Kei Shirogane


 * For the Log Horizon protagonist who was displayed in ISML as "Shirogane Kei", see Shiroe.

Kei Shirogane is a supporting character from Aka Akasaka's manga Kaguya-sama: Love is War. She is the white-haired younger sister of lead male Miyuki Shirogane, and is best known for serving as "eye candy", for being wanted by Kaguya to be her little sister, and for not being a brocon imouto like many anime sisters nowadays.

Kei gained notoriety in /r/anime brackets as a glaring example of a side character getting carried by the show's name recognition alone despite having little screentime, which is enough for her to beat main characters from relatively less-watched anime. She also holds a moderate presence in the International Saimoe League due to the Kaguya-sama voting faction, and has won an award there by winning the 2020 spring seasonal.

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r/anime


As a debutant from the Winter 2019 anime season, Kei secured the 6th seed in /r/anime's corresponding seasonal and reached the quarter-finals because of relatively "weaker" opposition, which includes the controversial quintuplet Ichika Nakano. She then massively lost to Ai Hayasaka who had 90.76% of the votes, and was later booted out of the yearly contest's first round by Yotsuba Nakano.

After the release of the anime's season 2 in 2020 Spring, Kei made her Best Girl debut as a #7 seed in the seventh edition, which was naturally met with complaints talking about recency and show bias. As a result, she was spite-voted out of round 3, losing by 40 votes against the evergreen Rikka Takanashi and becoming the highest seed to exit at that stage in the competition's history. Later that year, she made another highlight in Best Character 5 when she beat Hinata Kawamoto, a character who has significantly more development and screentime from the highly-rated but under-discussed 3-gatsu no Lion, by 19 votes in round 2.

In Best Girl 8, the #10 seed Kei finally made it past round 3 by defeating Tohru Honda, betraying the expectations of users who hoped that Tohru's recency bias would cause an upset win, since the final season of the Fruits Basket remake reached its definitive conclusion just days before the match. At the same time, the result further proved Kaguya-sama's iron grip in the contest and the stigma against shoujo-oriented series in the subreddit. Kei then lost to Attack on Titan's Krista Lenz afterwards, again becoming the first top 10-seeded girl to fall.

Seasonal Salt - Winter 2019 - seed 6
 * (59) Fizel @ Sword Art Online -- 2044 - 161
 * (38) Touka Miyashita @ Boogiepop -- 1846 - 573
 * (11) Ichika Nakano @ 5-toubun --  1732 - 1518
 * (3) Ai Hayasaka @ Kaguya-sama --  337 - 3311

Best Girl of 2019 - seed 13
 * (20) Yotsuba Nakano @ 5-toubun --  1096 - 1132

Best Girl 7 - seed 7
 * (506) Sayaka Sumimo @ Aho Girl -- 2405 - 567
 * (263) Miia @ Monster Musume -- 2734 - 1351
 * (135) Rikka Takanashi @ Chuunibyou --  2252 - 2292

Best Girl 8 - seed 10


 * (503) Moro @ Princess Mononoke -- 3918 - 495
 * (266) LLENN @ Sword Art Online --  3070 - 1315
 * (138) Tohru Honda @ Fruits Basket --  1959 - 1831
 * (55) Krista Lenz @ Attack on Titan --  1970 - 2021

Best Character 5 - seed 94


 * (419) Kagami Hiiragi @ Lucky Star --  819 - 315
 * (163) Hinata Kawamoto @ 3-gatsu no Lion --  538 - 520
 * (35) Saber @ Fate/stay night --  430 - 896

ISML
Continuing the trend of being carried by the show's popularity, the younger Shirogane sibling won ISML's seasonal diadem in the 2020 Spring contest as the top seed, defeating fellow cast member Miko Iino in the final match. This victory secured her an appearance in ISML 2021's preliminary rounds, and eventually, its regular season stage.

Kei started the regular season by defeating ISML powerhouse Rin Tohsaka, which set the tone for her performance that year where she was able to go toe-to-toe with some of the tournament's regulars. She's also notable for beating former playoffs contender Kurisu Makise twice. Kei survived until Split 3 where she was eliminated at 15th place in her group. In the consolations, Kei defeated Utaha and lost to Rin right after, finishing at 24th place - which is better than the likes of Nishimiya (21 wins), Kuroko (20), and Schwi (18) - despite having far less regular season wins herself (12).

Seasonal
ISML 2020 - Spring Seasonal


 * Elim. round (Prelim 6, Approval, Max 16:) 1730 (1st, Advanced)
 * Aqua 2: (16) Haru Nonaka @ Sing "Yesterday" for Me -- 3896 - 709
 * Aqua Gem: (8) Maria Campbell @ Hamefura -- 3168 - 1265
 * Topaz 1: (4) Kokkoro @ Priconne -- 2107 - 1494
 * Topaz 5: (2) Miko Iino @ Kaguya-sama -- 2858 - 2387

Main Tournament
Overall record as of ISML 2021:


 * Regular season: 12-23
 * Postseason: 1-1
 * Total: 13-24