Saimoe 2009

Saimoe 2009 was the 8th edition of 2channel's annual Anime Saimoe Tournament. It began with the nominations on 2009 June 20, with the main bracket starting on August 4 and concluding with the final match on October 17. The tournament featured 385 main bracket contestants, the highest in J-Saimoe history, but the format remains largely the same; the only difference is that the first round was increased to 4 girls per match instead of 3.

This edition was the first appearance of the Saki manga, a series which features a large cast of cute high school girls playing superpowered mahjong and engaging in maybe-yuri maybe-not relationships. This series would go on to become the most dominant force in the tournament as four of its representatives reached the elite eight stage, with two reaching the semi-finals.

The final, however, was contested by newcomers Taiga Aisaka from Toradora and Yui Hirasawa from K-On!, which saw Yui leading the match in the early hours before being overtaken by Taiga, who eventually held the lead until the very end and becoming 2channel's Moe-est girl of 2009. Taiga's victory signified the end of a long-awaited Rie Kugimiya tsundere archetype winning the whole damn tournament, managing to do what other members such as Shana, Louise, and Nagi couldn't.

Kagami Hiiragi, the defending champion, was eliminated in the first round after placing 2nd behind Haruhi's Mikuru Asahina. Her early defeat is likely a result of fans' backlash against Lucky Star due to its massive popularity last year.

Rules
Fuck this shit i'm lazy, just gonna copy this straight from /a/non's website

Voting policy
Voting Rules and Etiquette


 * In all stages of the tournament, votes will only count if posted in an official 2ch thread with a code generated that day from the code generator.
 * Votes must take the format <> to count. In addition, the names and titles must be in an officially recognised format (in Japanese, for one), so it is recommended to copy/paste entries from an official or trusted source.
 * Votes must be posted between 01:00:00 and 23:00:59 JST to count. Please note that this is strict and that even 23:01:00 is invalid.
 * Multiple votes are forbidden (if two votes come from the same 2ch ID code then neither will count), and all care and attention will be paid to minimise the impact of proxies.
 * Votes made with anonymous IDs will be invalid.
 * As votes cannot be changed once made, please vote carefully.
 * If a code is used multiple times with different IDs, then the first instance and only the first instance will count.
 * If a vote is made for too many characters allowed in any stage then the vote will not count for any of the characters.
 * If a match is interrupted (e.g. by downtime) for more than 11 hours then it will be reheld in full. If a match is interrupted but for less than 11 hours then the results will be upheld, even if the interrupted period includes the end of the match.
 * Objections to match results should be made to the operators within an hour of the match ending. All disputed votes will be resolved before the result becomes irreversible.
 * Negative promotion (e.g. "[someone/something] sucks") against characters, series, fanbases or fellow voters is strictly forbidden.
 * Feel free to campaign for participating characters in the voting threads as you see fit, so long as it doesn't violate the above.
 * Please do not post interim or final vote counts. If you see an interim vote count do not assume it to reflect the true count as it could well be misleading. Please wait for official results, which will be posted shortly after the end of any given contest.

Character eligibility
Qualification Rules


 * For a character to qualify for Saimoe 2009, she must a) be female b) and have appeared in new animated material between the dates of 07/01/2008 and 06/30/2009.
 * Case a) is usually straightforward, but extends to cover non-humans (most commonly androids and animals) that are portrayed as female.
 * Case b) includes all TV broadcasts, internet broadcasts, OAVs / OADs and theatrical releases of movies by premiere date. It does not include fan-made productions.
 * Additionally, characters from productions rated 18+ do not qualify. This does not disqualify productions derived from other 18+ rated forms so long as the productions themselves are not rated 18+.

Duplicate Entries


 * Different 'forms' of the same character or otherwise effectively identical derived forms of a character only form one entry, even if they span multiple series. In particular, this means that a character can only enter the tournament once even if multiple series of their show aired in the timeframe.
 * Multiple personalties do not count as separate characters and as such all fall under the same entry, barring exceptional circumstances where it can be shown in the long term that they are in fact different people rather than simply multiple personalities.
 * Twins normally count as separate characters. However, if they are identical and it is impossible to tell them apart in terms of appearance and personality, then they qualify as one entry only.

Tournament format
Nomination Rules


 * Many characters automatically qualify for the preliminaries, as decided in a thoroughly confusing manner by some shady cabal. The full list of pre-entry qualifiers can be found in Japanese here.
 * Characters not on the pre-entry list require only one nomination to qualify for the preliminaries, to be made either on the date their series is up for nomination or at the final open nomination stage.
 * People are free to nominate as many characters as they wish.

Preliminary Round Rules


 * All qualifying characters are split randomly into 18 first preliminary groups. Characters who finish in the top 12 of their first preliminary group (a total of 216 characters) advance directly to the first round of the tournament proper. Characters who finish between 13th and 40th of their first preliminary group (a total of 504 characters) advance to the second preliminaries. All other characters are eliminated.
 * The characters in the second preliminaries are shuffled again and split into 7 groups. Characters who finish in the top 24 of their second preliminary group (a total of 168 characters) advance to the first round of the tournament proper. All other characters are eliminated.
 * In the event of a tie for 12th place in the first preliminaries, all tied characters proceed to the tournament proper. Similarly, in the event of a tie for 24th place in the second preliminaries, all tied characters proceed to the tournament proper. As a result of this, each tie adds to the total number of characters competing in the tournament proper.
 * Voters may vote for up to 10 participants in a first preliminary match, and up to 12 participants in a second preliminary match. Using 'slots' to vote for the same character multiple times is not allowed.

Main Tournament Rules


 * All qualifying characters are shuffled randomly into eight groups of 48 and proceed in a single knockout format (four characters to a round one match, three to a round two match, and two to all further rounds) for four rounds. At this point the group winners will be shuffled into a final knockout section from which the winner is crowned the champion of Saimoe.
 * In the aim of expediency, four round one matches will be run at a time. Likewise in rounds two and three, two matches will run at a time.
 * In the event of a tie for first place, all tied characters proceed to the next round. There appears to be no ruling for what happens if the final is tied.
 * Voters may only vote for one character per match. In early rounds where multiple matches run at the same time voters may vote for up to one character per match, but do not need to vote in every match for their vote to be valid.

Rounds 1-4
Players per round: 384 > 96 > 32 > 16 > 8 > 4 > 2

Tournament format is single-elimination. All contestants are initially split into 8 groups of 48 girls, which are composed of multiple matches. Vote only one girl per each match, regardless of number. If a match is tied for 1st place, all tied contestants will advance into the next round. If the final is tied, then both girls will be crowned champion.


 * Round 1: Four girls per match. Some matches have 5 girls instead to accommodate excess contestants.
 * Round 2: Three girls per match.
 * Rounds 3 and beyond will be 1v1 match. The winner of round 4 (group finals / top 16) will advance to the elite eight bracket, where they will be re-seeded.

Group A
Round 1

Round 2

Group Finals

Group B
Round 1

Round 2

Group Finals

Group C
Round 1

Round 2

Group Finals

Group D
Round 1

Round 2

Group Finals

Group E
Round 1

Round 2

Group Finals

Group F
Round 1

Round 2

Group Finals

Group G
Round 1

Round 2

Group Finals

Group H
Round 1

Round 2

Group Finals

Elite Eight
Single-elimination 1v1 bracket.