Saimoe 2012

I'm back from my trip.  I'm waiting to get some pics from someone before I post a full story about it, so please be patient.  Suffice to say I had a great time and got everything I wanted.

Today's story (I know it's a long time in coming) is about Saimoe 2012.   Being gone for so long, I forgot about it, and it's currently in round 3.  Saimoe is a yearly popularity poll that takes place in August - November (I believe) on 2ch.  168 anime females from the past season compete in an all out battle for the right to be called the 'moest.'  Each match has a voting period where users are allowed to post their picks.  After the voting period the thread is locked and votes tallied.

A fight card.  "Moe: Serious Fucking Business."

In the years that I've been watching Saimoe go down, I've noticed a few things that annoy me.  Fans tend to eliminate popular characters early in hopes that their waifu will have an easier time in the finals.  This is a valid strategy, but I think people should focus more on the current match instead of plotting long-term.

For this season, it looks like there's a lot of Saki characters in the contest.  There's 34 characters from Saki!

If you'd like to vote in Saimoe, here's some information about it:
Generate your voting code here: http://ast2012.sakura.ne.jp/ (open now, voting starts at 1am JST)
Current voting thread: http://kohada.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/vote/1349647381/
How to vote: http://www.animesaimoe.org/votingguide.html
Yes, it's in Japanese.  Deal with it.  Oh, to see who is competing, check your friendly chan.  There's almost always a thread up with the current standings.

And now, some great moments in Saimoe history!

Fate's loss was devastating.  Damn that Suiseiseki! The voting results were 2306 - 2239.

Rika battled her destiny and won!  This was a closer match than I thought it'd be, at 1499 - 1521.