We’re finally here. August 20th – anipan’s release date.

• In September 2011, anipan’s back-end began construction from pixiv’s office in Tokyo.
• In April 2012, we started a crowd-funding campaign at Indiegogo. We met our funding goal of $25,000 on May 20th, 2012.
• In July 2012, an early version of anipan was released to a small group of closed alpha testers. It’s been evolving in front of the eyes of these people ever since.

We couldn’t have got this far without each and every one of you. Today is a very special day for us, and we hope it’s one that you’ll remember, too.

Today’s schedule:

• 6:00 AM PDT: Early access begins for people who have pre-registered
• 2:00 PM PDT  Scheduled downtime for new feature updates
• 4:00 PM PDT: The anipan open beta is released

Today’s new features:

• anipan +: connect and cross-post your artwork to Tumblr and deviantART
• Friend locator: easily find friends and get rewarded for inviting people
• Draw over: a new way to interact with and critique artwork
• Café: a feed of activity from people you follow and who interact with you

Today’s patches:

• Comment replies
• Forgot password function
• Avatar uploading via file boxes
• ID card sharing
• Better support for IE9
• Plenty of bug fixes

And remember – each of anipan’s first members will get a 4-digit id#, like the one above.

Join us for the celebration as anipan, the next-generation international community for artists, makes its public debut today at 4 PM PDT!

anipan.com