Saimoe

Saimoe (最萌, lit., "most moe") is a term usually referring to online anime character popularity contests, elimination-style tournaments where anime characters face each other in a series of voting polls to determine who is the best / cutest / most popular / whatever superlative you can think of. It was invented in 2002 on the Japanese textboard website 2channel for its eponymous Anime Saimoe Tournament. Today, the word is now primarily associated with International Saimoe League, a long-running contest originally spun off from 2channel's.

A related term named Best Girl usually means a person's favorite female character in an anime show; the term is used in r/anime's most popular event, the Best Girl Contest.

SaiGAR, the male counterpart to saimoe, originated from the /a/nime and manga board from the English-language imageboard 4chan. The term refers to male anime characters who fit the GAR ideal of masculinity. As a response to 2channel's saimoe, /a/ held their own saigar tournament in 2007. It spawned another sequel tournament in 2008, but unfortunately it was cancelled indefinitely after several controversies. With /a/'s state right now, it seems like the saigar tournament will likely never come back.

What is Moe?
The exact definition of moe has evolved over time, from being a term used to simply describe the cuteness of a certain fictional character to a term which envelops a certain degree of a person's affection to that fictional character, often inspired by his or her physical characteristics.

Anime Saimoe Tournament
In 2002, people in 2ch grew curious at what might be the result of unbiased poll of characters from all the anime series, as none of the polls up to that time could be called as such, thus started the Saimoe. It was supposed to be fair poll, open to anyone interested. The tenure of the poll changed in 2005 as people in Lyrical Nanoha Thread and Rozen Maiden Thread started rallying people within their thread to do whatever it takes for their characters to win. The 'war' between two threads led to increase in voting due to the thread members asking for votes in many different websites, which eventually made the international community aware of the event. It also made the Saimoe website offer English help to the non-Japanese voters.

Best Moe Tournament
International fame the Saimoe started to attract made Anizone.net be interested in hosting their own moe tournament for the Koreans in 2006, which lead to creation of Best Moe Tournament. In 2007, Best Moe Tournament experimented with Male division, and while this was supposed to be more of practice run for the Female division, the Male division became surprise success due to large number of female anime fans' participation. In hope to attract even more diverse group of voters, Best Moe Tournament Female Division in 2007 began offering full English version of the Tournament website, followed by versions in Japanese and Chinese. When it became known that group of Vietnamese voters may have been responsible for success of certain characters in Best Moe, its popularity increased even further.

Even more Globalization for some
Many unpredicted things happened in 2007 Best Moe Tournament's Female Division match. In order to further find out what else may happen, the Best Moe Staff decided to try a condense format of moe tournament, which lead to formation of Super Best Moe 2006-07, where only those who demonstrated success in previous Best Moe Tournaments would be allowed to enter. This experiment was surprising success with international crowd, most of them hoping for some sort of consolation for their character's defeat in Anime Saimoe Tournament. This success became the catalyst for creation of International Saimoe League. Today, while Anime Saimoe Tournament restricts international access for some reasons, Best Moe Tournament and International Saimoe League strives to make the event one where anime fans all over the world can express their opinions about various characters, and also one where people may get acquainted with new characters.

Chronological History
■ ~2001: Pre-Saimoe Era
 * It seems only a minority of the early saimoe tournaments dealt exclusively with anime characters. Other saimoe tournaments focused on visual novels, games, manga or music.

■ 2002~2005: Classic Era
 * The start of Anime Saimoe Tournament. Other minor tournaments were all held in Japan, including Gainax Saimoe, Tōhyō AST, and World Masterpiece Theater Saimoe.

■ 2006~2010: Saimoe-Boom Period
 * A lot of epigonic saimoe tournaments started all over the world: Best Moe Tournament and Super Best Moe, Yamibo Yuri Saimoe, Chica Anime All Stars, PTT Saimoe, loli battle, ISML, Animefans Saimoe Tournament, Baidu Harem Moe or TGBUS Chinese Saimoe.
 * Especially, A sharp increase of CN/TW saimoe contests happened in this period.
 * Shana's Early Dominance: Frequent regime change of factions + Lack of competitors.

■ 2010~2011: Transition Period
 * The first of the epigonic saimoe tournaments disappeared: loli battle (last edition 2008), TGBUS Chinese Saimoe (last edition 2009), Korean Super Best Moe (last edition 2010) and PTT Saimoe (last edition 2011).
 * Two multi-voter incidents: AST 2011 and KBM 2011. AST began to block foreign votes.
 * Dictatorship of K-ON! faction in 2010: ISML, KBM, AST, Aniparty Saimoe, PTT Saimoe.
 * Faction Replacement: The older factions such as Clannad, Haruhi, Rozen Maiden, Hayate, Nanoha Series, Lucky Star, Higurashi are all diminished in every saimoe contests.

■ 2012~2014: Schism Period


 * The schism between ISML and AST, AST and KBM lead to more competition for the top characters. Afterwards many diffrent saimoe communities disagreed on favorite characters and series.
 * KBM 2012 male division incident, AST 2014 Saki multi-voter controversy: Leading to dramatic decline of JP/KR saimoe contests + Discontinuance of AST & KBM.
 * The size of the vote gradually declined; in all consistent saimoe contests.
 * Mikoto Misaka's Supremacy: Loyal Toaru fanbase + No real opposition from other series mates.

■ 2015~2018: Saimoe-Millenium Period


 * The start of Best Girl Contest, Bilibili Moe, and ISML tournament of champions.
 * BGC is open to characters regardless of their last anime apperance. ISML banned previous 8 champions from main tournament.
 * BILM FGO incident + ISML 2017 conspiracy: Landslide vote became an issue in saimoe communities.
 * Tsundere-Betabore Transition: Mikoto Misaka, Shana, and Taiga Aisaka are all weakened this period. Instead, Megumi Katou and Rem substantially grow in power.

■ 2019~2021: Expansion Period


 * Enormous Facebook, Tieba, Instagram saimoe contests are appeared: Due to corona outbreak.
 * The burst of latin contests + Stagnant eastern contests.
 * Bilibili Moe's abolition + Birth of Seasonal Salt: Weakened chinese voters, Strengthened western voters.
 * Rem's Reign Declaration: The sole heroine who has all major contest wins. (include ToC)

■ 2022~: Stagnation Period


 * SNS minor Contests show drastic decline. The No. of them returned before 2019's.
 * TBD

External Articles

 * Moegirl Main Article (Chinese)
 * Baike Baidu Main Article (Chinese)
 * Namuwiki Main Article (Korean)
 * Articles about Saimoe Histories: ISML Forum, Namuwiki (KR)