The Anime Saimoe Tournament 2009, a tournament organized by 2ch annually to pick the finest, the most influential if not the most welcomed female character of the year 2009, has ended just a few weeks ago. The Saimoe Tournament is a tournament that is held annually by the fans for the fans and winner goes down in the hall of fame. Notable past winners include Kinomoto Sakura of Cardcaptor Sakura (2003), Suiseiseki of Rozen Maiden (2006) and Hiiragi Kagami of Lucky Star (2008). The winner of the Anime Saimoe Tournament 2009 is none other than the main female protagonist of Toradora!, Aisaka Taiga.Taiga fans rejoice! Kugimiya Rie fans rejoice! Tsundere fans rejoice! Lolicons rejoice!While it is undeniable that Taiga has her own bastion of fans and admirers, as I have not watched Toradora! yet, I have nothing good to say about Taiga's crowning as Saimoe. This is because I can see that her winning was a controversial one - she was up against Hirasawa Yui in the final. Taiga won with a slim 54 votes majority against Yui. Yui was the protagonist of K-On, 2009's most popular anime (according to AFA09). Therefore, it was literally impossible for her to lose at all. Besides that, other more popular K-On girls like Akiyama Mio and Nakano Azusa has been eliminated early on in the first round of the tournament. Worst still, Mio had to lose to someone who had no standings at all in the tournament. All I could say is that K-On and Kyoto Animation had a really bad year.sFrom what I can see, the K-On girls had their fans, but they also had their share of 'spoliers' who would be more than happy to see these saimoe heavyweights to be eliminated early on in the tournament so that their character would have a better chance of winning. No, I'm not saying that those who voted against Mio or Yui were cheating, but won't it be fairer if they hadn't cast a vote at all? It's pointless voting for those you don't like at all and give the opponent a vote.Nevertheless Taiga is the winners. Congratulations to her!The quarter-finals were dominated by the mahjong playing Saki girls. With four representatives at the top-eight, they were assured with at least one spot in the semi-finals. Two of them managed to secure a spot at the semi-finals, although both did made it to the finals. They were Haramura Nodoka and Fukuji Mihoko. I'll reserve my comments on them as I have not watched Saki yet, but I'm sure they're pretty popular to reach there.Enough of the winners. I'll talk about the others.Notably missing in the list of finals is the Clannad girls. Yes, can you believe it? Not even one of them managed to break through to the finals. In last year's Saimoe (2008), Furukawa Nagisa and Ibuki Fuko was in the top-eight so I thought that they might have a chance to go further. However when I look at the results, I could only say that they were unlucky to be paired with other more influential characters like those from Saki and K-On. In Group B, Fuko lost to Ikeda Kana of Saki in the second round. In group C, Kyou was eliminated by Touyoko Momoko of Saki in round three. Ryou didn't even got pass the first round while Nagisa was unfortunately paired with Azusa of K-On in the third round and was eliminated.One anime worth mentioning here is Hayate the Combat Butler. From the anime, Saginomiya Isumi, thanks to the fact that Mio has been eliminated early on (the two would have met in the second round if Mio hasn't been eliminated in the first round), has beaten the others from Group B to emerge as the representative of Group B to the top 8. I personally am a fan of Isumi so I am happy with her result. Besides that, the anime would have had another representative in the top 8 if Sanzenin Nagi hadn't been eliminated in the third round of Group H by another Saki girl. Another notable result is that Nishizawa Ayumu, the "hamster" in the anime, has beaten Sakagami Tomoyo of Clannad in the second round of Group E, although Ayumu wasn't able to beat her next opponent from Toradora!. I didn't really observed this year's Saimoe as I was away busy with my studies. Seeing my favourite characters like Isumi and Yui obtaining good result in the tournament is enough to make me happy.
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