Yeah, let’s start this up again; a bit late to the party thanks to Anime Expo (which will also get posted on soon) but the Japanese Saimoe (as opposed to ISML) preliminaries have just begun, and … to be honest, it requires a bit more work to vote than ISML, so I’ve written up a few things to help newcomers get the voting ball rolling.

J-Saimoe is one of a couple ‘moe tournaments’ created with the intention of crowning the most moe (cute / adorable / popular / etc) girl in anime; in practice, it’s heaven for those who like both anime and statistical analysis, or those who love anime and debating about favorite characters. It’s a very competitive atmosphere and gives one the chance to really show their passion as a fan.

J-Saimoe itself is a bit interesting in that the preliminaries are about as fairly complicated as ISML’s, if not more. The approximately two thousand or so girls nominated in the intial rounds (which have already passed) will be narrowed down to a mere (if you can call it that) 386 through two sets of preliminaries.

In the initial set of 18 preliminaries, the top 12 girls in each prelims go straight through to the big dance in Saimoe, while 13th through 40th advance to the second prelims. Everyone else is chopped on the block.

The second prelims is the last-chance event, where the girls that barely made it through first prelims fight for the final spots in the tournament; the top 9 advance here to the main tournament.

Once we have the top 386, chaos ensues, but we’ll get to that later; until then, just know that J-Saimoe is an event with no second chances (well, just one, and it’s in the preliminaries), and so every fight should be fought to the fullest of your abilities.

And with that, let the curtain rise, a bit delayed, on round 4…

===

Saimoe synchroom:
http://synchroom.wikispaces.com/SaiMoe2009

List of characters in group 4:
http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?p=2491737#post2491737

Voting thread (current as of 10:40 PST):
http://changi.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/vote/1246984267/

===

How to vote:
1a) Go to the vote code generator to reserve your code. The fourth bullet should tell you what time it currently is in JST, and the very last line on the page should tell you when to come back to receive your code.

Visit the page again at that time (do the math between the two times to determine how many minutes you need to wait) to recieve your voting code, which will look something like this: [[VT23-ACUeRQsS-AZ]]

1b) Alternatively, a little Java application I wrote should be able to parse the vote code generator page and automatically remind you when it’s time to get your code. Do give that a shot if you wish.

2) Once you have your code, find the voting thread, which I usually do by perusing the Saimoe 2009 synchroom; it should be located under “2Channel Voting Information”. Go ahead and open that thread up.

3) Now to make your post! Your post should be in the format
[[code]]
<<character@series>>
<<character@series>>
…
<<character@series>>
some flavor text here to convince people you are not a bot

Naturally, the character and series name must be in Japanese; to help make the jump between languages, the AS people will also tend to translate the list of characters eligible for voting in each round, so check the AS thread to find who to vote for. For the fourth preliminary (July 8th in JST), the character list is here in the spoiler box labeled “group 4″.

For preliminaries, you get to pick up to 10 girls, so pick your favorite 10 using whatever criteria you select girls to vote for, and put those in your post. My vote for round 4 looks like this (with the English character names added for now):

[[code here]]
<<????????†????>> Satsuki Chifumi @ Maria†Holic
<<?????????????????>> Index @ Toaru Majutsu no Index
<<????????????????????????????!>> the meganekko who rant when the circuit breaker down @ K-ON!
<<???????>> Nagi @ Kannagi
<<?????Mission-E>> Togakushi Miyuki @ Mission-E
<<??????????!>> Kushieda Minori @ Toradora!
<<???????????FRONTIER>> Ranka lee @ Macross FRONTIER
<<????????????? ???>> Tsukamoto Tenma @School Rumble Sangakki
?????????????

A rather varied set and only a few favorites; most of my field consists of series I support (Mission-E), nostalgia picks (Tenma), and random meganekko. But for this group, it’ll do. I tend not to vote for ‘popular’ girls as they don’t need the help – at least in preliminaries. Even Isumi won her prelims! ^^

4) And … uh … now you vote.

Put your vote in that white box at the bottom of the thread, click the one button that’s there, and ta-da! Posted. Now just time to sit and pray for the results…

(If you’re still confused, check out Komari’s excellent tutorial from the AS thread, or just ask questions there as well. It’s a good place to hang out for Saimoe 2009.)

-CCY