Anime Saimoe Tournament

The Anime Saimoe Tournament (アニメ最萌トーナメント Saimoe for short) was an online popularity contest. Held annually on the Japanese Internet discussion board 2channel between 2002 and 2014, fans vote for the most moe anime character of the year. In the mid 2000's, the tournament garnered growing attention from international fans, and inspired a number of similar contests. However, due to declining interest and increasingly restricting rules on 2channel, the Tournament was cancelled completely after the 2014 contest ended.

Rules and principles
Saimoe employs a single elimination tournament format to determine the most moe female character amongst thousands of contestants from anime newly aired or released during the previous year. Precise rules vary slightly each year. In 2010, the format of the tournament ran as follows:
 * 1) Initial nominations: 2channel users are prompted to submit candidates for entry. Eligible characters are any female characters that had appeared in a non-18+ anime series, OVA or anime movie broadcast, released between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010.
 * 2) Preliminary round I: The 2500-odd initial nominees are divided into 16 groups. The top 12 characters with the most votes in each group will advance to the main tournament directly. Characters ranked 13th to 39th are sent to preliminary round II. Voters are allowed up to 10 votes per group in this round.
 * 3) Preliminary round II: The 432 (27 characters x 16 groups) characters qualified for this round are again divided into 4 groups. The top 24 characters of each group will advance to the main tournament. Voters are allowed up to 12 votes per group in this round.Saimoe_Overview.png
 * 4) Main tournament: The 288 qualified characters (192 from preliminary round I + 96 from preliminary round II) are shuffled and grouped into 8 blocks of 36. There are a total of 6 rounds in the main tournament. The first round features two 4-way matches each day; the second round, two 3-way matches each day; and the third round, one 3-way match each day. After this point, only 8 contestants will remain. Each will then engage in one-on-one matches until the one remaining character becomes Saimoe champion.

In case of draw: anyone who gets a draw in a qualified position will advance to the next stage. In the first round of the main tournament, some matches in block A may contain groups of five to support the "extra" qualified character.

While the voting process may be the most visible feature of Saimoe, participants are strongly encouraged to contribute more than their votes. They should try and express their moe feelings towards their favorite characters, by exchanging comments and "supporting material" of all kinds.

Results
The final 3 rounds of the tournament features the Final Eight of the tournament.

Reception Outside Japan
Foreign votes have increased dramatically since 2005. However, due to a series of massive disruptions caused by foreign voters in 2006 and again in 2007, 2ch moderators decided to start banning foreign voters and proxy voters, along with many IP addresses that were sending in fake votes. As such in 2008 vote totals dropped by an average of 500 votes per round. In 2009, vote totals were down even more by about 300-400 votes. Despite this, foreign IPs and DSL providers continue to be permanently blocked. People who use Comcast, America Online, Time Warner, Adelphia, and/or other major cable internet service providers would often find themselves unable to receive vote codes or post in voting threads. The situation was remedied somewhat in the 2010 tournament, since 2ch moderators set up an auxiliary voting thread for those who are banned from 2ch.

Foreign reactions to the banning have been mixed. While some praise the 2ch moderators for finally doing something about all the "mess" that was being caused, others complain about them taking away one of the fundamental parts that makes the tournament interesting.

Articles

 * Moegirl Article (Chinese)
 * Namuwiki Article (Korean)