ISML 2021/Exhibitions

All ISML 2021 matches under the "Exhibition" label, i.e. not belonging in main tournament or the seasonals.

Tournament of Champions
Same format as the last two editions:


 * Single round robin group stage. Top 2 with the most wins advance; if 2nd place is tied, then all tied characters advance as well
 * Range-voting final match

This was the final ToC appearance for Ruri Gokou and Houtarou Oreki, as they will be eligible for nomination in ISML 2022's main tournament.

Female
The top contenders for the 2021 female division were defending champion Chitanda, last year's runner-up Violet, and newcomer Yukino. Megumi Katou and Rem were put in the sidelines and finished mid-table, while Kotori, Shana, and Ruri continue to suck. The group stage was decided in round 6; with Yukino already advancing without a loss, Violet then defeated Chitanda to equalize both girls' records to 5-1. Since Violet only lost to Yukino earlier, this gives her an advantage coming into round 7 as she will have an easier opponent (Rem) compared to Chitanda, who has to face Yukino next. Violet won and Chitanda lost their respective round 7 matches, confirming Violet's place in the finals.

The final ended with Violet edging out a close win against Yukino, earning her 4th ISML award and denying a possible Oregairu couple double win in the process.

Group stage

Final round

Male
Coming from an undefeated ISML 2020 season, Miyuki Shirogane was finally handed his first loss in round 2 after he was defeated by Rimuru Tempest (boosted by Slime Isekai season 2), ending a 44-win streak dating back to his first ISML appearance in 2019's shipping tournament.

But again, Hachiman and Oreki continues their dynasty as they dominated the group stage for the 3rd straight time. The Oregairu MC secured qualification after round 5, while the Hyouka male lead followed suit in round 6 after he defeated Shirogane and built an unreachable 2-win lead over his closest competitors, making round 7 meaningless in terms of qualification results.

Although Oreki lost his final group match to 8man, he would get his revenge in the championship-deciding round against him and earn his second straight ToC title - the best way to end a ToC career. This also bodes well for Houtarou's potential chances of winning another Scepter next year.

Group stage

Final round

Virtual YouTubers
During the COVID-19 global pandemic, a new form of entertainment has risen in popularity on the internet: Virtual YouTubers. These streaming personalities mostly appear as anime girl avatars which are controlled and voiced real-time by real people. There's also male V-Tubers but they are far less popular than their female counterparts. Originating in Japan, the V-Tuber scene has seen the establishment of several groups, with Hololive and Nijisanji the most well-known examples. And you bet your motherfucking donations this tournament is going to hold a contest to decide who's the cutest most popular personality of them all.

A V-Tuber exhibition contest was proposed by a member through the official Discord server last year, but was rejected due to schedule constraints and some controversies happening at the time (like Coco and Haato being banned by Chinese fans for merely showing Taiwan as a separate country). The contest was eventually confirmed to be held this year.

Nomination Rules
The nominations started on September 28, 01:00 UTC, and ended on October 1, 08:00 UTC.

Rules and guidelines: (copy-pasted here)


 * 1) This nomination concerns VTubers (Virtual Youtubers): Streamers and/or video creators that uses an anime inspired avatar to represent themselves in their creative activities.
 * 2) We do allow VTubers from any platform on the internet (Youtube, Nicovideo, Bilibili, Twitch, ect...) and without any location restriction.
 * 3) For this nomination the usual "Series" data column is replaced by Agency. If one of your nomination is not linked to any agency and is independent, just let the box blank.
 * 4) The genders of characters do not matter.
 * 5) To promote diversity, we will only allow a maximum of characters per agency (Maximum of 10 slots for one agency). However your ballot is not limited, you can freely nominate only characters from the same agency.
 * 6) You may nominate up to 8 (different) characters.
 * 7) The ordering of characters in your nomination form does not matter and all nominations have equal weight.
 * 8) You may submit your nomination only once. You cannot submit a partial ballot and continue it later.
 * 9) Ballots that do not follow these rules will be discarded partially or entirely.
 * 10) The staff may ban some characters from entering if they’re more famous as a real streamer or if they’re mostly known outside of the VTuber scene (anime, video games…). We will communicate the list of characters we do not accept this way for transparency purposes.

Disclaimer
 * In view of the global orientation of ISML and the geographical diversity of voters, it is entirely possible that, there have been and there will be series and characters that may be controversial among several voter groups or in some regions.Moreover, due to the diversity of our members, ISML cannot and should not withdraw the legal contestants' right to participate only due to these disputes.Therefore, we are deeply sorry if you find a character or series you dislike in the process of reading the history of ISML or participating in the follow-up schedule of ISML. But you can express your attitude through your vote. ISML staff will guarantee your right to express your attitude towards the contestants through legal voting.

Qualified Characters
Like all nomination results for exhibitions, all vote numbers are undisclosed. (Source in ISML forum)

Directly Qualified:

Tiebreakers

Visual Novels
The ISML staff announced that there will be a second exhibition tournament consisting of female characters from visual novels and eroge games. For reference, the first visual novel exhibition was held in 2014, which was won by Mare S. Ephemeral from Hoshizoria no Memoria: Wish Upon a Shooting Star.

This tournament will use the standard exhibition format: 32-player single-elimination bracket.

Nomination Rules
The nominations started on October 24, 18:00 EST and ended on October 31. Original rules text derived from this forum post.

Series eligibility:


 * A visual novel is defined as "an interactive fiction video game genre, featuring text-based story with narrative style of literature and interactivity aided by static or sprite-based visuals, most often using anime-style art"
 * Series must appear in the Visual Novel Database
 * VNs tagged with Fan-fiction and/or Photographic Sprites are not allowed
 * VNs must not have any anime adaptations (i.e. its entry on VNDB has "Related anime" on it), or based on an anime

Character eligibility:


 * All characters must be Female and human / humanoid
 * No traps
 * No anthropomorphics (i.e. furries, etc.), animals or objects
 * No cameos -- character must be significant to the plot
 * Mare S. Ephemeral, the champion of ISML 2014's VN tournament, is ineligible for this edition.

Nomination rules:


 * 12 slots per ballot
 * Enter name and series
 * You can only nominate a maximum of 4 characters per series. If this limit is exceeded, all of the characters involved will be invalid.
 * Name order / language / spelling / aliases doesn't matter as long as it's clear who you are referring to
 * All nominations are equal
 * Invalid entries are discarded. However, any voter that blatantly violates the above rules will have their ballots invalidated (i.e. not count).
 * Series limit: Only 5 girls with the most nominations within a given series can qualify.

Qualified Characters
Like all nomination results for exhibitions, all vote numbers are undisclosed. (Source image)

Directly Qualified:

Couples / Ships
This is the 3rd edition of ISML's couples (CP) exhibition, following 2019 and 2020. Unlike previous tournaments, this edition permits all anime characters to compete, and also allows pairings between characters from different series. Still, expect pairs like Oreki x  Chitanda and  Hachiman x  Yukino to reach the finals, since they're the most popular characters in ISML at the moment.

Nomination Rules
The nominations started on November 22, 18:00 EST and ended on November 29. Original rules text derived from this forum post.

Eligibility criteria:


 * Japanese anime adaptations only.
 * Despite the name of the exhibition, gender and type of canonical relationship doesn't matter.
 * Both characters must be human or humanoid
 * No animals, objects, or anthropomorphics (i.e. furries, etc.)
 * Previous Winners are ineligible: 2019 winner  Miyuki Shirogane x Kaguya Shinomiya (Kaguya-sama), and 2020 winner   Nasa Yuzaki x Tsukasa Tsukuyomi  (Tonikaku Kawaii).
 * Note that these characters can still be nominated for other pairings (i.e. Kaguya x Ishigami).

Nomination rules:


 * 12 slots per ballot
 * Enter 2 names and series per entry
 * Pairs consisting of characters from different series are allowed. (e.g.  Naruto x Luffy)
 * Name order / Character order / language / spelling / aliases doesn't matter as long as it's clear who you are referring to
 * All nominations are equal
 * A character can be nominated for multiple pairs (e.g.  Ichigo x Rukia and   Ichigo x Orihime). Obviously the same pair can only be nominated once.

Requirements:


 * Must nominate at least 3 pairs
 * Must represent at least 3 different series
 * You can only nominate 3 pairs maximum per series. If this limit is exceeded, all of the pairs involved will be invalid.
 * Different-series pairs (like Naruto x Luffy) count as "0.5" towards the limit.
 * Invalid entries are discarded. However, any voter that violates the above requirements will have their nominations invalidated (i.e. not count).

Qualified Characters
Like all nomination results for exhibitions, all vote numbers are undisclosed.

Poster contest


This year's poster contest will replace the old divine circlet / crown exhibition, and will be assigned instead to the winners of the VTuber and Visual Novel exhibitions: Kizuna AI and  Shiroha Naruse

ISML Forum link: https://www.internationalsaimoe.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&p=435123#p435123 ISML Tieba link: https://tieba.baidu.com/p/7670378808

Rules
(directly copied from forum)

Submissions:
 * 1) As we are calling for << >> poster submissions, you MUST use the template - Links (Mega.nz): (vtuber winner, visual novel winner)
 * 2) Please save your poster as a PNG file with no interlace. (JPEG file is also acceptable.)
 * 3) You can only make ONE (1) poster for each of the contestants listed above.
 * 4) Your entry must appear in a post on the designated threads in either ISML forum or ISML Tieba in order to be considered valid. Designated staff members shall be responsible for collecting artworks from different platforms.
 * 5) Official Creative Staff members (e.g. Grish, Houreki, Hikari-chan) ARE allowed to participate. However, you can't submit posters AND judge at the same time.
 * 6) If you are not submitting directly through the forums, please provide us with a one-word alphanumeric username (if you don't have one).
 * 7) If you would like to add more posters or submit a revised version of your poster(s), please DELETE the old poster(s) from the original post and put in the links to the new poster(s) to your original post.
 * 8) To decide the winner, we will be hosting polls in Tieba and the forums, along with judge voting. The ratio shall be 40% judges, 30% Tieba, 30% forums. 
 * 9) We will announce the winning poster along with 1~3 "honourable mention" and 1~2 "popular choice" awards. The official poster for the eventual winner shall be the winning poster in this contest.
 * 10) The deadline for submissions is 2021 January 16, 23:59 UTC (Jan 16 - 19:00 New York, Jan 17 - 08:00 Beijing)

Submissions
Links: ISML forum, ISML Tieba Voting page, ISML Tieba Gallery
 * Eligibility for voting:
 * ISML Forum users: the account creation date must be 2022 January 1 or earlier, and can only vote in the corresponding voting thread of ISML Forum;
 * ISML Tieba users: ISML Tieba level must be level 7 or above, you can only vote in the corresponding voting thread of ISML Tieba.
 * There are 8 groups of posters, numbered as follows:
 * Champion of the 2021 season VTuber exhibition competition: Kizuna Ai (K);
 * Champion of the 2021 season of the exhibition competition of ISML Visual Novel: Shiroha Naruse (NS).
 * You can select up to 2 posters in each group.
 * Voting will last from 2022 February 02 - 09
 * You can comment or analyze the posters you like. You have the right to point out the problems in the posters, but please be careful to point the questions to the poster itself rather than its author; the comments will have the opportunity to be released together with the selection results.
 * Final score weight: 40% for the jury, 60% for ISML Tieba and ISML Forum.
 * The winning poster of each character will serve as their official honor poster.
 * Any votes resulting from the promotion of participating poster authors will be considered invalid.
 * If you find any mistakes, welcome to point them out, but please don't make any prejudice because of mistakes; we will contact the poster author to fix the poster.
 * If you want to revise the voting, please delete the original voting floor and vote again, please do not vote on the floor inside the building.
 * If you do not want your vote to be made public, please contact the members of the ISML Tieba Management Team through various means, and submit your post bar ID and voting target.

Kizuna

Assorted Matches
This is a list of all exhibition matches not belonging to the above sub-tournaments. Users with an account on the official ISML forum can suggest a match between any character of their choosing (but the staff preferably selects those involving female anime characters). The forum link for this year's exhibition suggestions thread can be found here.

For consolation matches, click here.

Aquamarine Gem: 2011-2020 Tiara + Scepter champions (except Angel and Slime) and notable ISML 2021 contenders

Topaz 1


 * Enterprise / Laffey (Azur Lane) >  Kongou / Shimakaze (KanColle), 1501 - 952
 * Aki Adagaki (Masamune's Revenge) > Satellizer L. Bridget (Freezing), 1832 - 519

Topaz 2


 * Light (Death Note) > Aizen (Bleach) > Takasugi (Gintama) >  Shougo (Psycho-Pass) (887 - 396 - 364 - 251)
 * Darkrai (Pokemon) vs Mettaton (Undertale), 1116 - 594

Topaz Gem


 * Sakura Haruno (Naruto)>  Orihime Inoue (Bleach)  1740 - 1537
 * Nami (One Piece) > Lucy Heartfilia (Fairy Tail) 1779 - 1599
 * Dera Mochimazzi (Tamako Market) > Matsuemon Tennouji (Demon Slayer) 1965 - 1399

Amethyst Gem


 * Akame (Akame ga Kill!) > Yuno Gasai (Future Diary) 3113 - 2968
 * Karen Kujou > Alice Cartelet (Kiniro Mosaic) 2559 - 2441
 * Sharo Kirima (Gochiusa) > Momiji Mochizuki (New Game) 3566 - 1814
 * Rikka Takarada > Akane Shinjou (SSSS.Gridman) 3246 - 2303
 * Moeshit Range voting: Aya Komichi (Kiniro Mosaic), Kurumi Ebisuzawa (School-Live),  Aoba Sukukaze (New Game),  Rize Tedeza (Gochiusa)
 * Score: Rize (33,748.3) > Aoba (32,388.6) > Kurumi E. (25,132) > Aya K. (21,731.4)

Ruby 2:


 * Koromo + Mikami > Saki + Ichihime (Saki + Mahjong Soul pairs), 808 - 760
 * Darkness + Eris (Konosuba) vs Hestia + Ais (Danmachi), 1083 - 739

Ruby 3:


 * Yuzu + Mei (Citrus) > Koito + Nanami (Bloom Into You), 911 - 717
 * Ishtar + Ereshkigal > Sitonai + Parvati (Fate/Grand Order bowl), 1121 - 520

Ruby 4:


 * Tomoyo Sakagami (Clannad) > Hinagiku Katsura (Hayate), 1073 - 816
 * Yui (Angel Beats) > Yoshiko Tsushima (LL Sunshine), 1304 - 674
 * Ayu Tsukimiya (Kanon) > Misuzu Kamio (Air), 802 - 641
 * Kotarou Tennouji (Rewrite) > Kyousuke Natsume (Little Busters), 742 - 707
 * Golden Darkness (To Love Ru) > Tsukiko Tsutsukakushi (Henneko), 969 - 868
 * Urara Shiraishi (Yamada-kun) > Akko Kagari (LWA), 1192 - 393
 * Akako Koizumi > Ginzo Nakamori (Magic Kaito / Detective Conan), 1046 - 499
 * Suiseiseki (Rozen Maiden) > Kirika Akatsuki (Symphogear), 864 - 544
 * Isuzu Sento (Amaburi) > Kyouko Kirigiri (Danganronpa), 1199 - 835
 * Kazuha Tooyama > Sonoko Suzuki (Detective Conan), 1184 - 438

Ruby 5:


 * Miuna Shiodome (Nagi no Asukara) > Kuon (Utawarerumono), 1141 - 532
 * Satania (Gabriel Dropout) > Michiru Matsuhima (Grisaia), 1328 - 500
 * Maria Takayama (Haganai) > Iris (Fire Force)[Note 1], 929 - 761
 * Shiki Ryougi (Kara no Kyoukai) > Vivio (Nanoha), 1259 - 520
 * Chloe von Einzbern (Fate/kaleid liner) > Ako Tamaki (Netoyome), 1017 - 938
 * Platelet Leader (Cells at Work) > Kotori Minami (Love Live SIP), 1204 - 1175
 * Mayuri Shiina (Steins;Gate) > Kyouko Sakura (Madoka), 1110 - 927
 * Tokai Teio > Rice Shower (Uma Musume), 856 - 797
 * Kosaki + Marika (Nisekoi) > Fumino + Mafuyu (Bokuben), 1143 - 1013
 * Dekomori (Chuunibyou) + Konata (Lucky Star) > Mayaka (Hyouka) + Yuzuru (Koe no Katachi), 1329 - 1053

[Note 1] Originally intended to be Iris from Konosuba, but the series was mislabeled Pokemon with picture depicting the character from Fire Force. Series name was changed to "Fire Force" to match with her picture and match theme (nuns).

Ruby Gem:


 * Iris (Konosuba) > Maria Takayama (Haganai), 2725 - 1058

Diamond 5:


 * Chihaya Kisaragi (Idolmaster) > Sheryl Nome (Macross Frontier), 1529 - 702
 * Keke + Kanon (Love Live Superstar) > Maki + Nico (Love Live SIP), 1542 - 1388

Diamond Gem:


 * Tsukasa Shishio (Dr. Stone) > Yujiro Hanma (Baki), 1317 - 590
 * Seiya Ryuuguuin (Cautious Hero) > Goblin Slayer (Goblin Slayer), 1544 - 1026
 * Koga (Inuyasha) > Legoshi (Beastars), 1210 - 1140
 * Kyouka Izumi (Bungo Stray Dogs) > Kohaku (Dr. Stone), 1206 - 1088
 * Claire + Polka > Kirara + Lamp (Kirara Fantasia), 1037 - 884
 * Kaoru Nishimi + Tsumugi Kotobuki > Sentarou Kawabuchi + Ritsu Tainaka (Apollo on the Slope + K-On!), 1197 - 1190

Playoffs Day 1
 * Range vote: Masuzu Natsukawa > Yue (Arifureta) > Hiyori Iki (18,037.7 - 16,722.4 - 13,608.1)
 * Latifa Fleuranza (Amaburi) > Princess Syalis (Sleepy Princess), 1852 - 1786
 * Natsumi (Date A Live) > Tatsumaki (One Punch Man), 2176 - 1664
 * Sumi Sakurasawa (Rental Girlfriend) > Rui Tachibana (Domestic Girlfriend), 1822 - 1580

Playoffs Day 4

Playoffs Day 5