ISML 2021/Seasonals

For ISML 2021, the seasonal contest was renamed the "Nova League", and for the first time in ISML history, males will participate in this contest. The organizers wanted to make the seasonals "more important" by expanding the tournament's format and giving them a yearly "grand winner" award contested through a postseason bracket, analogous to winning the Tiara / Scepter in the Main Tournament. These awards were named the Divine Circlet (females) and Divine Crown (males); they were last used from 2015-2020 as a consolation tournament for characters eliminated during the early periods of the regular season.

The female seasonal featured 30+ girls competing for 18 spots, split into three round-robin groups, of which the top two finishers from each group proceed into 6-man range-voting round for the diadem. Top 4 girls will advance to the postseason bracket. On the other hand, the male seasonals consisted only of 6 males in a single round-robin group since male characters are less popular in ISML; top 2 from each group advance to the playoffs.

The poster contest, which was formerly used for the divine awards in 2015-2020, were given to two exhibition contests instead: Virtual YouTubers and the second Visual Novel Girls contest.

Character eligibility
Characters who appeared in an anime released within 2021 will be assigned to their respective seasonal contest based on the following release dates:


 * Winter: January 01 - March 31
 * Spring: April 01 - June 30
 * Summer: July 01 - September 30
 * Fall: October 01 - December 08 (end of Fall nominations)
 * Anime releases usually refer to TV series broadcast on-air.
 * For movies, OVA and ONA releases, they are only considered if they are "released to multiple countries" or if "[the company] started selling Blu-rays/DVDs to the public" within the relevant period of time.
 * Characters appearing in multiple cours / seasons within the same year may be nominated for multiple seasonals, so long as they do not finish within the top 4 in the diadem round beforehand.
 * Example: Vladilena Milize from 86 may be nominated for Spring (cour 1) and Fall (cour 2). If she finished within the top 4 in Spring's diadem round however, she will be ineligible for Fall; otherwise she may be nominated again on the latter seasonal.
 * The following relevant characters who appear in 2021 anime are ineligible:
 * 2018-2020 necklace and pendant winners: Rem,  Emilia,  Kanna Kamui,  Kaguya Shinomiya  Levi Ackerman,  Miyuki Shirogane,  Tomoya Okazaki
 * Appeared in 2018-2020 playoffs: Chika Fujiwara,  Ai Hayasaka ,  Tohru (Dragon Maid),  Shouto Todoroki
 * Seasonal diadem winners: Platelet,  Ochako Uraraka,  Kei Shirogane

Female Format
Nomination Rules
 * Nomination dates:
 * Winter and Spring: July 01-08
 * Summer: Oct 01-08
 * Fall: Dec 05-11
 * For Winter and Spring, only one ballot is used, which is lumped together with Main Tournament nominations.
 * Characters were chosen from the main nomination round. Selection for the seasonal tournament will take priority, which means that characters who appeared in past ISML editions may be assigned here, even though some voters intended them to compete the main tournament. According to co-organizer Maglor, this is intentional in order to "increase the level of competition".
 * Once all slots are filled, the remaining characters may qualify for the main tournament instead.
 * Summer and Fall each have their own nomination ballots.
 * 12 entries
 * Minimum 2 male and 2 female
 * Must have at least 3 anime series.
 * Max 3 characters per series / franchise.
 * Top 30+ girls qualify for the elimination round
 * If last place is tied, they will qualify together.
 * Maximum of 3 characters per anime can enter the seasonals.

Elimination round
 * All girls are subject to an approval voting match (vote whoever you like).
 * Top 18 advance to group stage

Group stage
 * 3x6 groups
 * Single round-robin
 * Ranking criteria are: Wins > CVPD > CVP . Head to head is not required.
 * Top 2 girls from each group will advance to Diadem round

Diadem round
 * 6 players, Range-voting match (vote whoever you like by putting a score on each player)
 * Top 4 advance to Circlet Playoffs, 5th-6th are eliminated
 * 1st placer wins the seasonal diadem and will directly qualify for ISML 2022 main tournament

Circlet Playoffs
 * Single elimination bracket
 * Characters are seeded based on Diadem round position > Group stage Wins > Group stage CVP
 * Winner claims the divine circlet and the overall seasonal championship. If the circlet winner did not win any of 2021's seasonals, she will also qualify for ISML 2022 main tournament.

Winter
The peculiar format of 2021's nomination stage meant that any character who appeared in Winter and Spring 2021 anime are automatically assigned to their respective seasonal, including ISML veterans who have more than enough nominations for the main tournament. As a result, the contests naturally favored these ISML veterans instead of newcomers, creating a power imbalance. The Winter contest was particularly egregious since the lineup was filled with numerous prominent sequels, thus, the majority of girls came from established series. Only seven girls who have made their first-ever animated appearance in Winter were successfully nominated.

The most prominent series in this seasonal was 5-toubun, as they fielded the maximum amount of girls with a decently high number of nomination votes. Miku Nakano scored the most votes and was expected to win. Itsuki and Nino ended up in the same group as Ram from Re:Zero, who topped the group undefeated, forcing the sisters to eliminate each other for the second spot, which Itsuki eventually won. The only newcomers who made it out of groups were Roxy Migurdia from Mushoku Tensei, and Kyouko Hori from Horimiya, who qualified with veteran Ai Haibara out of Group C.

Miku easily won the diadem round, while Haibara placed second with Ram following closely at third. Roxy became the fourth Winter girl to qualify for the playoffs, leaving Hori and Itsuki behind.

Spring
Similar to Winter, the Spring contest was led girls from popular series with a sequel: Nezuko Kamado (top favorite), Miko Iino (placed 2nd in Spring 2020), Kobayashi-san (boosted by Dragon Maid S hype), and Shuna from Slime Isekai. Among the newcomers, only 86's Lena and Higehiro's Sayu Ogiwara advanced out of groups.

Surprisingly, Nezuko placed 4th in the diadem round, as ISML voters gave way for Miko to finally win her seasonal award by a decent margin. Lena placed 2nd and Kobayashi finished 3rd, leaving Sayu and Shuna in the dust.

Summer
In a slight change of pace, the top favorites to win the summer diadem finally went to 2021 debutantes: Love Live's Keke Tang, a Chinese idol who resonates with ISML's Chinese-majority voter base, and Tanmoshi's Siesta, a popular light novel heroine who placed high in Konorano's popularity poll. Ilulu also emerged as a contender as she hails from the popular Dragon Maid series, debuting in the show's second season.

But like the previous two seasonals, sequel girls tend to advance; Miyuki Shiba became eligible because ahe appeared in the Mahouka remake, and qualified by scoring crucial wins against newcomer Celia Claire and sequel girl Katarina Claes in the round-robin stage. In Group C, Madoka Kaname from Magia Record topped the group undefeated, while Slime Isekai's Milim Nava managed to advance out of groups in her 2nd seasonal appearance the same year, having placed 5th in the Winter group stage beforehand.

The summer diadem eventually went into Keke's hands, winning the gem round by a large margin and finally bringing home Love Live!'s first-ever ISML award. Siesta and Madoka comfortably advanced to the playoffs, while Ilulu barely qualified for the 4th spot over Milim and Miyuki.

Group stage
As a result of Chise Hatori's absence during the elimination round and subsequent compensation match, the schedule of female summer seasonal was pushed back one matchday.

Male Seasonals
The male seasonal is a single tournament whose champion is awarded the Divine Crown.

Nomination round:


 * Selection criteria and nomination format are the same as females, but only 6 males will advance into their respective seasonal, which is reduced to a group stage instead.
 * Male nomination ties are broken using the following criteria:
 * Debutants are given priority
 * Fewer number of series' characters
 * Staff selection

Group stage


 * 6 males from each seasonal will compete each other in a Single round-robin format.
 * Same ranking criteria as females (Wins > CVPD > CVP)
 * Top 2 characters from each group will advance to Crown Playoffs
 * 1st place of each group wins an ISML poster (diadem, same as females) and will qualify for ISML 2022's main tournament

Crown Playoffs


 * Single elimination bracket
 * Seeded based on Wins > CVP
 * Winner claims the divine crown and the overall seasonal championship; if the winner did not win any of 2021's seasonals, he is also invited to ISML 2022 main tournament.

Nomination Results
 Actual 2021 debutants  (i.e. first appeared in an anime released within 2021) are labeled in bold and underlined.

Winter
Due to the way the nomination round works, most of the guys in the Winter seasonal are ISML regulars who appeared at the top of the nominations list. The only newcomers were Satoru Gojo, who had the 2nd-most nominations out of all males, but was assigned here because of Jujutsu Kaisen's 2nd cour, and Izumi Miyamura from the Horimiya TV anime. The other three were shonen protagonists from long-running series: Detective Conan, One Piece, and Boruto's dad.

However, the ultimate winner of this seasonal was Tanjiro Kamado from Demon Slayer, who was assigned here because he appeared in the show's Valentine's Day shorts, even though he appeared in the sequel movie Mugen Train. Having placed 8th overall in ISML 2020 despite a late regular season exit, Tanjiro maintained his power coming into the 2021 contest as he earned the 5th-most nominations the male division, and went 5-0 in the winter round robin which earned him his first ISML award and the first male seasonal diadem.

Meanwhile, the top-seeded Gojo choked to a 2-3 record and 4th place finish. He lost to Conan in round 2, which greatly diminished his chances of making it out, and was finally eliminated in round 4 after he lost to Miyamura. In the final group round, the spot for 2nd was contested by Conan (2-2) and Miyamura (3-1). Izumi won the match and advanced as the last playoffs representative from Winter.

Results

Spring
Like Winter, the group consisted of a fairly strong veteran who is expected to win (Takashi Natsume) and three "Number Two" guys from shonen series: One Piece's Zoro, Demon Slayer's Zenitsu, and Boruto's Sasuke. The remaining two newcomers were Fushi from To Your Eternity and Adam from Shuumatsu no Valkyrie, who ended up at the absolute bottom of the group, with Fushi only scoring his lone win against Adam.

After Natsume won his first ISML award, the second place came down to lightning users Sasuke and Zenitsu, with the ninja winning the fight against the swordsman.

Results

Summer
Compared to the last two seasonals, Summer's roster is unpopular, which may explain the relatively low vote counts. The summer diadem was won by Kimihiko Kimizuka, protagonist of the Tanmoshi light novel series which is popular in East Asia, and arguably the most recognizable male out of the group. Kyouya Hashiba from Remake Our Life emerged as the other playoffs representative from the season.

Results

Fall
After an uneventful summer season, the Fall seasonal saw a big spike in nomination votes, which is led by Ranking of Kings protagonist Bojji, who received over 100 votes. Behind him is Detective Conan's Kogorou Mouri, who stood out as the only male from a long-running or sequel anime; he finally qualified for an ISML match thanks to the long-time support from the Chinese Conan fanbase.

However, history has shown that nomination votes do not necessarily indicate strength in the tournament; in fact it was inverted in the actual round-robin stage. Bojji had an atrocious performance with zero wins, which may suggest anti-votes, and Kogorou lost 2 straight matches. The winners of the seasonal went to guys with the lowest nomination votes: battle conductor Takt Asahina and finest assassin Lugh advanced together when they both scored 4 wins - 2 ahead of their nearest competitors - after round 4. They fought each other for the Fall diadem in round 5, which was ultimately won by Lugh.

Gallery
Female Seasonals