The Saimoe Mind Is a Player’s Mind
I have to confess, I kind of look down at the whole International Saimoe League thing, partly because I don’t quite enjoy the whole process of loading up some page, clicking 33 times or so, and do that every day for like, 6 months. It’s a bit too means-ends, and I just don’t feel anything from the exercise besides the occasional chuckle about two of my favorites going head to head, or some of my least favorites going up against someone equally amusing. That’s all just me though.
To be able to hang with something like the ISML requires a healthy mentality–it’s the mentality behind an everyday Major League baseball player, grinding at-bats and doing it for 6 months, not missing many games at all (for example). It takes a kind of discipline that cherishes what you are doing, above and beyond the daily routine. Perhaps that is how you can finesse your way to victory, or whatever that is at the end of the ISML tunnel or a season of baseball play.
But unlike a player in a game, the ISML (and Saimoe, too) is a popularity contest fundamentally speaking. You and I don’t perform against other people per se. We all get 1 vote (aside from cheating, of course) and that’s that. ISML doesn’t have a lot of space for lateral play. For example, Saimoe has campaign threads and the like, and since Saimoe is intrinsic to 2ch, voters will have to wade through that when they put in their votes. Instead, ISML people will put their WAIFU in their forum sigs or tweet their key matchups or whatever. Of course, some Saimoe people do the same, so to me it feels like ISML is one venue short in terms of “playing” the game.
Even when that is said and done, a lot of people out there don’t give a damn about baseball. Or cricket. Or anything like that. Saimoe is just a game, and it’s fun because it combines some interesting things together, forming a shape that smells like /b/ but is more like an online anime convention. Some people enjoy that kind of strange, abrasive hoop-jumping. Unfortunately, it can be tough to find that balance between passionately intense yet being very “yukkuri” about it, so burn-out from these kinds of competitions is not uncommon.
But basically, to enjoy ISML or Saimoe or whatever, you gotta be a player. And I mean it in the slang sense–it’s okay to have a main girl or three that you would ragequit over with, but you got to be good enough to know enough of them out there that you feel something. You need to be emotionally involved with the competition in a way that matters to who wins and who lose on a regular basis. Ideally, when some girl you know faces stiff competition (perhaps even against one of your main) and wins or lose, you have to care about her. It might be a negative emotion (hate is pretty close to love, so they say), but that’s what makes it fun.
The reality is that nobody knows or cares for every anime gal that makes it to the games, but if all you care for is a couple of them and you don’t even know 90% of the contestants they’re up against, it might be kind of boring?
So the moral of the day, kids, is learn about the girls that you don’t know in ISML or Saimoe! Enjoy your upsets and when you get upset from upsets, because that’s almost like the point of the game.
I agree. Instead of having so many retarded candidates, what they need to do is have the main contestants and then establish some criteria so that we can get a Deadliest Warrior-esque head-to-head simulation. I don’t know if the girls would compete in battle to the death, contests over seducing otaku, or what, but I would watch it.
I think you nailed what makes Saimoe - and our very own AGP - fun to participate in.
Nice Raymoo art as well. Faved.