If you're still going through a Saimoe Tournament withdrawal, there is a little something to get your bishojo voting on. All Anime World is hosting their ninth annual Cutest Anime Girl Contest. & just like last year, visitors can submit any anime girl they want as a candidate, with the exception of previous winners. You already know who the first seven winners were, & last year's winner turned out to be Mizore Shirayuki from "Rosario + Vampire."
So who will win this year? That's all up to you! Submissions are being taken now through December 7, at which point voting will begin & run until December 31 when the winner will be crowned. You can get all the juicy details & more here:
& for the second Saimoe in a row, a tsundere has won the tournament! Despite Yui leading throughout almost the entire tournament this year (& in the end she still wound up with more votes than anyone else), Taiga bested her in the final one-on-one battle. It wasn't exactly the result I was looking, but considering I like Taiga too, it's really not the worst thing in the world. At the very least I can say I'm now satisfied with the winner for two years in a row. From 2004 to 2007, I really can't approve of the winners, but for these past 2 years things have finally begun to look good again. Sure Taiga is no Nodoka or Yui or Asuka or Haruhi, & so on & so on. But she is a character I like, so I'm happy with at least that much. & Yui does have a chance to compete next year again. I guess I really did correctly call the 2009 winner last year. Here are the full results for the final round:
Today's the big day! It's the final round of Saimoe 2009, & our final two girls wound up being Yui from "K-On" & Taiga from "ToraDora." Both worked really hard to get here, beating out hundreds of other girls to get here. I even correctly predicted last year that Taiga would make it to the finals in 2009. Actually I predicted she would win it all, but back then most people weren't familiar with the then-obscure manga known as "K-On." & living in the now, Yui is who I want to see win the Saimoe crown this year. Luckily even if Taiga does win, I can't really feel bad about that either, since I like Taiga so much as well. So yes I'll be rooting for Yui, but since both finalists are great it wont be the end of the world if Taiga wins instead. It's interesting that our two finalists this year kind of mirror our finalists from last year- one's a tsundere, the other's an airhead. Only difference this time around is I'll be rooting for the tsundere.
As far as who I think will actually win this, Yui has been in the lead with the most votes ever since the end of Round 2 & hasn't lost that lead once. Not counting the poor turnout for her & all the other "K-On" girls in Round 1, & Yui's pretty much dominated this whole tournament. Sure, "Saki" has been the dominating series, but Yui has been the dominating character. So it'd be a true shame for her to lose now after all that. That being said, Taiga has overall faced a higher number of tougher opponents than Yui has. The only truly strong person Yui defeated was Hinagiku, & while that is one major tough opponent to beat, Taiga had to beat several tough gals to get this far.
Each character has their pluses & minuses on winning or losing tomorrow. Tsunderes have pretty much the most popular character type in Japan for the past few years, & that still holds true today. & Taiga is voiced by the queen of tsunderes, Rie Kugimiya, to boot. Kugimiya has had several of her characters come far in past Saimoe tournaments, but she has yet to ever actually win. Tsundere fans might push hard for Taiga to win for that reason, & the fact that this will be Taiga's ONLY chance to compete in Saimoe. She wont be eligible to compete next year, but since a K-On OVA is coming out soon, Yui will be eligible. Since she has another chance to compete again next year & Taiga doesn't, that might be reason enough to let Taiga win. But then again, Saimoe had a tsundere winner last year. Would they really want to have the same thing again? On the other hand, the top 3 placers last year were all KyoAni characters, which Yui is as well. Would voters really want a second KyoAni winner in a row? Either way, this year we'll either have a repeating tsundere winner or a repeating KyoAni winner.
Despite the popularity of tsunderes & Kugimiya, Yui is perceived as the more popular of the two in Japan. Yui also has the advantage of being from a very popular series full of very popular girls, each of which have their own strong fan following. Fans of Azunyan, Ritsu, & Mugi are likely to support their costar Yui, so she'll have a lot of support from them. Taiga on the other hand is pretty much the lone star in her series. Her costars don't have nearly as many fans as she does, & thus she's pretty much on her own here. It's the difference of being popular series & just being a popular character. Though it's hard to say if Mio's fans will really vote for Yui or not. If not for losing in the first round due to low turnout, who knows how far Mio would've made it this year? She might've even made it to the finals instead of Yui. But Mio does have a chance to compete again next year. However, if Yui does win tomorrow, it'll become very unlikely a character from the same series will win again next year. So Mio fans might be looking at the big picture instead of just Yui winning.
Here's the overall vote count for the tournament thus far. Unsurprisingly, Yui is still in the lead:
& my current favorite to win this year moves on to the Finals! Yui will face off against Taiga in the final round of 2009 after a one day break!
Even though I was rooting for Yui, having the Captain lose means "Saki" is now completely out of the tournament. Considering how much they dominated every round of this tournament, from having the most girls starting out to having record-breaking numbers move on to the next rounds, it's very surprising to not have a single one of them in the Finals. I really enjoy "Saki" too, & would have loved it if could have somehow gotten a Saki vs Nodoka battle for the Finals, as they probably would've been my favs to win all along (well okay, there's Asuka & a few others I would've loved to win as well). But now "Saki" is dead. I think all the girls are eligible to compete again next year, so hopefully we'll be seeing them here again in 2010! For now though, full results:
& so Nodocchi is gone. ;;_;; I kinda figured this would happen, but I still held out hope. The Saimoe Finals are no place for oppai, after all. But Nodoka was pretty close to becoming the first. It was an insanely tough battle as well, with Taiga the first person this year to break 1000 votes, & Nodoka coming darn close as well. The two started out pretty evenly, but then Taiga soared ahead & stayed there throughout most of the day. Nodoka began to catchup at the very end, but it just wasn't enough. & even though Nodoka was my favorite to win, I do like Taiga enough as well that I'm not totally bummed out. At least she wasn't beaten by someone like Isumi or Eruru. Full results:
We find ourselves in the Saimoe 2009 semifinals, the second-to-last round of the tournament. It's been a tough road up to this point, but we have our Final Four girls- Taiga (ToraDora), Nodoka (Saki), Captain (Saki), & Yui (K-On). Each one of these girls are very tough, though personally I'd say that the Captain is the only one that really doesn't belong up here with the others. But it's always hard to find a person who's truly happy with the all finalists, with last year being a rare exception as I liked all of four of the semifinalists & felt they all deserved to be there.
Yui will most likely beat the Captain in their battle, but the Taiga vs Nodoka one is not so clear. Seeing both Nagi & Louise under Nodoka's list of defeated characters might make her seem like the Kugimiya killer, but Taiga will not go down so easily. In fact I expect Taiga to win tomorrow, but Nodoka & "Saki" fans will surely put up a tough fight. My order of preference to win the crown this year of the remaining girls are Nodoka, Yui, Taiga, & Captain. So I wont be too upset if Taiga does win tomorrow since I do like her a lot. I just like Nodoka more. Let's take a look at the stats of the last round, starting with who has the most overall votes:
Hurray, Yui won! In the beginning the two were neck & neck, but then Yui pulled ahead by a good amount for most of the day. & then at the very end Koromo started to catchup again, but in the end it wasn't enough. Well, that ends the quarterfinals! Yui will probably have a harder time against the Captain in the next round then she had against Koromo here, but I still think she has what it takes to make it to the finals, if not go all the way. Full results:
In this round's "Saki" vs "Saki" match, it was the Captain that wound up beating Tacos. Huh, feels just like when she beat her in the anime series. Just like yesterday, boobs wins over loli. Also just like yesterday, a Kugimiya voiced character falls. & then there was one, as Taiga will be the only one in the Semifinals. Tacos wasn't exactly a tsundere though. Full results:
In the end Louise wasn't much of a threat at all. Don't get me wrong, 700+ votes is nothing to sneeze at. But it just wasn't enough to really compete with Nodocchi, who was the clear winner all day long. Like I've said, she's my favorite to win this year. But it still sucks losing Louise. Once again she loses in the Quarterfinals, just as she did two years ago. At least she did much better than last year, & many were surprised a Saimoe veteran such as herself made it as far as she did. So congrats for the great effort Louise, but it's time to step down. Full results:
Despite this match being a no-brainer as to who would win, Isumi actually did a surprisingly good job of holding her own against someone as strong as Taiga, in the only non Saki battle of the Quarterfinals. But Isumi's been a surprise this whole tournament, so why stop now? In the end though, Taiga still won by nearly 100 votes & secures her well-deserved spot in the Final Four. Full results:
With Round 4 now over & done with, only eight girls remain. These are the Saimoe Quarterfinals! So far Yui continues to be the best performer in the tournament & achieving the most votes, but Rie Kugimiya's most recen tsundere sensation Taiga is catching up. Surprisingly Nagi actually has the third most votes, surpassing even Nodoka who came in fourth, despite the fact that she beat Nagi during this past round. It just sucks we lose someone like Nagi, yet her costar Isumi remains in the game. Momoko & Azunyan are two other losers who scored a lot of votes but still lost. Here are the overall top performers of the tournament thus far:
In one of the toughest battles of this year's tournament yet, Nodoka managed to beat the Ojou-sama by a mere 16 votes. While Nodocchi managed to have a slight edge over her throughout the day, Nagi did pull ahead a couple of times. But in the end the buxom mahjong player managed to beat the tsundere loli. Could Saimoe actually have it's first large-breasted winner this year? As much as I love Nodoka & want her to go all the way, I really wish Nagi could've survived as well. How awesome would it have been for her to make it to the finals for a second time? But alas that wont be happening anymore. At least there are still two Rie Kugimiya tsunderes left in the game. Full results:
An easy victory for the Captain. As I said yesterday, Eruru really had no place here among the rest of these A-list finalists. This was the strongest victory for "Saki" this round. Full results:
It was cat-girl vs cat-girl today, but it was the Palmtop Tiger who managed to take victory over Azunyan. Taiga has really proven herself to be the dark horse in this year's tournament. While everyone's been talking about Saki, Hayate, & the various KyoAni series, Taiga has quietly clawed her way to the quarterfinals. As happy as I am for her, I'm saddended to lose my Azunyan. ;;_;; But with Taiga's victory, Rie Kugimiya now has three characters advancing to the Elite Eight. Only Nagi is left in this round, so we'll have to wait & see if the tsundere seiyuu queen can pull-off a sweep. Full results:
Yui wins! Suck it, Minori! =b Despite her victory, it wasn't an easy win for Yui, & her opponent put up a tough fight. I don't think Minori is really that popular though, so I'm guessing her high-vote count partially comes from Saki fans trying to get their toughest opponent out of the tournament. Full results:
