Its inviting purple boarder; its light but welcoming humor; its simplicity of design and function; its brand new, azure-plumed, cat-girl mascot Ali-chan cradling a heart; Anime-Love.com is home to an unusually warm congregation of net users in a web littered with vitriol and cynicism.

"In one of the forums on animeondvd.com the conversation turned to meeting people, which started a long discussion, something like 150 posts, about why we can't find people that like anime," says Anime-Love.com founder Tena Mastrangelo about the genesis of the site. "People kept saying, 'I want to meet people who like anime. I want a boyfriend who likes anime. I want a girlfriend who likes anime."

The internet teems with matchmaking sites. However, given the massive pool of lovelorn web surfers out there, these sites tend to equalize and quantify the playing field, asking questions that herd individuals into categories, the colloquial "leagues." And dating sites have popped up to link people of the same faith, or same ethnic background, etc. Anime Love, on the other hand, creates an open arena for people unified by anime fandom.

"At first I set it up as a way to bring guys and girls together," Mastrangelo recounts. "Now I think it's turned more into a community of people who just want to talk to other people. There's no pressure. You don't have to write them back. Most people don't go on the board to find a relationship. They go on there to find other people to talk to."

The difference between this and a regular anime chat room is that at least here, the idea for, if not the ideal of, romance lingers in the backs of users minds. There have been some success stories, a proof in the pudding interest that's prompted Mastrangelo to include a "success stories" section on the site. But more importantly, anime fans come into the site with a tad more vulnerability than when they visit other sites. Consequentially, the tone of conversation is usually more tempered, insightful, sometimes revealing. Now, if only more people were using the site.

"A lot of people have misgivings about posting their picture or information about themselves on the web site," Mastrangelo continues. "There's always that fear. For research I looked at other dating web sites and from that I created a list of disclaimers about being eighteen and such. I'm also not responsible for what happens when people meet. But I encourage people to, if they do meet, meet in a public place; don't fly half way across the country to somebody you don't know. I've had experience with personal upset too."

The site boasts several tongue in cheek features such as dating tips for anime fans, and a list of pick up lines to be used in anime circles. Mastrangelo is also the prudent voice of the Love Senshi, an advice columnist that dishes out obvious, but nonetheless valuable, answers to questions about love. "A lot of the letters come from guys who don't understand how women get into abusive relationships with men, when they themselves, who would never abuse women, go single," Mastrangelo says about the more serious letters she receives. "My biggest challenge is dealing with misogynists, the guys that just do not like women at all. They email me and blast me for things that I write. And it's hard to address them. Whenever I say anything they get back at me with something else."

As could be expected, most of the profiles on Anime-Love.com are of men, as they crowd into this unique service looking for a bit of romance with someone who understands why it's important to recognize the difference between anime and cartoons. The site's popularity has driven membership up to over 1300 users. However, the male to female ratio is severely unbalanced. 1,090 men vie for the attention of a mere 240 women.

Other setbacks the site has experienced since its November launch include being listed at somethingawful.com as "awful link of the day," a move that flooded Anime Love's public boards with mean-spirited and crude messages. "It took me several days to delete them all and to repair any damage people had done to different areas," Mastrangelo laments. "But with that link we also received several new members who really like this site. So we benefited a little from that 'bad' publicity."

And this mass flame was countered with a far more generous listing as site of the week on several other anime related pages as well as a mention in the winter issue of Protoculture Addicts.

To entice continual use of the site, Anime Love has featured several contests - one in which people wrote in describing their most romantic anime experience; and another in which members chimed in with their story of woe. The most pathetic story of the lot won a DVD, an honor for which the recipient was most proud.

"We have some corporate sponsorship for some of our contest prizes," Mastrangelo notes. "But it would be really nice if we were affiliated with a convention. It would be fun for some of these larger conventions to have a singles dating game and we can be affiliated with them through that."

Unpaid, conscientious and driven by a sincere desire to see people who like anime get together, Tena Mastrangelo's efforts serve as a fitting and upbeat note on which to end Akadot's "Summer of Love."