An idea comes to mind. If a Republican is worried about the effect CNN has on the Youtube debate, cherry-picking questions and all that... why not do a Youtube debate, but leave CNN out of it?

There's nothing stopping a candidate from saying "okay, send us a link to your Youtube question, we'll pick some and I'll respond on Youtube video" (or even on their own web site), and openly challenging their competitors to do the same. Sure, you're less likely to see snowmen asking questions, but to the participants that's a feature, not a bug...

What's the added value of CNN's participation, exactly?

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 05:45 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Below is a list of all the characters who qualified for the main tournament from the first prelim round, in no particular order. (Yeah, I could have collated them with vote totals and all that, but it wouldn't have been as instructive as you might think - voting really did vary from round to round depending on how heavy the competition was, and to factor that out you'd practically have to do a regression on the numbers... which I'm not quite bored enough to do. ;p)

So far, sheer numbers point to StrikerS - even though there's some junk characters in there, there's at least five or six serious contenders, enough that the organizers will have a hell of a time clumping them (to prevent them from carrying the whole damn bracket) without having a Nanoha-only block or something. Still, expect Fate, Nanoha, and Hayate to all end up in the same block (and maybe Rein too!)

Rozen Maiden qualified six of the seven dolls plus Tomoe, and both of the -seiseki twins, Shinku, and Suigintou are perennial high-performers.

Kanon essentially qualified every major female character. It's another one where it's hard to pick out which are the characters to look for (aside from Ayu, heh). That makes it hard to stack them in a block...

Other shows with a whole passel of qualifiers are Utawarerumono (which had Aruru and Eruru do well last year), Hayate (not every last female character, but most of 'em), Hidamari Sketch (which actually hurt me to watch, so no witty comment here), Negima ("only" seven girls qualified, heh), Lucky Star (the main cast, the DWI cop, the hellion of Lucky Channel, and a photo), Higurashi (the whole main cast), and Code Geass (haven't watched much of this, but there's seven of 'em).

Lots of characters is not necessarily a good thing, though. Last year, Gokujou Seitoukai had a dozen characters in the main tourney, but none of them advanced past the second round. One of the major disadvantages of having too many characters, especially if the show's popular enough to have secondary characters beat out other shows' leads, is that you tend to generate a lot of revenge votes later on...

Ah well, 'nuff said there. Still too early to go calling it one way or the other; there's still half the participants to pick, some of which had more votes in their round than the characters who made it below.
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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 08:07 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Rika takes the final round of the first prelim, more or less handily. Nothing too terribly surprising - I have a tendency to underrate Strawberry Marshmellow, not having seen it, but its main characters did fine last year too.

I'll save the color commentary on the first round as a whole for later - two days off means I can post about something not related to Saimoe for a bit. ;p Headed for a job interview...
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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 10:26 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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All told, a remarkably weak showing aside from Shana yesterday. A couple of shows qualified a character or two where they'd failed to earlier, but frankly, the vote totals just aren't there to be competitive once the tournament starts. Then again, you never really know; if you have just enough moe and there's serious grudge against the opposition, you can still get lucky...

One of Negima's stronger contenders, Evangeline, shows up for the last round. Also notable are Celes/Seras/whatever Victoria from Hellsing (not precisely moe...), Yakumo Tsukamoto from School Rumble (quite moe, but series hasn't been doing so good this year), Rika from Higurashi (one of the most unfortunate little girls in existence), Miyuki from Lucky Star (glasses and clumsy moe, but not as popular as the other girls), Seto from Seto no Hanayome (which I still haven't watched, but you'd think if other characters got the votes they did, the title character's got a shot), BOTH of Fate's moms from StrikerS (of which Lindy may do well), Orihime from Bleach, Shiori from Kanon, and Sasara from To Heart 2. And those are just the ones I recognize... much much tougher round than yesterday.

This is the last of the first prelim rounds, so once it's over we'll have 144 characters already qualified for the main tourney. Then, after a couple of days for a break, the second prelim will begin, and we'll fill the other half of the tournament bracket from that.

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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 12:46 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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No surprises in yesterday's voting. Louise, Mion, Subaru, Setsuna... though Mion did put up a pretty good run against Louise. (Yeah, I said Shion yesterday. They're interchangeable! ;p)

If you're a Kaleido Star fan, Sora's in today's round. Akari from Aria should do well, as usual, even if I still prefer the manga. We also have Urd (who'd normally make the second prelim, but has a good shot today), a couple of Negima girls, Maya from Skull Man (no chance in hell, but -I- like her, dammit), a couple of StrikerS villains (who ought to do better now that they've actually done some damage), and not a whole lot else. Weak round overall.

(And again I missed a big name... Shana, of course, will be in first by a long way. Man, I need to read the candidate lists more carefully!)

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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 11:40 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Kind of glad I bothered to put in a vote yesterday - the distance between Tamaki (the only good thing from To Heart 2, in my opinion) and Alisa (fun character, but I won't vote for a photo) was two votes. Haven't seen any Otogi Jushi, so I couldn't comment on Gretel, but everyone else is more or less as expected.

Today's round is a bit less intense. Ordinarily Setsuna from Negima might have a hard time, but with a lack of big names on the ballot, she ought to do well. Subaru from StrikerS is the same way - too tomboy to beat out a lot of moe, but then again StrikerS doesn't seem to have any problems getting votes for anything (and she had a big character revelation in the episode that aired a few hours ago, so she's at least topical!) The only big vote-getter from last year is Shion from Higurashi.

(edit - I'm an idiot. Louise is in this round. There's your top vote-getter, I'm betting...)
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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 01:34 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Souseiseki handily wins yesterday's round. A surprisingly strong showing from Sakuya from Hayate - she's pretty minor to be getting that many votes, which suggests a strong push behind the series as a whole. Misaki from NHK comes in seventh, and there's actually a Crescent Love character in fifth - rejoice, Wonderduck! You're not the only one. ;p

Bell comes in a distant 17th, so we'll see how that turns out in the second prelim. Also notable there are Natsumi from Keroro, Sarah from School Rumble, and the day's two Negima girls. (Practically every one of them is coming in high enough to make it to the second prelim round... could get ugly depending on how they get sorted out.)

Today's round is just going to be a brawl - it's day of the tsunderes. Kagami from Lucky Star, Vita the eternal lolita from StrikerS, Tokiko from Busou Renkin... and the more-or-less polar opposite, Nodoka from Negima. (Yeah, yeah, I was raised by a school librarian, 'kay?) I wouldn't be surprised by a strong showing from Arisa from StrikerS - another photo-only entrant, but one that's definitely more popular with the fans than her role would seem to account for. Lots of "Burning Arisa" fanart, anyway... wonder how that meme got started?

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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 01:44 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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No real shocks this round, save Kuuya doing so well - definitely not an Utawarerumono character that people talk about, so we can probably conclude some halo-effect action here. Isumi is surprisingly moe. And we have a Marimite character in the top eight... they haven't been racking up high vote totals so far.

Belldandy is up today, but for some reason she never does that well in these. So is Souseiseki, who does, even if she tends to play second banana to her twin sister. (Well, when you act like a boy...) It'll be interesting to see where Misaki from NHK places, kind of a measure of the power of self-loathing moe? Sakuya from Hayate isn't quite as moe as Isumi, but she has the power of manzai comedy... probably too much of that power, come to think of it. There's a few outside shots (Chizuru and Ku Fei from Negima, Sarah from School Rumble, some Strawberry Panic and Hidamari characters...)

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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 11:30 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Ironically, yesterday they ran an exhibition round with all the "disqualified" characters - these are mostly the folks who are in a show that didn't really fall in the eligibility period, or weren't a girl (this year, the non-animate devices from Nanoha weren't eligible, for example, even if they had female VAs.) Placing high were the famous cabbage from Crescent Love, Hayate Ayasaki in drag, Raising Heart, and the balsamic vinegar and chocolate cornet from Lucky Star.

Still plenty of viable challengers to go, but only six rounds left to pack them in...

Vivio comes up for the StrikerS legion, which also gives Agito a good chance (even if they did rip her character design from Disgaea!). Jessica has a chance from Zero's Familiar - popular for a one-episode character, from the fan art. Aruru did very well in last year's tournament. Isumi from Hayate -is- in today's round, so here's your lost girl yamato nadesico moe. Layla is here for those who remember Kaleido Star. And there's several family members from Lucky Star, though I only expect Yui to do well. (Initial D-driving cop with a penchant for DUI and video games? It's fun, but is it moe?)

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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 11:32 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Ayu takes top honors in the round, as expected. I'd misidentified the Hayate character - turns out Ayumu is Hayate's friend from school who's -always- eating something - but any character who has a hamster as a totemic spirit is at least a little moe, right? Geass puts a couple more into the tourney, as well as Hina (nooo), more Strawberry Panic and Hidamari Sketch characters, and Rein's original.

This puts us two-thirds of the way through the first prelim round, with only six more days to go. Bit early to draw too many conclusions, but it's easy to pick out which series have a lot of supporters (Nanoha, Rozen, Hidamari, Hayate, Geass, Seto no Hanayome, Lucky Star) and which ones don't, depsite having many eligible characters (Negima, Mai-Otome, Claymore, Simoun).

Wara Blue actually put together a respectable 33 votes, for 50th place. ;p Also, Excellen from the SRW series came in 33rd, eliminated from the tourney by two votes... ah, the trials of being a Banpresto original character and normally playing second banana to -every robot show ever-.

No voting today - it'll resume tomorrow.
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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 10:58 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Pretty blah round all around. Low vote totals - beyond the first place finisher, none of the top eight would have qualified yesterday. Ah well, the possibility of an uneven distribution of moe was the entire point of having the second preliminary round, after all.

I'm seeing Seto no Hanayome do well repeatedly, though, so I should probably look into the show. (First ran into Fate/Stay Night last year by seeing them in Saimoe...)

Things should pick up today - Ayu from Kanon is definitely that show's strongest moe character. Also running is Reinforce from Nanoha (the big sister version, who did way better than Rein Zwei last year, but she had all the screen time in A's...) Ayumu from Hayate will probably do pretty well - yamato nadesico moe plus Ryoga's sense of direction, if you can believe it. I would be perfectly happy if Hinaichigo from Rozen got zero votes and then died in a fire, but realistically she's got her fans and it's a popular show.

We'll see if Steven's prediction of which of the Waragetcha team would get any votes comes true today - Blue's up.

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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 11:49 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Whoa. Relatively heavy voting in this round - the top three all scored higher than any other character so far. Not really any surprises in the top eight, excepting Jun's surprise-by-default. I always preferred Suigintou over the other Rozens, so can't say that I'm not pleased by the results (though I'm not a Satoko fan...)

After yesterday's match-up, today's seems almost sedate. Maybe Yoruichi from Bleach... Teresa from Claymore, but even Clare didn't do that well. Mahiro from Busou Renkin will get some votes, but she doesn't really stand out (kind of an Orihime character, without the redeeming qualities, except maybe the nurse cosplay?) We may get a re-run of two days ago, as Nanoha's big sister is another photograph-only entrant. I wouldn't give Chao a chance normally, but in today's round she may make it by. Finally, there's Kaori from Kanon, definitely dead last for moe out of what's otherwise a potent group.

Not enough of a crowd to make me want to vote, sad to say...
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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 11:24 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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For anyone that's interested, I've uploaded the completed bracket from last year; hopefully a good Samaritan will be translating this year's bracket when it's complete. Here's the link.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 11:41 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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No huge surprises from yesterday's round, save the 8th place finisher. Suzuka was a nice secondary character in the earlier seasons of Nanoha, but she's absent from the new season, except for a couple of photo albums; that's enough to qualify for the tourney, and Konata's mom already qualified the same way, but... it's still a little weird, no? Then again, Nanoha herself pulled in so many votes that some sort of halo effect was inevitable.

Interesting round today. Top billing definitely goes to Konata from Lucky Channel - if just looking like her was enough to get her mom's photo straight into the tourney, the real wise-cracking otaku girl is a shoo-in, and might halo-effect in Akira from the Lucky Channel shorts as well. Suigintou has always done fairly well here, and the recent Rozen OAV was about her, so she'll only be stronger. Rena from Higurashi is the classic yandere ("crazy girl") vote, especially if you think billhooks are moe, and Satoko is also in this round too. Lutecia is the loli Rider-lookalike from StrikerS, and between her and the new lead Teana, there should be a lot of mutual support for the two (hopefully not enough to put Scharch into the tourney - despite fun tonfa, she's kind of a nothing character... but then again, this show just qualified a freakin' photo.). Konoka is another popular Negima character that manages to stand out of that overcrowded pack. Finally, there's also Jun from Happiness, notable for being a classic trap (that is, a guy who dresses and acts like a girl); apparently a brief stint as an actual girl in the OAV was enough to qualify him... her.
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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 11:24 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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(Was going to fold this into the comments, but meh, if I'm gonna type this much... heh.)

On the topic of voting for Wara Yellow... I'd feel a little bad, voting for characters who have essentially no hope in the tournament, but at the same time, marginal winners being replaced by marginal losers won't affect the outcome much. There's a limited number of really popular characters, and the winner is going to be one of them, in the end.

On the one hand, keeping that in mind, the whole tourney could stand to be considerably smaller. There will be plenty of matches (especially in round 1) where three characters who never had any chance, and who nobody really cares much about, will get matched up only to face an absolute juggernaut in the next round. Reducing the number of entrants by half wouldn't significantly affect the reliability of the results, but it would speed things up by a month or so.

Then again, the one big advantage of the current set of rules is that the organizers can claim to be absolutely impartial as to which characters are allowed to participate. Of all the shows included in the eligible time period, any female -anything- is allowed to be nominated. Last year's voting included Nanoha's magical staff (Fate's was, alas, ineligible due to having a male VA) and a -horse-. Literally, if you can get together a sufficient number of voters, you could get any character you wanted into the tournament, and indeed as far as your persuasive powers can take that character. Which is something of the point, really - the rules explicitly endorse collective voting, encouraging greater participation, log-rolling your votes ("I'll vote for your character today if you vote for my character tomorrow"), whatever floats your boat; the only thing frowned upon is outright character assassination, the occasional "Death to Desu!" comments last year notwithstanding.

Of course, nobody's going to do that sort of stuff for a character unless they're completely flippin' nuts for her, which is also kind of the point; characters who are successful at inspiring this sort of action on their behalf are convincingly more "moe" than ones who are merely cute, sexy, or whatever. In that sense, the convoluted voting process is a kind of virtue in and of itself - if it was easy to do, it wouldn't reflect the voters' devotion to the characters. And indeed, if I don't have a specific reason to vote (a character I care about, or a log-rolling agreement, or some revenge to exact, heh), well, then I won't vote that day.

All that said, it would indeed be hilarious if a concerted effort were made to get one or two obscure or joke characters into the tourney. The only trick is picking one that's obviously a joke, but that's funny enough that we can get a hundred people to do it...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 05:39 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Sorry, Steven, only eighteen votes for Wara Yellow. I guess she's just not as moe as Black...

No tremendous surprises yesterday - Anna Coppola comes out on top, as expected from her performance last year and general all-around cuteness. Ginga scores well with the StrikerS vote. Both the Gurren Lagann leads get in there, as well as Wilhelmi from Shana and Nobue from Strawberry Marshmallow. A bit disappointing that Saki ended up 9th, but there was a very tight voting group from third on, so she'll probably do well in the second preliminary. Interesting that the busty demoness character from that lousy original episode of Hayate managed to place so high - I guess the Dragon Warrior references there were funnier if you're Japanese? Ah well.

Today's round has Mai (my favorite of the Kanon characters - sorry, Ayu) and Nanoha (whose friends didn't lose any votes going from lolita to busty, and she DID win in 2005...) and Misa from Death Note (not really my taste, but cute idol character from a scary popular show is more or less bound to do well.) Also cropping up is Dejiko (didn't know there was a new Di Gi Charat show this year...), Natsuki (the only one of the HiME crew that did anything last year), Yue (one of the few good things about Negima), Alicia from Aria, Suzuka from Nanoha (totally secondary character, not even IN the new season aside from photos, but anything Nanoha gets votes), Haruhi from Ouran (did well last year, I'll toss a vote that way too), Alisa Southerncross from Keroro (who recently cropped up in the US release of the manga, and is a fun character), and Solty from Solty Rei (another good contender from last year.)

Going through these lists hammers home just how much anime comes out every year, including a lot of shows that even a geek like me has never even heard of. Was there really a show with "N.Y.SALAD" in the title last year? I did find a few shows that I enjoyed from last year's tournament, plus a couple more that are on my "get around to it" list (Strawberry Marshmallow, Shana).

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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 11:21 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Fate cruises to an easy victory. Highest vote total so far, but there wasn't much competition in the round. Halo effect brings in the other two from Strikers, Geass seems to do pretty well, and this is the sort of tournament where having a tag of "white loli" and "black loli" is no detriment. Haven't actually seen Saint October... Barasuishou didn't make it to the top eight, so I guess I'm not the only one who dislikes that particular Rozen Maiden, heh.

Gurren Lagann round today. Both Nia and Yoko are sure-fire shoo-ins. The new StrikerS characters haven't done as well as the holdovers, but Ginga today has a pretty good chance. Anna Coppola did well last year until she lost to Shana, so she's in for sure. Aki from Keroro might do well, if your tastes run to really busty. There's also Saki from Hayate the Combat Butler (maid power, but not with Maria's cool boots).

Oh, and Steven, Waragetcha Yellow's today too. I've got a leftover vote, so she'll get at least one... ;p
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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 11:10 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Resuming after a day off - today's prelim list under the fold.

Fate is running out in front here, after coming in second last year (though it will be interesting to see how her popularity changed, going from a 9-year-old in one of the best shows of the year to a 19-year-old in, well, definitely not one of the best shows of the year...) This is good news for both Arf and Shamal, neither of which were likely to do well on their own, but will do a lot better in a prelim round where lots of Nanoha fans are showing up with loose votes.

Also notable are Saki from Genshiken (not really all that moe, if you get right down to it, but anti-moe might do well too), Barasuishou (dead last of the Rozen Maidens), CC from Code Geass (pizza moe?!), and maybe Kusuha from the Super Robot Wars series - she's a favorite of my friends who play that game.

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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 10:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So, I started digging, and I noticed that the regular DVD has an uncompressed stereo audio (which is better than typical R1’s AC-3), but LE has “Dolby Digital Stereo”. I presume the latter is their moonspeak for 5.1. But if so, LE DVD is mastered differently from regular! How odd. Since I don’t have a 5.1 system, I don’t see how this would benefit me, but I made a mental note.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 02:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Results below the fold. Humorously, the "Kanata Izumi" from yesterday's round isn't a mis-romanization - it's Konata's mom. As they're practically identical, one wag put it, "It's as if Konata was playing Saimoe with an extra life!" Heh.

No round today, so nobody to vote for until tomorrow.

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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 10:37 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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