(Sai)Moe is Serious Business

by eternal on October 16, 2008

 

Don’t we all know it? But wait! That picture up above! Could it be…is it from a tournament that isn’t being held on 2ch!?

So, I was scrolling through my bookmarks one day, thinking of where to go to kill a few minutes, and I noticed a link that I hadn’t clicked on in a while. “International Saimoe League”. Sound familiar? After the tiara battles concluded, ISML took a break until the end of September to begin the real tournament; thankfully, I remembered only a few days after it started. However, that was when it hit me.

Did anyone actually notice that they came back?

Okay, so we all know that the real SaiMoe – the one in which the winner will go down in history – is being held in Japan’s 2ch, and that the tournament is well underway. Anyone who frequents the blogosphere should have noticed this by now, and I would assume the members of other otaku communities have also been at least following the tournament, if not voting. After all, all of the information can be found around AnimeSuki, so there really isn’t any excuse for not knowing about any of this.

However, there’s another tournament running right now, with considerably less votes and coverage, that seems to be doing an astonishingly good job.

If you haven’t checked out ISML’s site yet, go there now (but come back here right after because I have more to say).

So, what did you see? Anything interesting? Personally, I found that the people behind ISML have done an excellent job setting everything up and running the tournament, even if there were more than a few errors and miscounts in the votes earlier on. No tournament is without flaw, of course, and a newcomer in a world dominated by Japan’s and even Korea’s tournament would naturally have a lot to compete with. However, if you overlook their mistakes here and there (because like I said, what kind of fan-run event doesn’t have mistakes?), you’ll probably see that they’re worth a fair bit more attention than they’re getting.

I guess you could say that I simply made this post to raise awareness…not that my posting about them will really get them any new voters. The point is, though, that ISML has done something that the otaku community has always needed. It’s an international moe tournament available in several languages, the site is well-designed and accessible to allow for easy browsing and voting (unlike these complex instructions), and they have a promo video. Yeah, you heard me. A promo video. How awesome is that?

At the moment, voting has resumed over at ISML, and this time the real tournament is beginning. Who will come out on top? I’m not sure, but if you believe like I do that moe truly is SRS BSNS, then you’ll keep in touch with our easy to access English tournament as well the one that every other aniblogger is talking about. Epic match descriptions FTW!

~ ETERNAL
つづく

{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

Kairu Ishimaru October 16, 2008 at 10:13 pm

Yes. Moe is SERIOUS business.

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CCY October 17, 2008 at 1:38 am

ISML looking intriguing, and really well-run. I wonder a bit about the security of the voting procedure (since I wasn’t too interested in trying to circumvent the system), but it looks like something that could use some more popularity.

Especially since I like how they do the write-ups, equally dramatic as mine. XD

I have to say though, the match-up procedure, although perhaps more fair, is complex as all hell. I guess I can vote just for the sake of voting for Kotomi, but I really have no idea at a glance what I’m effecting. XD

CCYs last blog post..Clash of the Ideals: Saimoe ‘08 [3GH-1] results and [3GH-2] preview

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M12 October 17, 2008 at 4:54 am

I actually don’t pay much attention to this. Why? My favourite characters (e.g. Konoe Nanami) doesn’t even appear on there at all. Instead, I think we had like Kyou’s sister or something. Fantastic! ^_^;

M12s last blog post..Halloween Storytelling Contest – Updates

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maglor October 17, 2008 at 9:34 am

Thank you for your words of support for ISML.

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Blowfish October 18, 2008 at 9:02 pm

Im not really that interested in voting for my fav. Characters.I even doubt theyll ever appear in such a tournament^^

Its a good thing that they make it avaiale for the whole world though. Theres no need to lock out all those anime fans that are eager to vote

Blowfishs last blog post..DOA EX Summer Beach Ayane

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ETERNAL October 19, 2008 at 3:12 pm

@ Kairu Ishimaru: Indeed. If it wasn’t, then we wouldn’t have tournaments like this, would we?

@ CCY: The write-ups are indeed dramatic. That’s probably the best part of the entire site ;P

@ M12: I suppose the less popular characters usually don’t appear, and the ones that do generally don’t stand a chance *coughShioricough*
It’s sad, but true.

@ maglor: You’re very welcome ^^

@ Blowfish: I agree, the fact that it’s international is one of the things that I like the most about ISML. No Enlgish speaker wants to wander through 2ch until they stumble upon the voting thread, only to be unable to vote in Japanese with epic Shift-JIS anyhow.

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