Best Girl 7

Best Girl 7: Salt Art Online: Alkalinization was an /r/anime tournament hosted by moderator ShaKing807 and ran from June to July 2020. Voting and results were conducted through the AnimeBracket website.

The tournament saw the emergence of two very hyped heroines from rival romance shows: Kaguya Shinomiya from Kaguya-sama, and Mai Sakurajima from Bunny Girl Senpai. Both girls reached the final as many people expected, which ended with #1 seed Kaguya triumphing over #6 seed Mai, becoming the first manga character and top seeded contestant to win the competition. The third place was won by Ai Hayasaka, another Kaguya-sama girl, after she defeated Holo in a consolation match that was held on a different site.

The contest's subtitle references Sword Art Online: Alicization's influence on Asuna Yuuki's title-winning run in Best Girl 6, even though she barely appeared in its first season.

Rules & Tournament Format
All voting rounds begin and end at 18:00 Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4). (15:00 Pacific Daylight, 22:00 UTC, 06:00 Beijing)

Voting poilcy


 * You must register or login to a reddit account in order to vote.
 * Accounts must be at least 2 months old.
 * NO CROSSPOSTING / BRIGADING / LINKING the contest to other subreddits (whether this rule is actually enforced depends on the host).

Nomination


 * Lasts 2 days
 * Enter name, series, image URL address
 * Image links must come from MyAnimeList or Anilist, otherwise the nomination will be deleted
 * Females only. Sexless characters with feminine appearance are allowed, but males (traps) are not.
 * Characters who have made their animated debut in 2019 Summer or later are NOT allowed. (that's right, No Ara ara Shinobu, No  Iino.)
 * Best Girl champions      and Best Character winners   are also NOT allowed.
 * Check the entrants list first to prevent repeat nominations

Eliminations


 * Voters will choose the characters they want to participate in the main bracket stage.
 * All nominees are divided into 4-6 groups. (depending on nominees)
 * Each group lasts 1 day
 * Approval voting - Vote whoever you like; there is no limit.
 * 512 players with the highest adjusted votes will advance to the main bracket.
 * Series Limit: maximum of 5 characters per series.

Main Bracket


 * 512 players, single-elimination
 * Seeded by results in the previous stage
 * Rounds 1-6 are split into 4 groups per round; each group lasts one day
 * Quarter-finals and beyond will last one day each
 * A consolation match for third-place, if available, will be held in a separate website.
 * If a match is tied, the higher-seeded contestant wins.

Bracket
Since the website has limited default horizontal space, the first two rounds (512 and 256) are shown in simple tables, while rounds 3 and beyond will appear as brackets.