Chinese Saimoe 2022 was the 7th edition of the eponymous tournament organized by Zhongmeng Tieba and the 10th Chinese Saimoe edition overall. The nominations for both male and female divisions began on June 03 and ended with the final match on August 09. The final results were formally announced on August 15, but the champions were already revealed in a Zhongmeng Tieba thread on August 14, albeit without the scores. The winners were Yukino Yukinoshita and Kirito.
Chinese Saimoe is divided into two concurrently running tournaments: male and female divisions.
Format[]
Nominations — Participation in this stage requires an account with either at least Anime Directory Tieba Level 9, or Zhongmeng Tieba Level 7.
Character must be human or humanoid
Character must appear in an official TV anime released before 2022 May 31 (TV, Film, OVA, Web)
Voters must nominate at least 3 to 10 characters per division
At least 72 characters with the most nominations qualify for Main Event. If multiple characters are tied for 72th place, they will all qualify together
(3) Characters from blacklisted shows: Thunderbolt Fantasy[note 2], and Heaven Official's Blessing[note 3]
Main Event
Round 1: 72 players, 8x9 groups.
Requires at least Anime Directory Tieba Level 9, or Zhongmeng Tieba Level 7.
Vote up to 5 characters per group
Top 4 from each group advance; characters tied for 4th advance together
Remaining characters will play in the repechage round where they are all grouped into a single match (vote 5 max). Top 8 advance. Last place tiebreaker is resolved by who gets the most votes first
Round 2: 40+ players, 4x10 groups.
Requires at least Anime Directory Tieba Level 10 or Zhongmeng Tieba Level 9, and must have at least 1000 posts or more
Rule change: Requires at least Zhongmeng Tieba Level 5 or Level 10 in any Tieba sub-forum, and account age must be older than 0.3 years (110 days)
Vote up to 4 characters per group
Top 6 from each group advance; characters tied for 6th advance together
Round 3: 24+ players, 8x3 groups.
Requires at least Anime Directory Tieba Level 11 or Zhongmeng Tieba Level 10, and must have at least 1000 posts or more
Rule change: Requires at least Zhongmeng Tieba Level 6 or Level 11 in any Tieba sub-forum, and account age must be older than 0.4 years (146 days)
Group draw: Characters are divided into 8 groups, named Heaven (天), Earth (地), Thunder (雷), Wind (风), Water (水), Fire (火), Mountain (山), and Lake (泽). Characters are then drawn into these groups in that order, based on highest votes -> lowest votes -> 2nd-highest votes -> 2nd-lowest votes, etc.
Vote up to 3 characters per group
Winner of each group advance to Elite Eight
Elite Eight
Requires at least Zhongmeng Tieba Level 6 or Level 11 in any Tieba sub-forum, and account age must be older than 0.4 years (146 days)
Single-elimination bracket
Bracket draw: "Heaven vs Mountain", "Thunder vs Water", "Earth vs Lake", "Wind vs Fire"
Semi-final losers will play against each other to decide 3rd place
Tiebreaker is based on who gets the most votes first
Voting policy[]
Voting is done by "palindrome voting", or in other words, reply to a voting thread on Tieba by making a separate post showing the name of the characters you want to vote.
Rules
Tieba votes must meet the criteria for valid vote identification
Tieba votes must follow [Character name@Series name]. Any typos, missing words, or adding symbols or emoticons to the reply will be regarded as invalid.
Only one vote per ID / IP address
Do not exceed the maximum limit for allowed votes
Do not directly reply to the original post; votes done that way will not count
Do not "wear small tails", or in other words, no auto-replies and attaching signatures. Write your votes only.
↑The user's former account, "AR蓝毒" (AR Blue Poison), was accidentally banned from Tieba in late July 2022. Both accounts use the character Blue Poison from Arknights as their profile picture
↑Thunderbolt Fantasy is a Japanese-Taiwanese puppet show. Despite being a form of animation, puppetry isn't widely accepted as a part of ACGN culture due to its niche popularity.
↑Heaven Official's Blessing was likely banned to respect the wishes of author Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (墨香铜臭), who has explicitly stated not to involve her works in saimoe tournaments due to their controversial history and to avoid bringing further negative publicity. Mo Xiang Tong Xiu is also known for writing Mo Dao Zu Shi (Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation), a very popular fantasy series featuring two male leads who are in love with each other.