Saimoe 2012

Do you like mahjong? Can YOU play mahjong? Well that doesn't fucking matter as most people enjoy this "Saki" manga not for the games, but for.... other aspects that's best shown instead.

Anime Saimoe Tournament 2012 was the 11th edition of the annual tournament organized by users from the Japanese textboard 2channel, and held on its own voting website. Mami Tomoe was the defending champion, but was unable to defend her title because her show Madoka Magica aired from January until March 2011 - well oustide of the edition's eligibility date for airing anime.

The tournament is also known as SakiMoe 2012 by some anons because of the overwhelming presence of the Saki manga series, which was brought about by the broadcast of a spinoff anime installment titled Saki Achiga-hen episode of side-A that introduced many new characters. And with Saki already exerting a very strong influence in the tournament -- as evidenced by the 2010 edition where it represented half of the group winners -- this year resulted in the series fielding the highest-ever number of representatives on a J-Saimoe tournament at the time with 43 entrants (which has been superseded in 2014 after they managed to qualify 44 entrants). Out of them, 8 advanced into the top 16 round with 6 girls surviving into the elite eight stage, culminating in an unprecedented all-Saki final four round. Toki Onjouji became the champion after beating fellow debutant Kuro Matsumi in the final, while Hisa Takei and Nodoka Haramura were the losing semi-finalists. The only girls outside the series who managed to reach top 8 were Shana and Louise de la Valliere, both Rie Kugimiya archetypes and saimoe veterans who would make their last hurrahs in this tournament as their anime reached its final seasons.

Rules
Copied directly from /a/non's website: http://www.animesaimoe.org/2012rules.html

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 official 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. Also note that the first codes generate at 00:55:00, so don't get caught out by posting too early either.
 * Voting posts must contain some words of support to count. It is unclear as to how exactly this will be policed, but assume that in practice that posts consisting only of the code and votes will be discounted and that any post that makes any sort of effort to accompany these will be fine.
 * Multiple votes are forbidden (if two or more votes come from the same 2ch ID code then only the first will count), and all care and attention will be paid to minimise the impact of proxies.
 * Votes made with anonymous IDs will be invalid (2ch ID codes are encrypted forms of your IP. Your 2ch ID is only anonymous if 2ch can't tell what your IP is for some reason).
 * 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) more than the first 2 hours of code generation or by more than 11 hours across the entire day then it will be reheld in full. If a match is interrupted but for not enough to match either condition 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 2012, she must a) be female b) and have appeared in new animated material between the dates of 2011 July 01 - 2012 June 30.
 * Case a) is usually straightforward, but extends to cover non-humans (most commonly humanoids, androids, and animals) that are portrayed as female.
 * Case b) includes all TV broadcasts, internet broadcasts, OAVs / OADs (DVD bonus episodes count here) 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


 * No characters are to be pre-qualified for the preliminaries by an organisation committee this year. To balance this, the nomination period shall instead run for an entire month extra to cover the gap.
 * Characters require only one nomination to qualify for the preliminaries, to be made either on the date their series is up for nomination or on any of the following open nomination days.
 * People are free to nominate as many characters as they wish, but still require a code to do so legitimately.
 * To help the organisers, it is recommended that additional information (voice actor (if any), images and a description) of any lesser known characters being nominated to aid the verification process.

Preliminary Round Rules


 * All qualifying characters are split randomly into 16 first preliminary groups. Characters who finish in the top 12 of their first preliminary group (a total of 192 characters) advance directly to the first round of the tournament proper. Characters who finish between 13th and 42nd of their first preliminary group (a total of 480 characters) advance to the second preliminaries. All other characters are eliminated.
 * The characters in the second preliminaries are shuffled again and split into 6 groups. Characters who finish in the top 16 of their second preliminary group (a total of 96 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 16th 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. Likewise, in the event of a tie for 36th place in the first preliminaries, all tied characters proceed to the second preliminaries.
 * 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 36 and proceed in a single knockout format for four rounds (three characters to a round one or round two match, two to a round three or round four match). At this point the group winners will be shuffled into a final knockout section (two characters to a match from hereon) from which the winner is crowned the champion of Saimoe.
 * In the aim of expediency, three round one matches will be run at a time. Likewise, two round two matches will be run at the same time, and two round three matches at a time as well.
 * In the event of a tie for first place, all such tied characters proceed to the next round. If the grand final results in a tie, then both/all such tied characters are declared the winners of Saimoe 2012.
 * 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: 284 > 96 > 32 > 16 > 8 > 4 > 2

Tournament format is single-elimination. All contestants are initially split into 8 groups of 36 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: Three girls per match. Some matches have 4 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-drawn.

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.