Jesus H. Christ in a burning birch bark canoe, what the hell was that? Apocalyptic vote totals in both matches. The low performer of the day, Luna, still hauled in 1700 votes, but it wasn't quiiiite enough to put away Nanoha, who came away with a 44-vote victory. Kagami did even better at 1768, and still lost... by over a hundred votes... to Rena, who topped the 1900 mark.

Lots of fake voting all around. Nanoha had almost 400 fake votes, compared to Luna's 200, while Kagami had 600 to only 100 for Rena. Goodness knows why anyone keeps track of the voting in progress - it's obvious that popular characters get salted with fake votes to depress their real voting turnout (why bother voting if she's already 500 votes in the lead?) and to spur on more voting for the underdog ("come on, man, she's gonna lose!") It's definitely getting uglier faster this year, though it's not like it's totally decisive. Looking at the charts, Nanoha and Luna ran neck and neck all day long, while Rena pulled ahead early and maintained the lead against a late challenge.

The interesting thing is, are these characters going to have the necessary staying power? Well, Nanoha, sure, she's won the damn thing before. Rena? Not so sure. Again, we'll need to see the G and H block rounds to compare how Suigintou (and Eluluu!) manage to hold on to those big vote totals. If the votes melt away, that suggests that a lot of these votes were people voting tactically rather than strictly on moe. But what the heck, they do it in a tourney format specifically to encourage this sort of monkey business...

That said, obviously Kagami was one of the biggest threats of the tournament, and she just lost a round that she should have won - heck, with a vote total that should have been a guaranteed win.

Another interesting nugget of data - Nanoha and Luna ran nearly even in foreign voting totals, while Kagami had a 2:1 advantage in votes coming from outside Japan. Didn't know Luna was so popular in these parts (or rather, what is wrong with people?)

Deep breath. Today's rounds are definitely going to be less frenetic - heck, practically sedate by comparison. Again, weirdness in the random draw has given us parallel matches - Hidamari Sketch versus Strikers, with Miyako paired off against Vita and Yuno going up against Hayate. You don't really expect swing votes or outside interference in a pair of matches like this - the winner of Miyako-Vita will be up against Nanoha, while Hayate-Yuno is going to have to face off against Rena. Assuming that yesterday's avalanche was more of an anti-Nanoha and anti-LS expression, rather than showing particularly high support for Seto no Hanayome or Higurashi per se, there's not really any point in knocking out either of the Strikers.

In fact, if you're anti-Nanoha, you NEED Vita to win this match - Vita vs. Nanoha splitting the Strikers vote would be the best possible chance to knock Nanoha out before the quarterfinals. Hayate's chances aren't quite as good - well, she's not a loli anymore (even if she didn't get a spinning naked transformation sequence, what were the writers thinking?) - so her match may actually be competitive. It's sad to say that the Hidamari characters would more or less be wasted votes, though... even a win today just puts them in front of a juggernaut that no amount of fake votes, third-party factions, or acts of God could possibly stop.

Then again, it's not like I'm neutral when it comes to Nanoha characters. ;p
Yesterday's matches:

1位　1746 votes Takamachi Nanoha@Mahou Syoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS
2位　1702 votes Edomae Runa@Seto no Hanayome

1位　1901 votes Ryuuguu Rena@Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
2位　1768 votes Hiiragi Kagami@Lucky Star

Today's matches:

C3-2 (10/09)
宮子＠ひだまりスケッチ(Miyako@Hidamari Sketch)
ヴィータ＠魔法少女リリカルなのはStrikerS(Vita@Mahou Syoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS)

D3-1 (10/09)
ゆの＠ひだまりスケッチ(Yuno@Hidamari Sketch)
八神はやて＠魔法少女リリカルなのはStrikerS(Yagami Hayate@Mahou Syoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS)

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