Fuuko (Clannad) defeats
Haruka (Minami-ke) 835-709

Ah. ‘Tis a shame, as I always tend to enjoy an upset and honestly, I never liked Fuuko much. Wasn’t a bad character by any regards – none of the Clannad girls are – but didn’t reach out and grab me. End of her arc was good for some emotional movement, I suppose.

But in any case, it seems the Banchou just couldn’t pull it off, and this was probably the “easiest” of the three Minami matches. Kana hasn’t a chance versus Kyou, and Chiaki vs. Tamaki will be a very steep uphill fight. I guess that depends on how good Kirino does in this next match.

Mikan (To-Love-Ru) defeats
Hiro (Hidamari) 811-590

Well, if you look retroactively at my incorrectly-dated preview (now correctly swapped into the 3-A post) I predicted the opposite result, Hidamari by a comfortable margin. It seems that despite all the rumors of TLR’s popularity heading off a cliff, their one idol left standing has mustered a decent following.

Either that or Hidamari is in serious trouble. Miyako practically is dead in the water versus Rena unless something big happens, so this could be the death knell for yet another slice-of-life show. These are just getting hammered in SaiMoe.

Backstory:
Runa beat Potemayo; perhaps not an important note but kind of a sad one, and one that is worth noting when I have nothing more to say about a character that is relatively on the weak side.

Kirino would appear to be much the same, beating second-tier characters from second-tier visual novels, but she actually racked up the highest vote total of round 2, with no major competition. I wonder why. Is Bamboo Blade the undercover contender in SaiMoe? Time will tell…

Prediction: I would expect this to be a closer match than round 2 suggests, but Kirino should still win easily.

Backstory:
So, about that Higurashi. After losing their loli nii~pah moe-moe squadron leader by one vote – no thanks to at least one stupid aniblogger who didn’t start watching Higurashi until about two weeks ago – the Higurashi fandom has bounced back in solid form. They put Rena and Hanyuu through with no problems, only losing Satoko to their arch-rival Hayate the Combat Butler.

It’s clear that they should and will take no chances from here on out. In this case, killing the head hasn’t doomed the body yet – and it should be expected that barring some more wild upsets, Higurashi should maintain a strong presence in the bracket finals.

This is especially so since San has had a relatively easy time so far, only clashing against lesser slice-of-life and shonen romance characters. Being from a category like that herself, this will be a true test for her, and likely one she can’t overcome.

Judgment:
I will be extremely shocked if Higurashi gets upset again in this round.