[Seishi]

Yes, it's THAT time of the year again! Welcome to the official AnimeSuki thread for the tenth Anime Saimoe Tournament, one that has become somewhat of a favoured pastime for some people here. Nominations for the tenth begin on June 23rd, so I though it would be a good idea to make the thread now. More information on the tournament will be added to this post and the supplementary websites as it becomes available. Please enjoy your stay and let me know if you would like to contribute anything to the cause! Anything in strikeout should be ready soon, so don't worry.



For those who don't know, the Anime Saimoe Tournament, or just Saimoe for short, is a tournament held annually on the 2channel Japanese forums. People all around the world participate in the tournament to vote for the most moe anime character of the past year. The tournament page is currently here, in Japanese only. However, a plethora of information in English can also be found at this site which does live tracking of the tournament as well. For those IRC-savvy, you can try chatting with some of us here: #saimoe @ irc.rizon.net

COMING SOON
Look for new voting threads here.
If you've been nuke-banned from posting on 2ch, try voting here. Do not vote in both the regular thread and this auxiliary thread with the same computer or same voting code. You will fail.

A more in-depth explanation of how Saimoe works can be found at the Saimoe Wiki.

The Wikispaces to help English speakers participate in Saimoe 2011 is here. At the wikispaces will be a clock to keep track of the time in Japan, a URL to current voting threads, and links to translations of Saimoe participants' names.

The rules of how to properly participate in this thread:

Animesuki Saimoe 2011 Thread Rules:

Absolutely no campaign posts allowed.

This includes posts containing ANY campaign verbiage whether in whole or in part. Contributing to the debate is encouraged, provided you do NOT add "VOTE ABCD!!!" (or similar to the post itself). Simply rebutting another's post or opinion with "XYZ sucks" is totally unacceptable.

To be clear:

* Please do not create a post with the sole purpose to campaign for a character!
* Do not add “VOTE FOR XYZ CHARACTER!!” anywhere in your post even if the intent isn't to purely campaign.

We want intelligent, decent and fun discussions about the weekly Rounds and the subsequent winners & losers.

* No Image campaigning.
Do not create a post with an image or collage representation of a campaign poster. In other words: a PhotoShopped image of the character you want people to vote for with “vote for” text added to it.



Posting Etiquette:

* Please do not cross post information about this tournament in other AnimeSuki threads except those which are related to moe tournaments.
Keep all Anime Saimoe Tournament posts, campaigns, character information, voting links, etc., within this thread only or in your signature (signature size limits still apply).

* No "meta-posting".
Meaning: posting about another poster, the thread or about another post itself, is forbidden and will be deleted on-the-spot, regardless of intention. If you want to comment about another poster that’s off-topic and/or personal, send them a PM.

* Any flame-baiting will be deleted and those people banned.
Please keep the thread positive, fun and clean. If your choice doesn’t win the Round and you can’t discuss the fact without complaining, swearing and baiting people into arguments, then don’t post.

* Do not create image only posts.
You can, however, include an image with your discussion. If you want to visually support the character you’re voting for then please do so in the context of your original discussion and use only one or two images. We would encourage the use of “thumbnails” if possible (and please, no large images).
Please use Spoiler tags if you wish to post a non-thumbnailed image
--PM the mods if you need help with posting thumbnail images or using any of the tags.

To vote for characters, they must first be elected to participate in the tournament.

Character Nomination

Any female characters (including female characters without names, gyroids, and guys who become girls at least once in a series) who have appeared in any anime which has aired, is airing, or will air in Japan between July 1, 2010 and June 30, 2011; appearances on these dates also make a girl eligible. For OVAs, the release date must be between or on these dates. For films, the premiere date in Japan must fall between or on these dates.

Girls are nominated by the first kana letter of their family name, if it's a Japanese name (foreign names use the first letter of the first name, which will usually be the given name). The letters are grouped in the traditional Japanese way, by grouping letters by the starting letter of the letter row. All starting letters have あ sounds. If you're not familiar with this aspect of the Japanese language, go here or ask about it in this thread.

Nominations are ordered by the first Japanese letter of anime. This also applies to anime with non-Japanese titles. Different letters enter nominations on designated days. In order to nominate this year, you need a code.

Each date and time listed is in JST (Japan Standard Time). To find out how your computer's internal clock compares with JST, here's an international clock: http://www3.nict.go.jp/cgi-bin/JST_E.pl

Saimoe 2011 Schedule:
Nomination Stage
06/30: Series beginning with A, E, I, O, U or V
07/01: Series beginning with G, K or Q
07/02: Series beginning with J, S or Z
07/03: Series beginning with C, D, N or T
07/04: Series beginning with B, F, H, P or V
07/05: Series beginning with L, M, R, W or Y
07/06: Break
07/07-07/08: Any remaining nominations
07/09: Entry validity confirmation

Preliminary Stage
07/10: Draw for the first preliminaries
07/11-07/16: Break

07/17-07/24: First preliminaries Groups 1-8
07/25: Break
07/26-08/02: First preliminaries Groups 9-16
08/03: Draw for the second preliminaries
08/04-08/09: Second preliminaries

Main Tournament
08/10: Draw for the main tournament
08/11-08/15: Break for Comic Market 80
08/16-08/23: Round 1 Groups A-B
08/24: Break
08/25-09/01: Round 1 Groups C-D
09/02: Break
09/03-09/10: Round 1 Groups E-F
09/11: Break
09/12-09/19: Round 1 Groups G-H
09/20: Break
09/21-09/28: Round 2 Groups A-D
09/29: Break
09/30-10/07: Round 2 Groups E-H
10/08: Break
10/09-10/16: Round 3
10/17: Break
10/18-10/25: Group Finals
10/26: Draw for the quarter-finals
10/27: Break
10/28-10/31: Quarter-Finals
11/01: Break
11/02-11/03: Semi-Finals
11/04: Break
11/05: Grand Final

After nominations is preliminaries, where the voting begins!

Preliminary Round Information

First Preliminary
16 groups
Vote for up to 10 characters
Top 12 to main tournament (192 total)
13th-36th to Second Preliminary (384 total)

Second Preliminary
6 groups
Vote for up to 12 characters
Top 16 advance to main tournament (96 total)

288 characters total in the main tournament.


The ones running Saimoe are pretty strict about voting, presumably to eliminate dud votes and multiples, etc. To avoid confusion:

1) A guide on how to post, from Saimoe Japan 2009
2) The correct way to format a nomination/vote:

[[AT919-hAWR.ukR-ZY]]-12345
{{能美クドリャフカ＠リトルバスターズ！}} My waifu!
{{神北小毬＠リトルバスターズ！}} My second waifu!
{{柊つかさ＠らきすた}} balsamic sauce plz

-Those five digits after the bracketed code must be included in the code that you use to vote. Otherwise your code will be void and useless.
-We need to use {{ and }} brackets (braces)
-The character's name must be in Japanese, unless it's one of the final rounds and Roman letter nicknames are allowed.
-The code can be above or below the character's name.
-You can only use a single code once in a given voting thread, but can use it as many times as needed in all collective voting threads. You must get a new code each day, old codes are null and void.
-With Japanese names, the family name must come first for the vote to be counted. With foreign names, the given name will usually come first.
-Refer to anime by their Japanese name. e.g. けいおん！(Keion!), not K-ON!.
-You can write little proclamations of love, called "moe-bun", in your vote, like "My waifu!" in the example. Anything not within brackets will not be counted towards voting for a character. Moe-bun is required this year. A vote without moe-bun will not be counted.
-If the name or anime title has shapes or non-letters in it (like the star in Lucky Star), they can be omitted. The vote will still be counted.
-You can deck your vote out with ASCII art of your waifu(s). We at Animesuki have rushes just about every voting day, in which you can copy/paste an Animesuki template and add ASCII art; if you'd like to participate in those, read this.
-Any ASCII art should be done in Japanese letters; in other words, it shouldn't be ASCII per se, it should be Shift_JIS art. Otherwise, chances are the picture won't show up correctly and will end up a warbled mess of letters.
-The MS UI Gothic font is recommended for reposting your votes and rush results to AnimeSuki, since that way any art will show up correctly.
-No, that code does not work.

Go here to get a code. You have to wait for ~an hour, then refresh after the hour's up to get a code. If you can access the code page with a mobile phone, you will be issued a code immediately and won't have to wait (the site has to support your phone model). You may navigate away from the page and come back later, but if you shut down your computer or your IP changes (like, if you're on WiFi and your connection breaks, then reconnects to a different wave), then you have to start over. If the page says anything about a proxy, then your IP has been pre-banned in the name of "foreigners are always doing those damn cheat votes" and tough luck for you, sorry.