisfied with merely displaying the images on their websites. They want to mess with the images a little. is a gallery of images modified by the site author, as is the . The latter has some very amusing images, in which the site author composes a dozen or so SD characters into a group shot.

Do Sanrio characters count as anime? Hmm. Hello Kitty had a series, so I suppose the answer is yes, barely. Whatever. There are two cute Sanrio galleries worth mentioning: has 11 Sanrio galleries, organized by character. has about a dozen Sanrio images, as well as a "Lover's [sic] Gallery" that fits in with the earlier romance theme.

Not all of the image galleries are of animation images. documents one person's insanely large collection of anime crap merchandise. Galleries of toys are offered for five anime series, as well as the necessary miscellaneous gallery. Check the "What's Nuevo" section to keep up with new acquisitions. showcases pictures of models in galleries for over fifty different anime. The site author seems to be a little better at putting together models than he is at photography, as some of the of images are little blurry. Still, it's one impressive collection of images.

To finish off this month's work, let me quickly blow through several more sites that caught my eye, but didn't fit into any specific category covered so far:

Mailbag time!