Saimoe 2008 = Sigh, More? In 2008.
[Update: Certifiably Insane has an updated tutorial if you want to check it out]
Despite my apathy, the fanboy in me cackles with glee at the chance to put down fans of inferiorcharacters I dislike (a.k.a. all of Negima’s cast), and scream into the open mic that is 2ch to champion those worthy underdogs.
Reason needs not apply. Unless you are a weeaboo like myself trying to navigate the excessively xenophobic (well, all-phobic really) voting system for Saimoe. Let us review the basics.
2. The table of brackets and contestants can be found here thanks to cheerful and helpful English-language fans that I wish I can credit correctly.
3. My old voting guide is here. It still applies mostly even if the pages have changed somewhat. I drew an arrow to the major link you need to hit:
And the rest should look familiar with its text-only things you can cut and paste, the 2ch search, and the anoying code generation page that gives you your code after 61 minutes or more.
I’m not much for half-assed commentary on elections, but this year I’m going to, again, cheer for Mika Inamori. It’s Mikan sandwich this year for round one against the not-so good girl of Zero no Tsukaima. Well, we’ll see. That one is on September 7th. As for hard matches, I will have to choose between Eriko Futami and Aiko Endo right off the bat, tomorrow. That’s not an easy choice for me…
I think the past year, Mao Mizusawa is probably my most “moe” character. Upon seeing her, just by looking, I got that moe feeling. Yeap, she’s got me by the balls. Her first match is September 19th.
It’s a good way to warm up to the US presidential election I guess.
Much as I love charging headlong into futility, this year is just… lame. If the game is hot, the battle burns brightly even when you know you are going to loose, but this battle beckons no spirit.
is that code for “I can’t fap off to anyone on the list”?
Digitalboy, what? How can you say that when there are six Hidamari Sketch characters in there!
> It’s a good way to warm up to the US presidential election I guess.
Obama is moe!
[…] How to vote […]
>It’s a good way to warm up to the US presidential election I guess.
There should be obligatory Obama JASCII Art now.
>last
but they were in there last year! I can’t stand when a competition keeps using the same characters!
is that code for “I can’t fap off the same picture twice”?
Joking aside, history itself has a role in shaping the battles, the rival campaigns and camps and tactics. This is all possible thanks to repeated characters.
Indeed. If it were a straight-up popularity poll, they could leave it to Newtype. The swirly faction battles are what make it fun!
@omo: meh… I like it kept fresh. I think it’s a shame when a character wins thanks to pre-existing campaign over characters who are new and don’t even get past early rounds because they had to fight juggernauts. I’m not interested in ‘who are the most popular characters’ I’m interested in ‘who are the most popular characters to arrive on the scene in the past year’. I guess the best way to put it is that old popular characters make things too predictable.
I assure you, predictability is not a factor in Saimoe.
Well, the way they split up the years (basically allowing spring anime two bites at the apple) really does increase the number of eligible characters. If they did it right at a season break instead, I think you’d have a very hard time coming up with that large number of characters (at least, not without having many, many rounds that nobody at all cared about…)
The characters who have a developed fan base tend to be there because -they keep making anime with those characters in it-. I mean, take Rei! Please. Take two, even. Nothing much you can do about that.
All that said, I’ve definitely used Saimoe as a pointer to series that I’ve overlooked. If a show has a lot of moe girls in it, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s good - you’re not going to find Akagi that way! - but it certainly doesn’t hurt. I don’t think I’d ever have seen Seto if not for last year’s tourney, for example, and that would have been a shame.
(A co-worker from last year: “So how are the women from Skull Man doing?” He didn’t exactly understand moe…)