First Impressions:
One thing I look at when viewing a forum for the first time, I look at is the site easy to use. This has always been, and will continue to be, one of my pet peeves. Nothing frustrates me more than not being able to find my way around a site regardless if it's a forum, blog or website. When guest views your site for the first time, you have a limited opportunity to impress that person enough to join your community. One thing that is going to turn them away pretty fast is not being able to find things easily or being able to navigate your site easy enough. I don't have that problem with your forum and that is a great thing. That is always something that you want to continue doing.
There are a couple of other things but I won't really mention them here since I'll go more in-depth on those points later on in my review. I'll just let you continue reading...
Good
Design Quality:
There is a big debate between light themes and dark themes. Sometimes it is easy to determine which one would look better on a forum. For example, my forum is based on the horror genre in general so my forum has a dark theme on it. Your not really going to put a light and happy theme on a forum such as that. On a forum such as yours, you have a little bit more freedom than that. While your forum has a dark theme, I think it does a good job of displaying it. Most forums that I've seen that are anime based, they tend to use a light theme on their forum. So, I'm glad to see that you chose to do something different and stand out from others forums with a similar niche`. One thing I would do, however, is go ahead and have 2 (two) different themes on your forum. Go ahead and add a light theme on your forum while still keeping your dark theme. I know I just mentioned that it is a good idea to have a dark theme on your forum and you can still have that set up as the default theme. But with there being such a debate on dark themes versus light themes, I would arrange it so that members can choose which one they like when they visit your forum.
Average
Site Structure:
There is one thing that bugs me a little. The niche` on your forum is anime based (you can correct me if I'm wrong on that) but I see that there is a "general discussion" section or an "off topic" section before you get around to discussing the main niche` on the forum. That kind of threw me for a loop. I'm not saying you shouldn't have an off topic area on your forum, a lot of communities will have that. It's just that I don't think is should take precedence on your forum ahead of your anime discussions, that is all.
I'm also not really in love with the descriptions you have of each section on your forum. I would like to see them be more descriptive and more specific. To someone who is new to the whole anime thing or just getting into anime, the descriptions you have can be a bit confusing.
Average
Originality:
This is probably the hardest thing to achieve for any forum...making your forum stand out from other communities. Especially if there are other forums out there that are the same or similar to yours. Doing something to help your community stand out could be something as simple as maybe hosting an event that is unique to your community. I noticed that you were having a "Pokemon Showdown" and that looks like a great start. If you probably do some research and some brainstorming, you can probably come up with 1 or 2 more things. You don't have to have something going on every single minute of every day. But just having maybe a couple of big things each year, maybe one in the spring time and another in the fall, would have a big impact on your community. It would give your community some fun things do without exhausting yourself and the rest of the staff on your forum.
Average
Activity Level:
Your forum seems to have a pretty active member base. I have no complaints with this part of your forum. You can use the services provided by the
Package Team to add some different content to your forum. It probably isn't really required since you already have some pretty active members. It would be just a matter of a few different people coming in to the mix to add some more content for your active members to discuss. But I can tell you have some pretty caring members on your forum as quite a few of them greeted me warmly.
You can also use social media to your advantage (if you aren't using it already). Twitter works really well at bringing extra traffic to a particular site if you use it correctly. Not only would you be able to use it to tweet about different things going on about your forum but you could use it to re-tweet other things that are related to the niche` on your forum.
Excellent
The thing I liked the best: The different "theme" on your forum and the active member base you seem to have.
The thing I liked the least: Need to stand out more from the crowd.
Overall Mark:
Even though I'm not really into anime, I love your forum. I think that is pretty good when your forum is inviting enough that people are willing to join despite the fact they aren't really into the niche`. There are a few things that I think you could change or add but I think your forum is doing quite well and could really go far as long as you continue to put forth the work into it that it needs.
