Yes! TOKYOPOP has finally launch ver 1.7 that they have been talking about for the last month or more. I've decided to write a little review on the changes I saw in Tokyopop 1.7 and the new features. Unfortunately I was having my exams, so I couldn't get myself to finish writing this review until now. So before we start, some boring information: I am using is Safari 2.0.4; Mac OSX; 1440 x 900.

Logging in After loggiing in, I get a nice friendly welcome message that tells me my forum name does not match my account name, and that they have changed my forum user name to FloatingSakura (it was Floating_Sakura on the forum before). Oh wow, how thoughtful. Things that I noticed immediately -- they finally fixed all the visible bugs on Safari (yes, Safari users, you can see what you type now).

The Top Menu
I have no clue whether they were new or not, but I've never noticed them before, so I'll have to consider them new. The art section is divided into categories like "Abstract," "Animation," "Fan Art," "General," "Grafitti," "Manga," "Music," "Nature," "Sketches" and "Tech"...

The Audio section has something similar, but is divided into categories such as "General," "Hip-Hop," "J-Pop," "K-Pop," "Mando-Pop," "Sound Effects," "Techno," and "Trip-Hop."

Other sections of the site like Photos is divided into similar category as the art section, while the Video or Fiction section is divided into the more traditional genre like "Action," "Comedy," Drama," "Fantasy," "Horror," "Romance," "Sci-fi," etc...

Going through some of the pages, I see that instead of the usual "pop it/flag it" option, now you have the "# of views/email this" option too.

The New Sections: "Polls," "Reviews" and "Articles":
Other things that I've immediately notice: instead of just the "profile/ fans/ art/ blog/ audio/ video/ fiction/ manga" user pages, now you have a few extra ones, "polls/ reviews/ articles."

Okay, so what are the new "polls/reviews/articles" pages? I don't see an option to view it at the top navigation bar, where everything is.

I look down to left editorial menu, and noticed there's a "review" and a "submit an article" option now under their "editorial" menu. It looks like you can submit reviews and articles to the editorial department in Tokyopop and have it featured. Oh wow, that sounds fun, more distraction (as if most of us don't already spend enough time on Tokyopop's site already).

Browsing through the Review section, it looks like they have the similar "Category" system as the other pages, and there's also a star "rating" system as well. On the top right corner, there's a "Add your own review" button, which I guess is where you submit your review.

When I clicked into one of the Manga pages, I notice the star system on the top, which I guess is how the reviewer rated whatever was reviewed. Below the comment though, I see two extra option, there's the "[Reviewer's name]'s review was helpful" or [reviewer's name]'s review was not helpful," you have to submit that along with your comment, which I mistakenly did not do. In this case, I didn't thought the review was too helpful, so I just stated so, and left a reason why.

Going into "Submit an article" on the left under "Editorial" lead me to a page similar to my blog where I can submit an article. Clicking into a each sub-category of article under the Editorial Menu, there is a section titled "Member Articles" underneath the "Featured" articles where you can browse the articles of your fellow Tokyopopers.

Importing Blog/Deviant Gallery:
One of the other Tokyopop's feature that's highlighted, they now allow users to import their blog or deviant gallery. Unfortunately I cannot find this too useful since I am not allowed to select what I can import. I am simply given the option of importing an entire blog/deviant gallery or not do it. (To those who follow my non-Tokyopop blog probably knows I have some NC17 material that I probably would not want to import to Tokyopop. ^^;)

The Lose Ends: So I believe we cover the basic new features of Tokyopop, except some of the new features are not as noticeable and users will have to find out on their own. For examples, I just noticed that Tokyopop send you alerts on your fans' birthdays, which is very nice for us forgetful people. I also notice that they put scrollbars on your private messages and profile comments now.

Overall, I am quite happy with Tokyopop's upgrade and hope they keep up the good work. Just one reminder to all the Tokyopopers, if you find a bug on the new Tokyopop's site, please email bugs@tokyopop.com and report it! That's all. Happy Tokyopoping!