International Saimoe League 2009

[KholdStare]

Even though I may not agree with disqualifying characters based on the fanbase, I do think that it should be more about the fun. I have much hope in DE.

[minhtam1638]

Originally Posted by wontaek

A update regarding KBM situation. Things have gotten uglier.

The sitemaster has opened a public debate on whether to disqualify both Haibara and Hinagiku for their fans' unruly behaviors. We are in desperate need of calming influence and I hope you could be one by posting something on the moe comment section.

Well, I guess this is why we haven't actually started development on moe comments, right?

[KholdStare]

Originally Posted by minhtam1638

Well, I guess this is why we haven't actually started development on moe comments, right?

Do we want to? Like have a link where people can post comments/pictures of support for every arena.

[Last Sinner]

Just out of curiousity, is there any functional site to show what the current state of the Japanese contest? The links don't seem to work, I keep hitting either 403 Forbidden or excessive traffic. Plus I was told by an IRL friend today that the Saki girls are dominating and are virtually single-handedly responsible for wiping out all the Lucky Star and Clannad representatives and all of K-ON! except for Yui. Their results seem very different...Although I was pleasantly surprised to hear Chiaki from Minami-ke was still in the mix.

[wontaek]

Originally Posted by Eisdrache

정말 무서운 일 입니다

It could have been a 'scary' situation for me, as I felt that if things got even worse, one of possible solution for the whole thing was to make Best Moe tournament an inside Anizone only tournament.

Originally Posted by Nochgo

너무 하는군요, 어떤 사람들은...

As Last Sinner pointed out, voting in these contests are supposed to be a fun past time for me. I wouldn't want the fun taken away from this due to over-zealous fans going crazy about their shipping characters. They are just so intent on showing their love for certain characters, without regard for other people's opinions. Why can't everyone just enjoy the tournament for what it is...

Some were going too far and this can be said for all sides. It is true that the fan club's action wasn't that civil, as they cared little about other anime series, and took any jabs at them as if it was launching of verbal nuclear warhead at them. The Anti-Haibara camp was the ones I found to be most worrisome, as they were the ones denouncing 'outsiders' without fully comprehending what their words might achieve. Anti-Hinagiku fans riled Hinagiku fans with unpleasant reference to Mad Cow and that they were tired of seeing Hina advancing. Hinagiku fans overreacted to any attack and failed to be a calming influence. It could have been horrible. We were lucky to have such outcome, because the fact that Hina and Haibara virtually tied in Korea made the International vote the deciding factor. This rendered Anti-Haibara camp's denouncement impotent, as it was the 'Outsider' vote which help them beat Haibara whom they claimed to be favored by the 'outsiders'. The Conan Cafe withdrew back to their website, and yes, they are cursing at us, probably even now, but they couldn't blame the Anizone posters for their defeat, thus instead of criticizing the people who 'fought' them, they are venting their anger into empty air as they don't want to venture here (Animesuki or ISML ). Anti-Hinagiku camp was defeated, but again by people they can't fight well due to the language barrier, thus they are quietly preparing for the next round. Pro-Hinagiku camp have became firmer supporter of openness, thus will likely support actions to increase international voting. All this was possible because they saw sudden jump of non-Korean moe comments accompanying Hinagiku's victory. If those non-Korean comments weren't there, if the 'foreign' votes didn't appear to be the casting vote, the losers would be still fighting the winners right now, and things could have disintegrated further.

I know that I am perhaps exaggerating the situation, but the troublesome words and sentences were popping up, and knowing what had been said before, and how Male division almost was cancelled, I felt that I had to ask for your help to calm things down. Miraculously, your help did bring about calming of the water in Korean side of Best Moe, and I can breath easily again, and hope that ISML and Best Moe tournament continue to be helpful influence on each other.

Originally Posted by KholdStare

Do we want to? Like have a link where people can post comments/pictures of support for every arena.

The problem erupted not in the moe comment, which is the link you have mentioned, but in the Forum Discussion Board. Imagine if we had several of the Rozen supporters trading barbs with us at the Regular Season Discussions Subforums. Imagine that things escalate and people start calling names, create fake IDs to tarnish the oppositions, and troll around the boards. That was what was happening in Anizone.

Now, our forum board structure is different from Anizone, thus while in Anizone you have to set your preference in certain ways to avoid the certain troublesome subforums, in our ISML board, you have to intentionally enter into the problem subforums to partake in the verbal war. In Anizone, an unwary person can easily see title of a post that can enrage them for the default option is to see all posts regardless of its subforum,. In ISML, default option is board index, followed by subforums, and then you can see the titles, and almost all post titles are benign. It is much 'easier' to ignore the trolls in ISML forum, thus I think it would be harder for something like this to happen in ISML. With that note of confidence, I do wish we had a link to show our support for certain characters straight from voting pages. A possibility is that if you click on character's name, you will be taken to Character profile page, which would have a link that will connect to campaign and promotion page for the character. If you want to spice things up, you could have an arena specific link where you can post an argument AGAINST voting for certain character, a space where you can do some NEGATIVE campaigning, OR that arena specific link could be used to let people express why they are voting for certain character and not the other character. It would be nice to see all different types of cheering and support for the characters, for I believe that is where the fun is.

[Team Rocket Elite]

Originally Posted by Last Sinner

Just out of curiousity, is there any functional site to show what the current state of the Japanese contest? The links don't seem to work, I keep hitting either 403 Forbidden or excessive traffic. Plus I was told by an IRL friend today that the Saki girls are dominating and are virtually single-handedly responsible for wiping out all the Lucky Star and Clannad representatives and all of K-ON! except for Yui. Their results seem very different...Although I was pleasantly surprised to hear Chiaki from Minami-ke was still in the mix.

http://www.animesaimoe.org/

We're looking at potentially 6 out of 8 groups being won by a Saki character.
The only major Lucky Star character to lose to Saki is Tsukasa and she was 3rd behind Horo anyways.
Clannad was hit pretty hard by Saki. Mei, Fuuko and Kotomi lost to a Saki character. Tomoyo lost to a Hayate character. Ushio, Nagisa and Kyou are still alive.
Mio got assassinated by Minami Kana. Yui, Ritsu and Azusa are still alive. Tsumugi lost to a Saki character. For the most part, it's the lower end K-On characters that have been getting killed.
Chiaki is still alive but has no chance of beating Kataoka Yuuki in Round 4.

[Last Sinner]

Originally Posted by Team Rocket Elite

http://www.animesaimoe.org/

We're looking at potentially 6 out of 8 groups being won by a Saki character.

Someone I know IRL is going to be having a field day once I tell him that.

[Ithekro]

There is always hope...however slim it might be that it won't be 6 Saki vs whoever is left from Blocks E and F.

Hanyuu and Kyou (and I'm forced to say Louise) have a chance at taking their Saki opponents. G Block is totally messed up, and H Block has double Saki potental at the Top 16 level with only Nagi standing in the way.

Chiaki and Isumi have an off chance at taking their opponents down, but it will take a lot to pull that one off based on the current numbers.

G Block...if groups can pull through there may be a chance of the one Saki character not escaping the four KyoAni characters in there...or Eruru....

Totally. Messed. Up. G. Block.

[Team Rocket Elite]

I wouldn't say the chance of having less than 6 Saki Block winners is slim. 6 Saki Block winners is just something that's not too unlikely to occur.

Block A - Tacos wins. Tacos has shown serious power and the difference between Tacos and Chiaki's Round 3 performance is night and day.

Block B - Ikeda Kana vs Saginomiya Isumi. This is up in the air. I'd give the edge to Ikeda Kana.

Block C - If Momoko beats Kyou, she'll likely go on to beat Louise/Mion. I'd say Momoko is the favorite to win the block but only slightly.

Block D - Koromo has a tough patch. Hanyuu, Amu/Komoe are all tough opponents. Of the 4, Koromo is most likely to win but once again only a slight favorite.

Block E,F - No Saki. Convenently, the strongest non-Saki characters are here. By my rankings, 7 of the Top 10 strongest non-Saki characters that made Round 3 are in these two divisions. I suppose it could be argued that this is because Saki characters already knocked off the strong non-Saki characters in the other groups.

Block G - Mihoko likely wins this one. Ritsu/Ushio has a small chance to win, but I wouldn't count on it. Mihoko stomps Yuki/Haruhi/Eruruu.

Block H - Sanzenin Nagi is a top tier opponent. She is very, very powerful. Unfortunately, she's up against the strongest Saki characters. She has to not only beat Saki herself but Nodocchi as well. Sanzenin Nagi winning both matches is going be tough. Nodocchi was my pick to win the whole contest so I think she's the favorite to win Block H.

Although I choose a Saki character as the favorite in all 6 blocks they appeared in, having all 6 win will still be tough. It only takes one loss to break a perfect record.

[Ithekro]

I can't guess the Mihoko/Ritsu/Ushio fight, since that tie surprised me. But for the Eruruu/Haruhi/Yuki fight, it will either be Yuki or Eruruu that gets out of it. I'd say Yuki period, but I'm biased that way, but I know that if they want the Haruhi characters out for good, they'll press Eruruu for easy victory for Mihoko. But why Yuki? How often does a parody spinoff manga/show character get her own spinoff manga? And about a third of the Haruhi-chan show was Yuki and Ryoko. That's before we get to those that don't care if it is Haruhi or Haruhi-chan that is being judged. Then we get to the Yuki fans....also "Live a Live" will have reaired by then. "God Knows", if even considered, could boost either Haruhi or Yuki.

Yeah...it could be a very ugly match....

[minhtam1638]

Originally Posted by KholdStare

Do we want to? Like have a link where people can post comments/pictures of support for every arena.

Regardless of my answer, given our simplicity of the voting form (which is something we want to keep given other tourneys go to great lengths to ensure authenticity), I highly doubt it's feasible that we could do it for every arena. Nevertheless, going back to when we last brought up this issue, I stated that there is no possible way I'm going to support having comments unless we have moderators watching the comments that are coming in and ensuring that these comments are appropriate, and with 25 arenas, there are just too many to handle, let alone 32.

If there's a high demand to have something like this, there may be one possible way to do it if we're guaranteed there will be someone monitoring the comments that are being made, but it still requires moderators 24/7, and with staff shortage, I do not see that happening anytime soon.

[KholdStare]

Well you know, we wouldn't have to like add anything to the voting form but rather set a link (like for Arena 01 or the characters' names) to a campaigning page.

However, I'm not too wild on this issue since it's way too low on my care list. I can moderate (I've offered when this was brought up before) if need be. The only reason why I'm bringing this up is that our forum has a no-campaign rule unless in a specific subforum. And even then, only a few (English-speakers mostly) really goes there, and we might benefit from such a campaign page.

[minhtam1638]

The bad news for those who really want something like this: I'm not wild on this issue either. It's very low on my priority list as well, so its very unlikely that we're going to have something like that unless we get a new influx of staff members who really want to do a project like that.

[wontaek]

Wow!!! Who made the video??!!! KholdStare? !! Good Job!!!!!

[Last Sinner]

A very nice video indeed!

Btw, on the top 16 - at least it's spread out with a mix of series. Unlike J-Saimoe which is being dominated by only 2...mainly by 1. I mean, Saki characters are kind of cute. But compared to the sales in manga and anime form of other titles in the comp, Saki isn't figuring that much. Simply seems to be a high correlation between J-Saimoe voters and Saki fans.

[uis]

Ha ha ha actually Saki have good sales of DVD anime.The manga sales also quite good. Yeah Saki manga is 2nd most profit Gangan Wing title after Bamboo Blade. Saki also sell dakimakura. Saki, Nodoka and Koromo. They also sell Etopen and Kiyosumi school uniform. Saki also have PC game mahjong currently in development. Yuuki also give role as mascot of infamous Tacos shop*forgot name* in Japan. Saki also have own TCG.

HAHAHAHA HOW YOU DARE INSULT SAKI FANS!!!!

*Anyway nice post...*

[Ahasuerus]

Amazing video KS, very dynamic

Excellent work!

[Marina]

Awesome video work as usual KS; you've really stepped up your skills several notches >.<
I very much approve of the chosen scenes in the vid

[Noe]

I infinitely love Fate's moments in the promotional video. Vn1.

[Eisdrache]

Originally Posted by uis

Ha ha ha actually Saki have good sales of DVD anime.The manga sales also quite good. Yeah Saki manga is 2nd most profit Gangan Wing title after Bamboo Blade. Saki also sell dakimakura. Saki, Nodoka and Koromo. They also sell Etopen and Kiyosumi school uniform. Saki also have PC game mahjong currently in development. Yuuki also give role as mascot of infamous Tacos shop*forgot name* in Japan. Saki also have own TCG.

HAHAHAHA HOW YOU DARE INSULT SAKI FANS!!!!

*Anyway nice post...*

lolwut TCG D: And someone show me the Saki and Koromo dakimakura please :333