1 So how do we vote in Saimoe?

-G

2

You don't.

Japanese-speaking members of a Japanese bulletin board do.

3 Actually, you can. It's just a lot of work. (It's a lot of work for the Japanese too, heh.)

Basically, the procedure goes like this...

You'll go to a particular link and navigate through a couple of pages (basically "click on the link"). You'll be told in Japanese to come back in two hours. Essentially, you need to access the link from the same IP now, and two hours from now, in order to get a voting code. That voting code will be valid for that day only.

Then you'll go to the correct board on 2ch and find the latest Saimoe thread (it'll be labeled with "Round" in English). You'll post a reply to that thread including your voting code and the names of the contestants you're voting for. You'll get those off of the daily Animesuki thread. Copy and paste 'em; they all have a non-ASCII @ sign to separate the name and the series, and if you just type it, your vote will be invalid. The names will all be in kanji/kana, but they're translated by the ever-helpful Ando each day around noonish CST. You can also post comments supporting your chosen characters if you like.

Not everyone can do this. The voting code generator will refuse to issue a code to people with networks that all use a common IP for accessing sites (so from certain places of employment, or universities, you'll be screwed). In addition, 2ch themselves will refuse to accept posts from certain US ISPs, though I don't have a list of what's banned this year. If you can't vote, but you have a buddy that's not afraid of Japanese characters, they can make your 2ch post with your voting code, though there can be problems if THEY are also voting.

The beginning of the Animesuki thread has a detailed tutorial with pictures of what every page should look like. It's not that hard, you don't have to comprehend Japanese to do it, but it requires some time investment, which keeps the voting numbers down.

4

I see that Guchuko made it into this round. For a minute I despaired.

I wonder how long she'll last. Somehow it seems vaguely unfair that she should be in the same bracket as Kyo.

5 I wish I could say she'd make it out of the first round, but the Lucky Star halo vote will probably give it to Yui. (Not that Yui's not a great character; she is. But DWI is not moe...)

It didn't matter anyway. It's quite likely that Luna will annihilate all opposition in B1, and even she probably won't do well against the winner of the Ryou/Vivio fight in B2. Even if I prefer Kyou (or Tomoyo!), Ryou's still popular enough. And Vivio's just a moe-bomb, literally.

You know, looking at the bracket, they've done a much better job this year of spacing out the good candidates from each series. There are very few cases where two strong competitors from a series share the same block; almost unnaturally so, given the number of entrants from certain shows. The only really bad example is from Aria, with Alicia and Akira in a first-round match. (And Higurashi really pulled the short straw this year - the Sonozaki sisters and Rena are in first-round matches against Fate, Kagami, and Maria!)

But Potemayo got screwed. Guchuko, Potemayo, AND Kyo all in the same bracket? Ouch. It's like the organizers are secretly anti-mochimochi bigots.

6

I don't know anything about Siesta from Zero, but Nia looks like she could walk away with E2.

The 8/28 C1 battle between Shion, Sanae, and Kagami looks to be the battle of Round 1, and it's going to be a blood-bath if vote totals ratchet up early this year.

7 While I don't know much about the character (not having seen past episode 9 of GL), Nia doesn't look to be long for this tournament. She missed qualifying by a couple of votes in her first preliminary round, only getting in by virtue of a decent-but-not-particularly-respectable showing in her second preliminary. She'll probably win over weak 1st-round competition, but she'd likely have to go through Chiaki and Siesta (second and third in their respective prelims) to reach the third round, where she would probably run into Tamaki or Horo, both of whom won their prelims pretty handily.

8 A slightly different crowd votes for the saimoe competition proper than the prelims, however.

I think this year is just not as exciting partly because there are fewer strong matchups in the early rounds, and the first round takes up almost a month... Hard to get people excited that way.