Saimoe 2013

Anime Saimoe Tournament 2013 was the 12th edition of the annual tournament organized by users from the Japanese textboard 2channel, and held on its own voting website. It began with the nominations on 2013 June 09, and ended with the final match on November 19. This edition was the first to implement a repechage system, which was contested among girls who placed second on all matches against the group winners, giving them another chance to compete again. As a result of the repechage's addition, the finals bracket - then consisting of 8 girls - was expanded to 16.

Saimoe 2013 was plagued with several issues during the tournament, such as admins suddenly removing votes out of nowhere and implementing new rules meant to delete multi-votes and foreign voters, fostering doubt and anger which caused voters to protest and accuse the admins of conspiracy. The edition largely became a showdown between Madoka Magica - which became eligible because of the the recap movies, and Saki - which monopolized last year's tournament. It ended up becoming an encore of 2011's SaiMadoka as Saki became a victim of the admin's new policies, which resulted in the series being entirely eliminated before the finals bracket; thus, the tournament ended with four Madoka Magica members getting free rein over the bracket with three of them advancing into the semi-finals. Like 2011, they would've occupied the entire final four too if it weren't for a same-series match in the quarter-finals.

Madoka Kaname won the championship after defeating Sayaka Miki in the final, 277-191. The losing semi-finalists were Kyouko Sakura and the nameless protagonist from Humanity Has Declined. As a result of her victory, Madoka became the first contestant to win the J-Saimoe with a loss beforehand, since she initially lost in the second round behind Ayase Aragaki and ahead of lover Homura Akemi, but was given a second chance when Ayase won her group.

The defending champion was Toki Onjouji, who became eligible by virtue of appearing in the Saki Achiga-hen specials. She was sent to the repechages after losing in a highly controversial round 4 match to Saimoe 2011 champion Mami Tomoe, who was making her return after a 1-year absence, before finally being eliminated by Tsukiko Tsutsukakushi. On the other hand, Mami lost in the quarter-finals by fellow cast member and eventual runner-up Sayaka Miki.

This year was also the final edition covered by /a/nonymous' website, as interest among the imageboard's users have declined due to the homogeneity of results in recent tournaments.

Voting poilcy
Voting Rules and Etiquette


 * In all stages of the tournament, votes will only count if posted in an official 2ch thread with a code generated that day from the official code generator.
 * Votes must take the format <> to count. In addition, the names and titles must be in an officially recognised format (in Japanese, for one), so it is recommended to copy/paste entries from an official or trusted source.
 * Votes must be posted between 01:00:00 and 23:00:59 JST to count. Please note that this is strict and that even 23:01:00 is invalid. Also note that the first codes generate at 00:55:00, so don't get caught out by posting too early either.
 * Voting posts must contain some words of support to count. It is unclear as to how exactly this will be policed, but assume that in practice that posts consisting only of the code and votes will be discounted and that any post that makes any sort of effort to accompany these will be fine.
 * Multiple votes are forbidden (if two or more votes come from the same 2ch ID code then only the first will count), and all care and attention will be paid to minimise the impact of proxies.
 * Votes made with anonymous IDs will be invalid (2ch ID codes are encrypted forms of your IP. Your 2ch ID is only anonymous if 2ch can't tell what your IP is for some reason).
 * As votes cannot be changed once made, please vote carefully.
 * If a code is used multiple times with different IDs, then the first instance and only the first instance will count.
 * If a vote is made for too many characters allowed in any stage then the vote will not count for any of the characters.
 * If a match is interrupted (e.g. by downtime) more than the first 2 hours of code generation or by more than 11 hours across the entire day then it will be reheld in full. If a match is interrupted but for not enough to match either condition then the results will be upheld, even if the interrupted period includes the end of the match.
 * Objections to match results should be made to the operators within an hour of the match ending. All disputed votes will be resolved before the result becomes irreversible.
 * Negative promotion (e.g. "[someone/something] sucks") against characters, series, fanbases or fellow voters is strictly forbidden.
 * Feel free to campaign for participating characters in the voting threads as you see fit, so long as it doesn't violate the above.
 * Please do not post interim or final vote counts. If you see an interim vote count do not assume it to reflect the true count as it could well be misleading. Please wait for official results, which will be posted shortly after the end of any given contest.

Character eligibility
Qualification Rules


 * For a character to qualify for Saimoe 2013, she must a) be female b) and have appeared in new animated material between the dates of 2012 July 1 - 2013 June 30.
 * Case a) is usually straightforward, but extends to cover non-humans (most commonly humanoids, androids, and animals) that are portrayed as female.
 * Case b) includes all TV broadcasts, internet broadcasts, OAVs / OADs (DVD bonus episodes count here) and theatrical releases of movies by premiere date. It does not include fan-made productions.
 * Additionally, characters from productions rated 18+ do not qualify. This does not disqualify productions derived from other 18+ rated forms so long as the productions themselves are not rated 18+.

Duplicate Entries


 * Different 'forms' of the same character or otherwise effectively identical derived forms of a character only form one entry, even if they span multiple series. In particular, this means that a character can only enter the tournament once even if multiple series of their show aired in the timeframe.
 * Multiple personalties do not count as separate characters and as such all fall under the same entry, barring exceptional circumstances where it can be shown in the long term that they are in fact different people rather than simply multiple personalities.
 * Twins normally count as separate characters. However, if they are identical and it is impossible to tell them apart in terms of appearance and personality, then they qualify as one entry only.

Tournament format
Nomination Rules

Preliminary Round Rules
 * Characters require only one nomination to qualify for the preliminaries, to be made either on the date their series is up for nomination or on any of the following open nomination days.
 * People are free to nominate as many characters as they wish, but still require a code to do so legitimately.
 * To help the organisers, it is recommended that additional information (voice actor (if any), images and a description) of any lesser known characters being nominated to aid the verification process.
 * All qualifying characters are split randomly into 16 first preliminary groups. Characters who finish in the top 14 of their first preliminary group (a total of 224 characters) advance directly to the first round of the tournament proper. Characters who finish between 15th and 40th of their first preliminary group (a total of 416 characters) advance to the second preliminaries. All other characters are eliminated.
 * The characters in the second preliminaries are shuffled again and split into 4 groups. Characters who finish in the top 16 of their second preliminary group (a total of 64 characters) advance to the first round of the tournament proper. All other characters are eliminated.
 * In the event of a tie for 14th place in the first preliminaries, all tied characters proceed to the tournament proper. Similarly, in the event of a tie for 16th place in the second preliminaries, all tied characters proceed to the tournament proper. As a result of this, each tie adds to the total number of characters competing in the tournament proper. Likewise, in the event of a tie for 40th place in the first preliminaries, all tied characters proceed to the second preliminaries.
 * Voters may vote for up to 10 participants in a first preliminary match, and up to 12 participants in a second preliminary match. Using 'slots' to vote for the same character multiple times is not allowed.

Main Tournament Rules


 * All qualifying characters are shuffled randomly into eight groups of 36 and proceed in a single knockout format for four rounds (three characters to a round one or round two match, two to a round three or round four match). At this point the remaining characters are the Group Winners.
 * The characters who came 2nd in a match against a Group Winner (a total of 32) are then given a second attempt, and are shuffled into a new Losers Block. In the first round of the Losers Block, the 8 characters who lost against a Group Winner in round one each face one of the 8 round two losers. In the second round of the Losers Block, the winners of these matches each face one of the 8 round three losers. Finally, in the third round of the Losers Block, the winners of these matches each face one of the 8 round four losers. This results in 8 Secondary Winners.
 * At this point the Group Winners and Secondary Winners will be shuffled into a final knockout section (two characters to a match from hereon) from which the winner is crowned the champion of Saimoe.
 * In the aim of expediency, three round one matches will be run at a time. Likewise, two round two matches will be run at the same time, and two round three matches at a time as well.
 * In the event of a tie for first place, all such tied characters proceed to the next round. Similarly, in the case of a tie for 2nd place against a Group Winner, all tied characters proceed to the Losers Block. It is as yet unclear what happens to the Losers Block if the Group Winner ties for first place at any point, as this would reduce the number of entrants to part of the Losers Block (in particular a tie in round four). If the grand final results in a tie, then both/all such tied characters are declared the winners of Saimoe 2013.
 * Voters may only vote for one character per match. In early rounds where multiple matches run at the same time voters may vote for up to one character per match, but do not need to vote in every match for their vote to be valid.

Rounds 1-4
Players per round: 288 > 96 > 32 > 16 > Losers (min. 48) > 16 > 8 > 4 > 2

Tournament format is single-elimination. All contestants are initially split into 8 groups of 36 girls, which are composed of multiple matches. Vote only one girl per each match, regardless of number. If a match is tied for 1st place, all tied contestants will advance into the next round.If the final is tied, then both girls will be crowned champion.


 * Round 1: Three girls per match. Some matches have 4 girls instead to accommodate excess contestants.
 * Round 2: Three girls per match.
 * Rounds 3 and beyond will be 1v1 match. The winner of round 4 (group finals) are designated "Group Winners" and will advance to the sweet sixteen / finals bracket.
 * All contestants who placed 2nd in any matches against the eventual group winners (at least 32) will be re-drawn into a repechage / losers bracket (indicated by Rp.)
 * The stage will consist of 8 new groups to determine who will be the remaining contestants in the finals bracket.
 * If a match was tied for 2nd place, and the 1st placer was a group winner, then the 2nd placers will also advance into the repechages.
 * However, it's unknown what happens if a tie occurs in round 4, as such a scenario would likely result in one less round in a repechage group.

Group A
Round 1

Round 2

Group Finals

Group B
Round 1

Round 2

Group Finals

Group C
Round 1

Round 2

Group Finals

Group D
Round 1

Round 2

Group Finals

Group E
Round 1

Round 2

Group Finals

Group F
Round 1

Round 2

Group Finals

Group G
Round 1

Round 2

Group Finals

Group H
Round 1

Round 2

Group Finals

Repechage
Players per round: 32 > 24 > 16 > 8 (advance to final bracket)

All contestants who have placed 2nd in any match against the eventual group winners (at least 32) will be given a second chance to stay in the tournament through the repechage / losers bracket. If the 2nd placers were tied, then they will all qualify for the losers bracket as well.


 * Contestants are re-drawn into 8 groups of at least 4 members
 * King-of-the-Hill Single-elimination bracket
 * Losers of Rounds 1 and 2 will initially play each other. Winner of that match will play a girl who lost in Round 3. Whoever wins that, in turn, will face a Round 4 loser to determine who advances into the finals bracket.
 * "Tied girls (for 1st) all win" rule still applies for this stage.

Results Number-Letter before character name indicates Round lost and Group (ex. 1A - lost in Round 1 on Group A)

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Group 5

Group 6

Group 7

Group 8

Finals Bracket
Surviving contestants are re-drawn again in a fixed single-elimination 1v1 bracket to determine 2channel's Saimoe girl. Group winners (A, B, C...) will always face a repechage winner (L1, L2, L3...) in the first round.

Navigation

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