Bilibili Moe 2017 - Japanese Animation




 * "Bilibili Moe 2017" redirects here. For the donghua / Chinese anime character tournament that was held a few weeks before this event, see Bilibili Moe 2017 - Chinese Animation.

Bilibili Moe 2017 Animated Character Popularity Awards - Japanese Animation was the third edition of the Bilibili Moe tournament for Japanese anime characters. The rules of the tournament's first stages were announced on May 7, before officially starting on July 22, and concluding in August 26.

The 2017 edition originally served as a transitional year since the tournament's schedule was adjusted, going from being held in the autumn to summer. As a result, the eligibility period for anime was shortened to just 9 months. The main event's format returned to the 2015 version of 128 players and a 32-man 1v1 single elimination stage, with some adjustments.

The tournament was characterized by controversy, stemming from the 8/17 incident between Fate/Grand Order's Mash Kyrielight and Dragon Maid's Kanna Kamui. In there, a series of provocations from a Dragon Maid fan group caught the attention of many F/GO players who were otherwise unaware or disinterested about the character tournament. This provoked a massive vote rally from them, which caught Kanna's vote group off guard, and the match was successfully overturned in Mash's favor.

Afterwards, the tournament devolved into the so-called "Moon vs Earth War", which boosted the tournament's profile and pushed vote numbers into the six digits. It was fought between the F/GO faction and its allies (Moon) versus a coalition of anti-F/GO fanbases (Earth). And as one might expect from an online "war", it was filled with cyber-attacks, derogatory posts and remarks, accusations of cheating and organizer bias, and even featured a video of a fan burning a Saber figurine out of spite.[citation needed]

In the end, the Fate/Grand Order faction prevailed as Mash won the female tournament by beating Eromanga-sensei's Sagiri Izumi in the final. Fellow main character Romani Archaman joined her as the male champion when he defeated Sword Art Online's Kirito in the title match.

Overview
All text in this section is copied from the official website's Rules section and machine-translated using DeepL.

Tournament Format
Preliminary Rounds


 * Qualifiers: 2017 July 22 - August 04
 * Vote 8 from each group
 * Top 8 directly qualify to Main Event
 * 9th-12th advance to Resurrection Rounds
 * Resurrection Rounds: 2017 August 05-06
 * Vote 8 from each group
 * Top 8 qualify for Main Event
 * Remaining contestants are eliminated

Main Event


 * Top 128: 2017 August 08-15
 * Group stage, 128 groups of 4
 * 8 characters with the highest votes on the Qualifiers are randomly seeded on certain groups (A1, B4, C1, D4, E1, F4, G1, H4) - they will not meet each other until the final stage
 * Groups are decided by live draw on August 07
 * Vote 1 character per group
 * Top 1 from each group advance
 * Elimination Round: 2017 August 16-26
 * Single-elimination format
 * Top 32 and Top 16: Winners from the same group (e.g. A1, A2, A3, A4) will fight each other for a spot in the Elite Eight
 * For quarter-finals (Elite Eight), all contestants are re-drawn by lots into a single fixed bracket. Live draw in August 22
 * A third place match will be played between semi-final losers.
 * The Saimoe Wiki will display the entire elimination round as a single 32-man bracket for ease of viewing.

For this year, the vote numbers of all matches will be announced and updated every 30 minutes. Furthermore, the final 30 minutes (22:30-22:59) of every main event match will be displayed live.

Character eligibility
Anime Media
 * The competition is divided into Male and Female tournaments; results from one tournament do not affect the other.
 * Only characters who appeared in Japanese anime released between 2016 October 01 - 2017 June 30 (2016 Fall - 2017 Spring) are eligible for this tournament.
 * TV series
 * Films - theatrical release date in Japan
 * Blu-ray / DVD releases of films - release date must be outside Japan
 * New and independent OVAs, ONAs, and special episodes
 * For long-running seasons which started before 2016 October 01 and have 100+ episodes, only newly introduced characters who first appeared after the aformentioned date are eligible. (e.g. Gin and Yukiko Kudo from Detective Conan, Boruto Uzumaki from Boruto)
 * The following types of anime media are NOT ALLOWED:
 * OVAs, ONAs, and Special episodes of already established series (e.g. Himouto! Umaru-chan OVA)
 * Spin-offs
 * Remakes / reruns
 * Trailers and Promotional videos
 * Hentai (R18)
 * Characters who have already appeared in 2017's donghua character tournament are ineligible.
 * Previous champions (Saber, Rem, Lelouch, Yato) are ineligible

Character Identity
 * Human and humanoid characters only
 * Anthropomorphic characters are eligible if they exhibit more human characteristics than animalistic ones (e.g. Mercenary from Grimoire of Zero, a talking bipedal tiger furry man, is eligible).
 * If a character changes gender, they will be entered using their original gender  (e.g. Ougi Oshino from Monogatari will compete as a Female character)
 * For hermaphrodites / futanari, their gender will be determined based on which gender traits are stronger.
 * A character is considered the same character even if they are subject to: transformation, alteration, disguise, split, merging, amnesia, dream, resurrection, personality change, timeline shift, world line (e.g. Saber and her corrupted version Saber Alter from Fate/stay night)
 * Individuals who were created using reincarnation, cloning, etc. and uses a different name, image, identity, and personality are considered separate characters.
 * Character images will use their appearance under the anime they appeared in; if there is no appropriate image, their most recognizable appearance wil be used.

Voting policy
Reservations
 * To make a reservation:
 * Account must be registered on 2017 April 30 or earlier
 * Account level must be Lv2 or above, and is not banned
 * Account must be bound with a cellphone number and can receive SMS verification
 * Reserved accounts have the following privileges:
 * Fast-track access to Bilibili's official website and client, and a direct link to the voting page
 * Receive notifications about the tournament (e.g. voting day start, schedules, etc.)
 * Voting will not require SMS verification as long as the account has no abnormalities or risks
 * Only reserved accounts can participate in the character addendum process of both Chinese and Japanese animation tournaments
 * How to reserve?
 * Reservation channel will be open from 2017 June 9 (12:00) to June 18 (24:00). Times in Beijing (UTC+08:00). No late registrations.
 * If you cancel or change the bound cellphone number on an already reserved account, that account will lose the reservation privileges.

Voting process
 * Each matchday lasts on 00:00 - 23:00 Beijing Time (UTC+8).
 * Only full members registered on 2017 April 30 or earlier, are Lv2 or above, and have bound their account with a cellphone number are allowed to vote.
 * You must log in and verify your account using the SMS cellphone number before you can vote. Reserved accounts are exempt from this process.
 * Afterwards, you must receive voting qualifications for a given match day. The same ID can only (successfully) verify once per day.
 * You must vote within 60 minutes after receiving the voting qualification. Failure to do so will render the voting qualification invalid, and you will be unable to vote for that matchday anymore.
 * When the account is detected to have violations / warnings, the account may be locked and prohibited from voting. To unlock or appeal, please contact 233@bilibili.com

Tiebreakers
 * If a match ends in a tie, the last relevant contestant who received a vote will advance.
 * If the final round ends in a tie however, both competitors will be crowned champion (similar to AST 2014's final result).

Character Addendum
 * The character list will be published from 2017 July 02 (12:00) - July 15 (12:00), which lists all of the contestants in this tournament. Only reserved accounts can add missing eligible characters into the list.

True Love Votes
 * True Love Votes count as 2 votes for the chosen character. However, once you decide to use it, you cannot vote on other matches on a given matchday. (in other words, either vote on all matches, or only send 2 votes to your "true love".)
 * True Love Votes can only be used once per account throughout the entire event. Make it count.
 * For this year, an extra True Love Vote is given during the Qualifier rounds, valid on that stage only. In other words, an account can use their designated True Love Vote during Qualifiers, and then save their other True Love Vote for the Main Event.
 * The Saimoe Wiki will display True Love Votes in superscript beside the final score like this: 12,345 678.
 * Thus, a given result should display like this: 45,454 1000 - 67,890 4500

Video Support Submissions
 * Between 12:00 on July 2, 2017 and 24:00 on September 1, 2017, choose to participate in the [bilibili Moe 2017 Character Support - Japanese Animation Field] campaign when submitting your entry.
 * the types of submissions include, but are not limited to, homemade works associated with the participating characters and entries such as MAD-AMV, MMD, covers, otaku dance, ghost animal related, etc.
 * please tag the content of the submission with the name of the work and the tag of the character name corresponding to the content of the work.
 * to ensure that the video is associated with the character and the work, the character tag name and the work tag name should be based on the character list page of the event.
 * all submissions cannot be deleted or re-submitted or use past submissions that have been made public on bilibili (specifically, those that have been made public for more than 24 hours) to participate in this support video event, but submissions cannot contain watermarks from other platforms. If you find any misappropriation or re-submission, you can contact 233@bilibili.com to report the case.
 * the entry script can not carry discordant or violate relevant laws, regulations or policies, and can not carry content with commercial intent advertising patch.

Top 32 Bracket
[Requires log-in] Hover over the date to see each match's voting graph  If you are not logged in, click the (img) links instead.

Top 32 Bracket
[Requires log-in] Hover over the date to see each match's voting graph  If you are not logged in, click the (img) links instead.