Nobara Kugisaki

Nobara Kugisaki is a character from Jujutsu Kaisen, a shonen manga series created by Gege Akutami. She is a practitioner of Jujutsu Sorcery, a mystical art that involves using spells imbued with cursed energy that is born from negative emotions such as envy and hate. Nobara's specialized technique uses a hammer, nails, and a straw doll as weapons, using the hammer to propel nails at high speeds, or using the doll as an effigy to inflict harm on her opponents similar to how voodoo dolls are popularly depicted.

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Contest profile
The manga was adapted into an anime series produced by MAPPA and first released in the Fall 2020 season, which became wildly popular thanks to the studio's reputation for delivering high-quality sakuga animation. In the process, Nobara became a popular character as well, and is commonly cited by online users as an example of a "strong", "independent", and "non-sexualized" female anime character (although the fan arts state otherwise).

Jujutsu Kaisen's popularity is shown in the r/anime subreddit where it became a blockbuster hit with very high upvote counts in the discussion threads. As a result, Nobara was voted as the winner of its Fall 2020 seasonal contest, surpassing even the first seeded favourite Tsukasa Yuzaki. The two later met again in the final match of the Best Girl of 2020 contest, but Nobara lost the rematch. The jujutsu sorcerer will be eligible for 2022's Best Girl 9.

On the other hand, Nobara sees little appeal among voters in the International Saimoe League, as she barely appeared in the 2020 Fall seasonal contest. In the following year, she was assigned to the Winter seasonal in 2021 because of her appearance in the anime's second cour during that time. Although she placed dead last in the group stage, she managed a single win by defeating Detective Conan's Ran Mouri in the final group round.

Seasonal & Exhibition
Seasonal Diadem: 2020 Fall
 * Elim. round (Approval, max 16): 1682 votes -- 21st/30th, Out

Seasonal League (Nova): 2021 Winter
 * Elim. round (Approval, max 18): - 886 votes -- 15th/30th, Advanced (Prelim 1)
 * Group C - 6th, CVPD: -1.967
 * Match 1: Kyouko Hori (Prelim 2) 1089 - 2881
 * Match 2: Ai Haibara (Prelim 3) 1434 - 2581
 * Match 3: Ai Ohto (Prelim 4) 1272 - 1421
 * Match 4: Mikasa Ackerman (Prelim 5) 1442 - 2011
 * Match 5: Ran Mouri (Prelim 6) 1957 - 1926

r/anime record
Seasonal Salt: 2020 Fall - seed 3
 * (62) Ritsu 498 - 48
 * (30) Kyouko Izanami 454 - 126
 * (14) Aya Arisugawa 598 - 190
 * (6) Maki Zenin 542 - 139
 * (2) Kasumi Miwa 488 - 281
 * (1) Tsukasa Tsukuyomi 818 - 777

Best Girl of 2020 - seed 2
 * (31) Mary Hunt 793 - 298
 * (15) Hina Amano 572 - 339
 * (10) Endorsi Jahad 824 - 586
 * (3) Miko Iino 656 - 583
 * (4) Tsukasa Tsukuyomi 778 - 930

Honours
Contest Wins: 3
 * 1) r/anime's Seasonal Salt: Fall 2020
 * 2) Personajes ficticios por los que tengo sentimientos reales TdW 2021
 * 3) Personajes de anime que me gustaron desde el primer segundo TdW 2022