I was well aware that Ichi was put down for about two weeks, as there was a miscommunication between our party and the domain hosting – Ichiraku would have expired on June 10, and although this was paid in full the suspension was not resolved until several days later. We have followed up on the matter yesterday though and finally, after a week of delays, they put the site back up again.

Rest assured however that Ichiraku and all its affiliated services are back online. You may also want to report the good news to the other members who may have been heartbroken at our sudden, seeming “demise” and to put to rest any disquieting rumors that may have floated about that our temporary disappearance may have caused. I will be posting this announcement at our homepage, our Facebook group, and as well as on Ichiraku DEV.

To all those who stood hopeful and pledged their faith, thank you. Without you, Ichiraku would’ve vanished in truth.

Welcome back!

~Zanyuki

BACK TO BLACK – A WORD FROM THE ADMINISTRATORS

Ichiraku has turned 5!

You may have noticed that we haven’t announced the anniversary yet, but there is good reason for this – one of which is to provide a good counterpoint to the exciting and fantastic Ichiraku@4 event early last year. Why? When our new leadership took the helm of the community, we decided to put a theme to the annual Ichi events so it would do away with the old (and ultimately senseless) regular gatherings, which at today’s world and in the evolution of our community we can do anytime, anywhere, anyway. Central to this point of thematic presentation of official and annual events is the anniversary – you may remember that last year, our theme was “Change”, and it boasted the highest ever attendance of an Ichiraku event ever attended (more than 60 at a time), and which we are yet to break the record for.

Now the 5th anniversary’s theme is called “Back to Black”.

Why this choice? And why black, of all things?

Change is only the beginning, but we cannot move forward until we have looked back and remembered the things that has transpired since that fateful day of April 16, 2005, where our venerable administrator Akee founded Ichiraku as a simple forum with less than 10 members and an obvious reference to the Naruto (and by extension, the burgeoning anime and Japanophile community) phenomenon. With change, we can start over anew, but change in itself is pointless unless we remember what we have done, for good or ill, and to learn from our mistakes, and improve on our successes. “Back to Black – the Ichiraku 5th anniversary” is the event that will focus on our remembrances from the past, and to relate our story and drama to the new blood of the community. In relation to this, black is the color of nothingness – it will help remind us that once, Ichiraku was a black hole, a non-entity, and at its core is the concept of revitalization, of starting from scratch with the changes we introduced (and we will introduce, soon).

First we had to change.

Now we look back.

And then the real work begins.

As your leaders, we will have new and exciting things planned for 2010 and beyond. Foremost of this is the migration to a new host, which will hopefully address the issue of people getting random disconnects and the inaccessibility of the site to others. We are also planning an upgrade to the next version of Invision, which will include Twitter integration among its many features, and the launch of The Gazette, a bi-annual Ichiraku publication which purpose, essential to our thematic concept of “remembrance”, is to look back at the highlights of the past six months and to provide some needed entertainment for members, old and new alike. Some of the other plans are still at the drawing board though (and some still in our heads), but they will be announced as soon as they are ready for public discussion.

Once again let’s celebrate our half-decade of being Ichi, and let us “remember the lessons of the past”!

Happy fifth birthday, Ichiraku!

~ The Ichiraku Admin Team

For the particulars, see this discussion thread.

The winning post:

The 100,000th post

In behalf of the Ichiraku staff we congratulate Karupin!

Full details HERE.

We wish to greet you a happy Valentine’s Day to all singles and couples on this special day.

The new Professional Red skin (by Skinbox) for the Valentine’s Day edition of Ichiraku.

Happy Hearts’ Day everyone!

The much awaited Christmas party 2009 is coming~! So check for the Announcement to see more details.^^

~The Ichiraku Staff
Ichiraku 2009. All rights reserved.

From the staff and members of Ichiraku

This contest will only last for 1 week starting from October 29 – November 13, 2009.

Mechanics:
* May submit both or either of the design
* May use different color but maintain the dominant colors (Green & Gray)
* Ichiraku logo must be visible (resizing is ok)
* Don’t include your name at your designs
* For the greeting card making (Contest no. 1) – must not exceed 360 x 500 px (jpeg format)
* For the banner making (Contest no. 2) – must use 240 x 150 px only (png format)

Prizes:
The lucky winner of the Greeting Card and Banner contest will have the ff:
* Greeting card +20 reputation
* Banner +15 reputation and Custom group icon image (that is to be located under your name)
To those who participated
* +5 reputation

How to join:
1. Download the psd file of http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=a2e12167a8208441d2db6fb9a8902bda
2. PM me (Rei Alseira) The title must be “Halloween Contest” and fill up this form
Name:
Contest no.:
Link of your entries:

If you are confused about the look I made some samples.[b][color="#8B0000"][Please don't copy][/color][/b] *Banner*

*Greeting Card*

Goodluck and Happy Halloween~!

~Ichiraku team

From the staff, the members, and all our affiliates, we wish you a very happy 22nd birthday, Ms Fatima Ochoa (otherwise known to us as akee, the Green Boss)! May God continually bless you as you get more mature and wiser, and that we strive more for the betterment of our community that you have founded – and still going strong, after all these four tumultuous years!

Happy birthday again!

~Love,

Ichiraku

The new layout of our board (Midnight Glow skin) is messed up on older browsers due to the sidebar box of Chatango. While we are trying to fix the problem to make the features of our board accessible to all people regardless of browser, we urge all members and guests alike to upgrade to the latest version of their browser as a workaround. The problem seems to stem from the outdated protocols of older browsers that fail to recognize a coding syntax on the Chatango sidebar box.

The following is a list of the browsers that can render the current layout properly.

1.) Mozilla Firefox 3.5

2.) Opera 10

3.) Internet Explorer 8

4.) Google Chrome 3

5.) Safari 4

6.) Avant Browser 11

7.) SlimBrowser 4.12

8.) UltraBrowser 10

So far, only Flock (2.5) and Netscape Navigator (9.0) show problems even with the latest updates. If you are using these browsers, please use the other alternatives mentioned above until we have made a fix. Again, if you are using Flock or Netscape, or an outdated version of your browser, please download the latest versions aforementioned. You can check the version of the browser you’re using by clicking Help > About… in the menu of most browsers.

Please feel free to add the list of your browsers that support Ichi’s new layout, or even those that don’t, through your comments/feedback.

Thank you!
~Ichiraku Admins