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Aquaberry

Celebrating 10 years of KH13 in the Kingdom Hearts community

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Welcome Kingdom Hearts fans, old and new, to the new version of KH13 on the occasion of our 10th anniversary! We are delighted to celebrate a decade of being a hub for the Kingdom Hearts community!

Just in time for KH13’s 10th anniversary, we have rolled out the newest update of the website. Version 4 is now more functional and responsive to reflect the needs of our users. The previous version was first released in 2011, and although we had grown to love it, the site had to be rebuilt from the ground up to modernise it and allow us to easily iterate and add new content and features.

Look forward to more updates in the future! In the meanwhile, please enjoy the new responsive streamlined design, fully functional mobile site, improved post editor and media submission tools, refreshed video archive and gallery, as well as many other new features scattered around the site. 

In the past, KH13.com has gone through 4 major redesigns. You can see snapshots of the older versions below and compare it to the current one. Feel old yet?

 

A brief history of KH13
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In October 9, 2008, the domain for KH13 was registered; at the time, KH1.com through KH12.com were taken, resulting in the befitting and auspicious claim on the domain “KH13.com”. 

In October 17, 2008 (October 18 in the webmasters' home country, Australia), the first article was published and KH13 was shared with the world for the very first time, and officially launched! While it all started as a fun project between webmaster DChiuch and Co-Webmaster Aaron, it soon became the full-fledged website for Kingdom Hearts news, media, and discussion that it is today. At the time it was conceived, high quality videos and media were hard to come by, so KH13 initially established itself by providing high quality trailer and cutscene downloads. Now, KH13 is one of the best and well-known Kingdom Hearts fansites for news and media.

Within 3 years, KH13 became more well known, paving its future in becoming one of the best and most popular Kingdom Hearts fansites for news and media. In 2011, we started sending representatives to E3 as part of the press. Our first rep was SQEX☆GAL, followed by many others such as Oishii, the Kingdom Hearts community veteran Churro, KH13 PR rep (and former News Team Leader) Toominator and Kingdom Hearts χ Team and News Team member Raxaimus. In the past years, we have established our press presence in many gaming events around the world. Most recently, Toominator and Raxaimus have represented us at the exclusive Kingdom Hearts III Premiere invitational event that took place last May in Santa Monica, California.

One important feature that has been prominent throughout KH13 is our gallery and 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 29,000 images and hundreds of videos from the Kingdom Hearts series. Thanks also goes to Everglow, our former 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.

 

KH13 today
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At the present time, KH13 is one of the most essential news outlets on all things Kingdom Hearts, part and parcel of the Kingdom Hearts community. Our news, archives, KHχ and social media team are recognized for their effortful work in delivering the latest information and media to Kingdom Hearts fans and bringing them together to share ideas and resources that embellish the fandom and bring “hype” to the community.

The KH13.com community has also been growing on social media. Our Twitter (@KH13.com) has almost 34k followers. Our Facebook page (KH13.com, for Kingdom Hearts) has hit the 25k likes mark. We have a PlayStation community page, and a brand new Discord server! You can follow us on Youtube and Twitch as well.

We held many mini #KH13MeetUp’s at various events around North America and UK. Check out the hashtag on Twitter and don’t forget to meet us on the next one! We also released a very entertaining 2017 Re:Cap trailer for Kingdom Hearts news in 2017! A 2018 version is in the works

 

Reporting Kingdom Hearts news in the past year
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KH13’s 10th anniversary year has brought forth many exciting developments in Kingdom Hearts! But undoubtedly, the biggest piece of news is that of Kingdom Hearts III’s release date reveal at the Los Angeles Kingdom Hearts Orchestra (Encore) concert. Kingdom Hearts III is coming January 25, 2019 in Japan, and January 29, 2019 to the rest of the world.

Recently, Kingdom Hearts III’s box art has also been revealed and has already been branded (anecdotally speaking) as one of the best video games cover! Take a look at it below.

Monsters, Inc., Frozen, and Pirates of the Carribean - At World’s End were revealed to have worlds in Kingdom Hearts III! Wreck-It Ralph and Ratatouille will also appear as summon and mini-game respectively.

A whopping 9 trailers were revealed in the past year, and along with extra gameplay footage, fans had a lot of information to be excited about, gameplay elements to look forward to, theories to make, and returning characters to welcome back (and at times cry about)!

A never before seen character appearance is expected to show up in the next trailer...

Utada Hikaru’s “Chikai” and “Don’t Think Twice” were revealed as the Japanese and English theme songs for Kingdom Hearts III. (The full version of “Chikai” was released within Utada Hikaru’s new album, Hatsukoi.) “Face My Fears”, a collaboration between Utada and Skrillex, was later revealed to be the opening theme to Kingdom Hearts III.

Kingdom Hearts III Deluxe Edition and Deluxe Edition + Bring Arts went on pre-order this year, and a Limited Edition Kingdom Hearts III PlayStation 4 Pro was announced at E3 2018. A Limited Edition Kingdom Hearts III PlayStation 4 Slim was also shown off at TGS 2018.

While no new games will be joining the main story before Kingdom Hearts III (Square, please), a free Kingdom Hearts VR Experience was announced for PlayStation VR!

Kingdom Hearts’ 15th anniversary was celebrated towards the end of last year. Square Enix Cafe even held an anniversary campaign, where Sora’s birthday was revealed to be March 28, 2002.

The Dandelion Meeting for Kingdom Hearts Union x[Cross] then took place in April in Anaheim, California! That was our first experience of trying out Kingdom Hearts III’s LCD-style mini-games, which can now be playing in the mobile game itself!

(And while we’re on the topic of firsts…)

KH13 staff were amongst the first to get a taste of playing Kingdom Hearts III at its Premiere in Santa Monica, California! Extended demos of Toy Box and Olympus were available at the event; shorter versions of the demo made rounds around the world in various events. (At one of these events, a new area of Olympus within the demo was also accidentally leaked!)

Kingdom Hearts fans also contributed greatly to reveals this year. Interesting assets from Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage- were discovered. Deleted Monsters, Inc. assets were also found, after all this time, in Kingdom Hearts II! Off-camera secrets of KH2 were also revealed in the Boundary Break series. Furthermore, Everglow started his Kingdom Hearts Timeline series to piece the whole story together in chronological order to prep all fans for the final chapter of the Xehanort saga!

This was definitely the year for Kingdom Hearts merch. Square Enix came forth with many wonderful Bring Arts, including Kingdom Hearts III Sora, Riku, and Kairi. Disney even released Kingdom Hearts Tsum Tsums in Japan! Numerous companies like Hot Topic, Spencer’s, Funko, Bandai, Good Smile Company, and FiGPiN licensed a variety of interesting products, including a Keyblade Proplica, Sora and Riku Nendoroids, and KH3 Funko Pops. Kingdom Hearts II: The Novel, Vol. 2, was released in the West, with the 358/2 Days novel releasing next month.

Still no word of Kingdom Hearts at Disney Parks (although Shinji Hashimoto is trying to work it out), but Donald Duck and Goofy in their Kingdom Hearts costumes reappeared, at Disneyland, after a long time!

In regards to the past and future of Kingdom Hearts: The old storyboards from Kingdom Hearts’s cancelled animated series by Seth Kearsley were also revealed and later auctioned to fans; Walt Disney made a historic deal to acquire 21st Century Fox, meaning even more IPs could possibly join the series; Nomura stated that Kingdom Hearts Union x[Cross]’s story would continue even after Kingdom Hearts III.

In conclusion...
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As we enter our 11th year, we would like to thank our current leaders of our various teams, which includes Aquaberry, WakelessDream, faemarch, Wan_Pisu, and HaakonHawk; our vice leaders Leamax, Yoshirai, Ventus_, AndrewHankinson, and Justin; staff manager HarLea Quinn, and, of course, webmaster DChiuch. We would also like to thank all the current and past members of our various teams for their contributions to the website in the past year.

We'd like to also give the most important thanks of all to you, our readers, and the Kingdom Hearts community. Thanks to everyone here on KH13 for sticking with us for these 10 years. We hope to be around for many more, and to continue to provide the latest Kingdom Hearts news and media!


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I remember coming here to read people's discussions when KH3 was first announced. Visited it a lot back around 2013-15 but never made an account. I recently rediscovered the site and decided to get involved. It's nice to see it still going. Congrats on making 10 years!

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Wow at the redesign. Good work. Rob is a genwunner (unofficially since he didn't sign up until 2010), so seeing the site from back then is nostalgic. Damn. Time moves fast. Rob was in his 90's back then.

Thanks for adding the easy search option for the pages on the homepage. Now Rob can search for what he wants even quicker. Also, Rob has faith that the interviews section will return. ;)

Any chance for a dark theme?

Edited by Rob

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4 hours ago, Rob said:

Wow at the redesign. Good work. Rob is a genwunner (unofficially since he didn't sign up until 2010), so seeing the site from back then is nostalgic. Damn. Time moves fast. Rob was in his 90's back then.

Thanks for adding the easy search option for the pages on the homepage. Now Rob can search for what he wants even quicker. Also, Rob has faith that the interviews section will return. ;)

Thanks, I really appreciate it. Always good to see 2010ers still active. Interviews is still here, it's just not linked yet as the content sections are a WIP: https://www.kh13.com/interviews/

4 hours ago, Rob said:

Any chance for a dark theme?

It's not a really a priority right now but never say never.

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