On October 9th, 2008, KH13.com was officially created. Today marks 8 years since the creation of KH13, and we'd like to celebrate that with a refresher on the history of KH13 and how it became to be one of the best Kingdom Hearts fansites for news and media.
KH13.com originally started in 2008 by KH13 Webmaster DChiuch, with the help of Co-Webmaster Aaron. The website started out as a simple project between friends, however, soon became a full-fledged website for Kingdom Hearts news, media and discussion. At the time, high quality videos and media were hard to come by, so KH13 initially established itself by providing high quality trailer and cutscene downloads.
The name "KH13" was eventually settled on in a brainstorming session, after it was discovered that KH1.com through KH12.com were all taken – it seemed fitting that the first available domain would match up with Organization XIII. Around this time, KH13.com began to report Kingdom Hearts news, with the first article on Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days.
In January, 2009, KH13 decided to do the first major redesign, which was then released on January 14th, 2009. You can check out the design below.
(Looks weird today, doesn't it?)
The design that is currently in use today is the 3rd iteration of KH13.
Skipping ahead to 2011, KH13 had become more well known, allowing us to start sending representatives to E3 as part of the press. sqexgal (now from SQEX.INFO) was our first representative, and former KH13 News Team member Oishii, Kingdom Hearts community veteran @Churroz and KH13 staff member Toominator have all been part of the experience since.
One important feature that has been prominent throughout KH13 is our gallery & video archives. Former KH13 Archives Team Leader and News Team member Sora96 has brought the video archives and gallery to what it is today, featuring over 25,000 images and hundreds of videos from the Kingdom Hearts series. Thanks also goes to Everglow, our partner, for recording thousands of cutscenes and playthrough videos for KH13's archives. Our wide selection of videos and images has brought in many visitors for KH13.
As 8 years have passed, there have been many individuals who have helped bring KH13.com to what it is today. We'd like to thank the current team leaders of the KH13 staff, which are HarLea Quinn, Toominator, soraspromise, & AndrewHankinson. Aside from the team leaders, we'd also like to thank the current and past team members who have contributed to KH13.com such as (Past) Sora96, (Past) Lu Xun, and many, many more.
We'd like to also give the most important thanks of all: to all of you, our readers and the Kingdom Hearts community. Thanks to everyone here on KH13 for sticking with us for these 8 years. We hope to be around for many more, and to continue to provide the latest Kingdom Hearts news and media.
We'd also like to share one more thing: KH13 member Aqua7KH recently met Quinton Flynn, voice actor of Axel and Lea from the Kingdom Hearts series. Check out his message to KH13.com below.
What has your favorite moment been in the KH13 community in the past 8 years? Let us know in the comments below!
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