Well, it’s true that I’ve dropped off the written scene of ISML for a long time, and that I’ve probably got many things to apologize for. For drifting away from the denizens of #ISML, for having to nuke my sub-blog Saimoe is very serious! from orbit (due to some really bad database infections), for not getting Shiori that one more win she needed to make it into the relegation tournament… humans are always filled with regrets.

Still, that’s not to say, for the silence and the sorrow, that I’ve fallen out of my somewhat romantic affair with the moe tournaments of today; although my return to college resulted in an unceremonious block on J-Saimoe voting (the infamous proxy issues), I still followed the results of it and ISML on a daily basis, having many days made upon seeing who had triumphed and who has fallen, in the latest battle of moe, popularity, and occasionally, image-board engineering.

Well, how else would you explain such an event as surprising as the seeming moe kingpin Mio Akiyama getting trashed by the BOSS Kana Minami, an upset of enough magnitude that it caused my co-writer kevo to have to eat several feet in backpedaling? (I had to immortalize it now that SIVS is sunk.) Certainly, it is amusing imagining the Minami sisters as some sort of assassins, who only rise to prominence as they drop big-name targets (as in Haruka’s upset of Rika Furude in 2008), only to fade into the background in the next round, as if they had never recieved such a vote surge.

And this is the sort of thing, this is the sort of imagination, that makes moe tournaments probably what they are today, so centric to people like me. We imagine the roles our favorite girls play, the battles they fight, as we face off against each other, feel the passion as we campaign for a girl in seven locations across the internet, and do little dances when we wake up and find that Taiga has put an exclamation point on the sinking of the seemingly invincible ships that were Saki and K-ON, capturing two out of three moe championships in one year.

That’s Saimoe, isn’t it? The the strangest courtship dance the world has seen.

(image: sakurato tsuguhi)
It’s some sort of ‘constructive warfare’. True, the girls go to direct combat, but when most people are speaking in positives and superlatives about their girl rather than trashing their enemy with hatred and venom, it’s a curious sort of battle. A strange politics, where you have some people voting on purely tactical means, others on purely emotional means – many positive, yet a few negative – and so you never really are sure whether a girl wins because she is more moe, more popular, less hated, or just because she’s an easier punching bag for Kyou to take out with the trash in the next round.

I suppose, you say, the same could go for real politics, except here, the candidates never do the speaking. Only the fans speak for the girls here. There’s no one impassioned speech that you’ll see someone deliver, that will win them a thousand votes. Saimoe competitions are small-scale enough that there’s probably not one source with enough reach to tip the balance more than a few votes each way, given that ‘moe’ is such a subjective thing that it’s hard to make an argument that will change the minds of the committed – at best, you can only convince the apathetic to vote.

But still, of course, the people write, and write, and campaign, and campaign, until their word-count-to-vote ratio is something in the thousands (if not infinite), because they know that there’s that possibility, just maybe that Ushio and Ritsu will tie and that any vote they convince people to make could be the deciding one, and how could they let their character slide into the black, unforgiving abyss that is J-Saimoe elimination –

And that’s when you know Saimoe’s got you.

(image: nyama)

It’s when you’re just finishing up a 1000-word blog post after writing a few hundred-word posts for four different forums, posting a link to Facebook and Twitter, and dropping lines in three IRC channels (one which contains people who could go over and punch you in the face in real life), and you realize that this is just one match and you still have to campaign and make sure Minori wins EIGHT more.

It’s when you refresh the ISML home page and see that Taiga’s bid for a triple crown just got violently ended, that instead of ragequitting, you mentally put a little memorial picture of Taiga on the wall (right next to the ones for Nagisa, Minori, and Shiori), put on your Nagato fanboy cap, and head back into the crowd to raise some love for your next-highest favorite. And after Nagato loses, you set all guns to Hinagiku, all the while trying to drum up votes for relegation favorite Reimu on the side. There’s no time for mourning, there’s voting to be done and battles to be won.

Yeah, it’s when you know that Saimoe has that strange appeal that every sport should have had – maybe does have – that it’s got you.

And that’s what Saimoe’s really about, right? Not just the girls, but the passion. That forging, that resolidfying of the connection between you and some abstract personality with some eyes and a funny hair color. It all sounds horrendously escapist, but it’s rather interesting, in that you get to learn a bit about your tastes, your beliefs, and your passions; nothing says ’self-exploratory’ like ‘1500-word essay on why people should vote for Shiori’. Since if you don’t come up with some good reasons why you believe that Shiori is one of the most inspiring characters ever to walk the 2D Earth, you’re going to be writing for a long time.

You could say, more precisely, that Saimoe is what you make it. Together, it’s what the fans make it.

(image: nyanta)
It’s the same as more ‘real’ sports. Some people just check in, browse the scores, muse about how their ‘home team’ (favorite girl, perhaps, here) won, and move on. Others buy all the team gear, get the season pass, go to every game, being the loudest one in the crowd. Sometimes, you have those in between, who tune in for only the exciting parts of the season, or just discuss it around the water cooler.

And so, I can probably imagine that I’m painting myself as someone who’s dressed in a Kanon uniform in some snow-filled stadium somewhere, hugging my plushies and chanting team chants. Whatever those may be. Maybe that’s true. Maybe that’s not. But certainly I wouldn’t have made that analogy if I hadn’t thought about Saimoe as I gazed down the barrel either the last or the second-to-last match of the Saimoe season, in ISML’s Revelation of the Heavenly Tiara.

And I wouldn’t have had been able to put out another 1200 words on how at least I believe that Saimoe has been a positive experience, if I hadn’t put myself into it, lose myself in it, waste my time in it.
I wouldn’t be able to explore my own heart and, just maybe, touch those of others if I hadn’t put to press so many words for Shiori, Chinami, Minori, and everyone else.
And maybe I wouldn’t have met some of the people I did, if I never decided to get into ISML in the first place.

Who knows. It’s not in a human’s ability to look into the past and see what would have happened if they did something different. It’s only their job to keep moving on into the future.

And so, after the curtains close and either Hinagiku or Shana is crowned, I’ll be waiting outside the gates of the ISML battlegrounds with a truck of vanilla ice cream, waiting, for when the first flowers of spring have begun to bloom, and the procession of passion begins again.

-CCY

(image: hane riu)
(Incidentally, here’s some curious numbers from my vote-tracking program, about who were the top 16 girls I voted for the most in ISML’s regular season:
54 Misaka Shiori
53 Furukawa Nagisa
52 Furude Hany?
52 Ichinose Kotomi
49 Furude Rika
49 Kinomoto Sakura
47 Mizunashi Akari
47 Patchouli Knowledge
46 Kawazoe Tamaki
45 Kamio Misuzu
45 Kasuga “?saka” Ayumu
43 Alice Carroll
43 Ry?g? Rena
41 Chii
40 Aisaka Taiga
37 Nagato Yuki
The bottom numbers are omitted as they show more of a lack of knowledge more than a particular dislike for most characters.)

Or maybe ‘wai-fufufufufufufu’.

Wai for waifus?

Having cleverly overshot the apex of my intentions, which was originally to follow the footsteps of Keima Katsuragi and his fantastically ridiculous (and automobile-themed) rants about the qualities of a certain visual novel archetype, I now find myself in the gravel trap of raving fandom, ending up with the ‘ridiculous’ but maybe not the ‘fantastic’, as somewhere between the 150m-to-corner sign that marked the beginning of the post, the 100m braking point of extremely personal, charged opinion, and the 50m ‘oh-shi-you-better-turn-now’ marker of really bad metaphors and analogies, I overshot my mark and found myself doing donuts in my own tl;dr piles of a strange form of narcissism.

Not because I love myself, but because I love these girls as though they were myself. (Thus my tendencies to stay away from lewd images of some of my higher-ups).

Already the split in my writing can be seen, between the fairly straightforward and heartfelt section and the ravingly, wildly insane section (much like certain twin pairs such as spoiler-and-spoiler, or spoiler-and-spoiler, or maybe even spoiler-and-spoiler), and I should probably devote my post to separating the two and picking one.

Or, perhaps, I could just end this three-post-series with all the flair of a horribly, horribly done harem anime and pick an entirely inconclusive ending, while spending all my excess time making fools out of those readers who made an attempt at guessing my top three waifu-alikes. (Don’t worry kevo and Nazari, I still love you both in the most non-otakusphere-shippable way possible.)

In any case, let’s move on to the back 9 in the golf-course of, which is to say the top 9 in the list of, which is to say the strongest (9) of the 18 waifu-alikes which I selected over the course of a few nights.

For those of you who remember where we were last time, we were busy pretending that the process of selecting a waifu can be done by narrowing down a list of qualities that reflect a different sort of taste than, say, pure moe, or pure character worship.

The LEXUS difference between a waifu, and a -waifu-.

We already have Liking, which indicates that there must be some level of familiarity beyond some sort of unnatural curiosity (stalkers never win, kids).
Emotion is the second letter and the second rule, in that, well… really, I think a person you want to spend your life with, should be one that at least can show some level of facial expression. This is mainly because of the next point…
X. ‘eXquisite’, because I think it’s more important to have a refined character than to have a smoking hot body and enough sexual tension to fill a high school of angsty teenagers.
Alternatively, X, the cross between two people that indicates a give-and-take relationship. The communication between a couple, the equal footing that both of them are on, their bond that lets them work together to achieve new heights.

A bit flowery, but sensible. More than any of the usual put-on-a-pedestal worshiping (hold on while I take the hypocritical oath).

(image: big wednesday)
Finally arriving after a lengthy journey at number 9, without even a thought of a Beatles or Touhou reference, we end up at Eriko Futami (#9), a curious case.

Eriko simultaneously breaks and upholds all the rules in the book, proving that the rulebook is something worthy of quantum physics. Maybe that is fitting for someone of Eriko’s intelligence.

Certainly one can imagine that Eriko has quite the head on her feet (as well as quite the hair, but then we delve into physical characteristics which are horrendously subjective and difficult to argue – not for lack of me trying), although the latter end of KimiKiss has proven that she definitely is no stranger to love, either.

It’s a good balance that makes her a strong character, and lends some credit to the mysterious intrigue that surrounds her for much of the early parts of the series. Certainly she is quite close to that ‘good’ definition of ’strange’, that unique kind of character which always leaves you intrigued and a bit confused … and, as Kazuki would have it, wanting more.

Perhaps I’m a bit soft for the mentally-playful type, not quite at the level where they’re just toying with you, but at the level where you know you can mess with them, and they’ll fight back, but it’s all just for fun. Eriko’s concept of ‘experiment’ as it is, is something that resonates. A sort of free spirit.

One may note that 1) I have two KimiKiss girls on my list and 2) Eriko is ranked higher than Yuumi, despite the fact that I probably expounded about 10000 less words for Eriko over the course of KimiKiss’s airing. One could say that was out of personal empathy with Yuumi’s cause. Curiously, one could almost say the choice of Eriko here is the more ‘rational’ decision, where Yuumi’s is the more ‘emotional’.

How fitting.

(image: izuno kenta)
I would have a number eight here in the list but I appear to have lost track of where she went … Isumi Saginomiya (#8) clocks in here, as a depressing reminder of just how young everyone in the Hayate no Gotoku cast is in proportion to their great merit (certainly it’s hard to pick a character from there I -dislike-).

Certainly Isumi acts more mature than any of us did at 14 – admittedly probably a low bar, but you have to respect how Isumi can occasionally be sane and serious and perfectly level-headed in the face of adversity.

This is usually because she has misrepresented or is ignoring the danger entirely while she goes to wander with her head in the clouds, but I digress.

Maybe I just have a bit of an affinity for those who dare to be as air-headed (the dojikko ‘air-headed’, not the brainless ‘air-headed) and clueless as I am – one could call this the U for Unison, not just in traits between both people, but in the ways in which the sort of ‘relationship teamwork’ has been defined above under ‘X’. This is why I find Isumi a strong character in many regards, and not altogether an entirely horrible choice when it comes to selection for this list.

However, in the end, if Isumi were ever to get hitched she’d probably end up getting lost between the front-door and the ride to the chapel, eventually turning up at some other wedding and becoming the property of some other completely arbitrary man (or woman, as you would have it).

And that will just cause unnecessary angst.

(image: genkai majika)
Speaking of unnecessary angst, Chihiro Shindou (#7) probably has more than her fair share, but one has to make necessary accolades for someone who has been through more than her share of tribulations. And I have a gut feeling, deep down somewhere, that Nagisa Furukawa (#6) can sympathize a lot with her as well.

One can imagine that these two, as shining beacons of the visual novel’s ability to create perfectly flawed yet still appealing characters, would get along quite well together. At least I could.

Well, I at least can draw parallels between the two, to the point where you can picture Chihiro as a bit of an amplified version of Nagisa. Both have their own physical problems, which perhaps are less comparable, but you can see that spark of inner strength inside both of them, beyond that adorably shy exterior, a will that is unbreakable, and that’s something that I definitely treasure.

The parallels begin to fade somewhere after the 13th hour, naturally; Chihiro’s strength seems something that is slowly forged due to many strong relationships in her life, while Nagisa never seems to falter even in the worst of times. Although you can’t fault Nagisa’s family either. Either girl here has the full package, people-wise.

In the end these girls both are fantastic examples of strong characters both on the outside (visually, and personality-wise, one could say), and the inside (in terms of how they deal with adversity, their relations with people and the world, etc), and it becomes very hard to beat that. Nagisa gets the nod mainly because I am an unexciting person and feel that life is a bit slower with her, picturing the contrasts between the almost slice-of-life-like Clannad and the dramatic ef.

Chihiro is a great girl, but all the work you’ll have to put into a relationship with her will nearly break you at times. Perhaps a merit in its own (ye old ‘going through thick and thin’ clause) … but not for me.

(Also, if you ever let her oversleep, you are -screwed-. Although some might like that sort of moe-like aspect, nurturing Chihiro in a very moe-like relationship position back to full health.)

If you genderswap me and palleteswap my hair to pink, you get a certain magical senpai.

(image: syokomo-taiman)
You also get Miyuki Takara (#5), which is why she’s number 5 on the list. Birds of a feather, one calls it.

(Granted, you’d have to add a touch of Hiyori in order to get a perfect copy, but really, when you get to that level, it goes beyond coincidentally awesome and into just peculiar.)

One may be amused at how the descriptions are becoming shorter and shorter the closer to number one we get; it may be because of the wildly variant amount of detail each character gets in each anime, which I have ignored blissfully in my spontaneous ranking.

Certainly I know there are at least ten of you in the crowd taking offense to how I just placed Miyuki, with like 5 minutes of exposition, ahead of Nagisa who had approximately 5 -hours- of exposition (probably more, actually).

And … well … what can I say? Rankings aren’t perfect. It doesn’t help that it’s easier to explain why I dislike a character (often on some more objective level), rather than why I really like one (when it comes down to more of an indescribable feeling, as I’m sure you all are familiar with).

Certainly it’s impossible to compare all these characters on a flat scale, as mentioned in Nagisa v. Chihiro. It depends on what one is looking for. An exciting, dramatic relationship? A sex romp? Something else? I personally tilt toward the calm and the low-key, myself. I know I’m not cut out to be starring in a visual novel anytime soon.

This reason precisely is why, despite the fact that I’ve probably spent more time writing this post than watching Aria, Akari Mizunashi (#4) is number four.

(image: hyper heiki)
Surely any of you that have been captured by the serene aura of Aria need no explaining why. Even I, who merely drifts along the outer currents, admiring the beautiful scenery and character design, feel a bit soothed by the relaxation waves of Aria and its girls.

As a result I’m finding it increasingly difficult to paint the cast of Aria (at least as I know them), in any way, in any sort of bad light whatsoever. Its power is incredible.

Carrying that sort of power day to day, as someone like Akari does, is something that I only wish I could be able to do. Perhaps I try. But it will take me many years before I can be as radiantly positive and easy-going as Akari, and that’s something I respect very much. Such is why I think being around someone with such a mindset, is such a good idea. I only would hope that I could contribute the same.

For those of you playing The Waifu Guessing Game along at home, as we have reached the top three on the list, you may now take your tickets out of your pocket … and promptly tear them up.

Ladies and gentlemen, number three, Hayate Ayasaki (#3).

Of course you probably would not put it past me to put something ridiculous on the list here, knowing how well Endless Eight has taught me to troll, but do recall that I never explicitly mentioned (well, I hope I didn’t) that waifu material has to be female.

And certainly I’ve made no effort to hide my respect for Hayate as a man, a woman, and everything in between in his adventures as a butler, frequently quipping that he’s probably “the second or third best girl in Hayate no Gotoku”.

It should be no contest that his profession lends him that aura of ‘manliness’, not that type of manliness like Cho-Marisa disturbingly-muscular manliness, but rather, the chivalry sort of manliness that makes women like me swoon.

Although certainly Hayate’s physical prowess appears to be quite unmatched.

What probably is the most fantastic, and the most sexuality-breaking, about Hayate, is how he functions well as a member of both genders, almost as if there was some sort of binary switch within him that could be activated with the addition or subtraction of nekomimi and meidofuku.

Not only can he be the most upstanding, moralistic, kind-hearted man around, he can also be a stomach-wrenchingly cute, moedorable girl. So take your pick, I guess.

Hayate is the ultimate handyman, able to fix anything, even his own gender. Respect him as a man, adore him as a girl, be gay for him as an aniblogger.

Moving on, you may recall Chekhov’s Word from earlier in the post, that of the LEXUS analogy. We’ve got the LEXU. What about the S? What do you think that stands for?

Well? Any guesses?

Actually, it’s not Shiori Misaka (#2).

It’s Strength, something that Shiori and many of the girls leading this list have. That inner strength that makes them more than cardboard props (with really pretty designs), easily blown over in the wind. That contributes to all the other letters in the LEXUS, that makes them someone who can work with people, fight through adversity, everything.

Incidentally, if you’re actually wondering why Shiori is ranked this high, I should probably refer you to this post from _ETERNAL which will refer you back to a post from me which will probably still refer back to a pile of at least 2 or 3 posts extolling why I’ve gone off the deep end for the shawl-wearing, vanilla-ice-cream, sad-girl-in-snowing wonder that is Shiori.

It’s probably one of the more exaggerated aspect of my anime fandom, but I do feel that there are certain things that I should stand by, and Shiori happens to be one of them, that mysterious magical mix of moe, mystery, and inner strength that’s captivated me for explicable and inexplicable reasons.

Certainly, “Shiori guy” is a more interesting title than “glasses girl guy” or “harem anime guy”. Or “senpai guy”.

But this leaves just one, doesn’t it…

If I were on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire (Moellionaire, more like), I couldn’t say this is my final answer. Nor could I measure on any scale whether this choice is significantly higher (or even much more than equal to) than the other 17 on the list (ok, maybe I can say the top 8 or so are definitely in a higher echelon).

And I’m still wondering, after 2500 words (in -this- post!) whether I’ve done much of a good job of explaining criteria that may be sensible for waifu material. Or whether I’ve just launched on a rant of either entertaining, epic, or encreidbly long (sp) length.

But I don’t wonder, why I like Chinami Ebihara (#1).

-CCY

A few months ago, Mio Akiyama of K-ON! fame was voted Most Desirable Wife (in terms of 2D) by readers / users of Recochoku, tailed by Hinagiku Katsura of Hayate no Gotoku!, Taiga Aisaka of Toradora!, and many other girls that hailed from big-name, recent (if not current) anime.

Aside from noting the fact that, clearly, exclamation marks make anime girls more appealing wives, sometimes, one has to think:

That kind of girl, isn’t the kind you would call a ‘wife’ at all!

Let me share my experience from the world of the visual novel, of the harem anime, of the obsessive. Let me teach you about,

The Passionate Pursuit of Perfection in a Waifu LEXUS

Of course, I’ve had many favorites over the years as well. I know my childhood, growing up with crushes on bimbos from shonen shows and empowered women from shoujo. One can forgive those sorts of mistakes of youth, sometimes even the ones that continue until adulthood. The fixations that one always finds slightly strange but can never pull away from, such as (#18) Hanyuu Furude –

Excuse me, I may have made a bit of a slip there.

(official art)
But indeed is it just that gut feeling that can drive one to waifu classification? That way you get stunned by certain girls in the manner that a character in a 2D fighter is stunned after having their shield broken.

Unfortunately, a crush – (#17) Hitagi Senjougahara would call it a fascination – does not a relationship make. Certainly, it’s a far too serious lesson that far too many otaku-alikes make in real life.

And that’s why the L stands for Liking!

Of course ‘liking’ is such a vague word; how does it differ from a crush or a fascination or an obsession? I like anime. I like cheese. Do I like (#16) Satsuki Yumizuka?

After a lot of soul-searching and game-playing I found out I only ever pretended to like Sacchin for her lack of a route and her Another Arc Drive versus Shiki in Melty Blood; indeed, it was the curiosity that led to the crush which led to the misinterpreted feelings.

Naturally, I talk about these feelings like they have even the slightest of meanings in real life, but of course this is just the difference between, say, punching someone every time they say ‘Isn’t it sad, Sacchin’, and laughing and ending with a heavy sigh.

It’s probably curiosity that is so often misinterpreted by anime fans as something resembling ‘liking’; this is almost natural. Things we don’t understand are exciting. Confusing. Scary. Intriguing. Maybe all at once.

Certainly this is something that occasionally you may want a wife to be but in the end you just can’t tell which part of your feelings are real, and which are fake, when your target someone who you know nothing about and only observe from behind telephone poles.

(art by Newhonpo)
Speaking of real and fake, that’s an argument in itself for humanoid acronym substance (#15) Yuki Nagato, the perennial favorite for Haruhi fans the world round and arguably one of the most successful silent-type characters ever (in terms of fanbase). Given that she’s the one intersection between my list and Recochoku’s, it can be seen that her popularity is enormous.

Of course, whether one wants to marry someone who is massively famous is up to personal taste; it has been proven time and time again that my tastes lean against things that are cool and popular, but this of course boils down to a pretentious slant of mine.

Nevertheless, the fall from grace, so to speak, of Nagato, is not due to that but due to the letter E: Emotion.

“But CCY, Nagato’s fantastic!” you say. “She’s cool-headed and she’s smart and she’s unbelivably hax and you named your blog partially after the glasses attraction that you gained to girls like her!”

Perhaps you may be right on at least one count there. Nagato is the world’s smoothest criminal (one must agree that Dissapearance Nagato is so moe-inducing it’s criminal), can probably beat Deep Blue in a game of chess and Tiger Woods in a game of golf, and just for kicks, is pretty good at altering the fabric of space and time. Always a plus in my book.

But when it comes to waifu material, Nagato and practically every other girl in the silent-girl archetype can be considered pretty close to first on the chopping block. You think that stoic demeanor is cool now, but when you’re having dinner, out shopping, or in bed (stifle your nosebleed, sirs) struggling to make the slightly semblance of conversation, wouldn’t you want someone who can string together more than two syllables at a time?

Naturally, the argument for silent girls is very similar to the tsundere archetype; if you hammer at them enough, eventually they will open up and the floodwaters of blushing and talking and moe and shiny rainbowy wonderfulness will rush out, and verily it will be glorious.

I call nonsense. If you’re getting into the waifu business with someone with the intent to change them into someone that they’re not already, you’re approaching it entirely the wrong way. Find someone that you like the way they are.

So, until I get a more solid stance on Dissapearance Nagato, let’s move on.

(art by Shaa)
One might imagine that the concept of ‘range’ also falls under this umbrella of the word ‘emotion’. As boring as it is to have someone who is stoic all the time, equally such, someone who is gushingly, gushingly sappy all the time, can be painful.

We’re all hopeless romantics here, and I know it’s hypocritical to say this in a waifu post, but … just a little realism is nice sometimes?

Haruka Nogizaka (#14) may have a word edgewise in here one way or the other; naturally, the big-breasted soft-spoken popular anime-loving rich girl is an archetype that you will find -very difficult- to match in real life. However, such flaws in her character are made up by admittedly subjective judgments on not just her character, but that of her match, Yuuto Ayase (unranked).

Really, the two of them are such an adorable fit that it’s hard to not be slightly envious of Yuuto and his noble yet undeniably realistic position as a man who has a chance at scoring a big-breasted soft-spoken etc etc etc, which is why Haruka trips the waifu meter here.

Still, Yuuto’s done a good job here. I’ll defer to him. I feel that’s fair.

But rather, perhaps the stronger case against Haruka, and especially, Yuumi Hoshino (#13) is a different kind of realism, perhaps, emotional realism.

I don’t question that Haruka and Yuumi have feelings for their respective men. And while Haruka just wanders around in that baneful land where shonen romances go to die – failure-to-confess purgatory (even if they are essentially a couple at that point) – Yuumi’s situation is even more dire, and far-fetched.

In a sense, Yuumi is so close, yet so far from the heart of a person like me.

Naturally, I sympathize with her shy personality and intensely strong (and adorable) crush on Kouichi; certainly it should be the case that many an anime fan be in exactly her situation. And so, it becomes easy to root for someone like her.

(art by kishida-shiki)
But here (and indeed in KimiKiss as well), I can’t help but rule against her. Her emotions are pure but her viewpoint is horribly, horribly stuck up in the clouds. The classical romantic fallacy of desiring a goal, but not knowing what to do after accomplishing it.

It’s a marriage-breaker. Focusing on only admiring the other person, putting them on a pedestal without bridging the gap between the two, is foolish.

You could say that “X” in LEXUS is not actually a letter, but a X, meant to be put between the names of two people who are destined to be together, showing their unison as one person. Not one worshiping the other, but two people, working together, bonding together.

Alternatively, I originally ruled it “eXquisite”, which is to say, just like with Reimu and her cups of tea, I prefer a more refined taste. Which is to say I’m a pretentious arse and don’t want to admit drooling over moeblobs.

Noe Isurugi (#12) is not a moeblob. Nor is she a case one would not file under ‘exquisite’. Certainly her tenuous grip on reality, in a way that if her name was prefaced by “The Melancholy Of” it would be totally believable, makes Noe a very complex and dynamic character.

Just like in True Tears, you could say she is out of place here, both in terms of writing structure and waifu list. Probably she is the first case of subjectivity in a list like this, where even though I lay out these guidelines, a “How to Be a Waifu for Dummies”, you can have someone who fails the ‘Liking’ test hard still rank all the way up here.

Noe is interesting. I can’t place the pin on her. She’s a different kind of interesting than Satsuki, that kind of person I feel that even if I knew for a million years I wouldn’t understand. And that’s why, as digiboy attested, it’s something not worth pursuing, myself.

(official art)
Moving back onto the topic slowly, Misaki Yamamoto (#11) is another girl who breaks all the rules in the list and yet still ends up one higher. It must be the lollipops.

I don’t know much about her other than her relatively level-headedness (something that is admired but something that shouldn’t sell the Brooklyn Bridge).

And certainly she is not an ‘exquisite’ taste in my sense, which believes that there’s a certain level of physical attraction that becomes too much for waifu material – the point where you may be focusing on the wrong assets, say, of this person’s character.

Still, in some senses, I am a man. And so Misaki is found to be a very intriguing personality. As are many of the Hatsukoi girls.

Otoha Kagura (#10) is yet again other opportunity for you to throw tomatoes at my head for being 1) inconsistent and 2) pretentious by naming random girls from random shows everyone thought sucked.

Certainly Otoha doesn’t seem like a 10 nor a number 10 when you look at her; she ends up somewhere on the list by sheer force of ‘genki girl’, a trait I feel would be exceptionally worthwhile in waifu material land. Certainly as you becoming an aging, lifeless husk of a salaryman, that never-ending smile and bright demeanor of a genki girl becomes exceptionally valuable, right?

It seems as such that smile will never change, anyway, and I must also admit that the seventh episode of H2O with her touching parting (amidst all the chaos) was what put her over the top of other girls of her caliber and ilk, especially her prototype Asa Shigure.

(art by Sayori)
Well, we’re halfway there and running up on 2,000 words fast, and what I’ve learned is that for some reason, raw emotional ranking of the girls is not matching the numerical ranking at all. For instance, I’ve expounded about 10,000 more words on KimiKiss than H2O, as far as I recall.

Perhaps that’s a tell to how rationally I -attempt- to approach such a thing as waifu selection; a reflection of my serious business roots? The mark of trying to pick a intelligent choice for such a ‘lasting’ thing as a waifu, rather than going by seat-of-the-pants gut-shot moe feeling? Time will tell.

Until then, stretch, get a cup of water, talk to your neighbors for a bit. We’ll reconvene this Waifu 101 class in a week or so.

-CCY

Heh. Waifus. Of course, the deliberate misspelling of the word only adds to the confusion, seen by ‘ordinary’ readers who come across a post like that.

Obviously it’s derogatory. An intentional corruption into pseudo-Japanese, to further enhance the obsessive nature of the anime fanboy who will shun the real world in favor of a two-dimensional girl with personality traits that happen to align with their own.

So what is it with the nature of the anime fanboy? The criticism that they place upon themselves, if only to shield themselves from someone else heaping onto them the same insult?

Of course, it can easily be imagined that there is an analogue in any fandom. For the sports fan, there is the superstar; the straight man, the supermodel; the stylish lady, the fashion star, the movie star, I could run the stereotypes all day and all night long but the point of the matter is -

It’s very rare that you will find someone who doesn’t have someone they look up to. Often, humans will have many someones; their mind equal – a best friend; their close superior – a role model; their ultimate dream – the untouchable.

(image by Kani Infuruenza)
The Uberman, I would say, if I wanted to delve into a deep philosophical discussion on why fanboys have ‘waifus’, in one form or the other. Someone to strive by – whether to become them, or to come upon someone like them, or to come in –

Wait, maybe that’s a different thought. But certainly the right tone!

Because in all seriousness while I intend to rant and philosophize and wax poetic, this time, it’s falling on the smoke and mirrors side – rather, the Taihen Serious side – of things. Or so I claimed! Eventually the pretense and the passion got mixed so deep that eventually I had to split them into two separate posts.

So take this as an intro, to a much lighter piece, coming shortly.

Perhaps it’s interesting to figure out why people in general seek out higher ground, a bar to set themselves by, rather than an achievement to work towards (or perhaps the two are inseparably linked?) … but today, I’m focusing on just how much love, passion, and devotion goes into the selection of a waifu.

I suppose you know the devotion. You’ve been to Sankaku Complex. You’ve seen the stories referenced with a facepalm worthy of Kyon himself. The posters plastered across the wall, the eight-times-redundant purchase of fan merchandise, something painfully banal in nature. The shrines.

The devotion is there. But is the passion?

(image by Kantoku)
Certainly everyone who is silly enough to have followed me for any length of time – or even the last 400 words – has fallen hopelessly, nonsensically for an anime girl. Every person’s shrine is different – some wax 2000 word paeans. Others cover their banners and signatures with the girl. Some go out and spend real money on real Nagato poste – whoops, a little slip there.

Do you call that love? Obsession? Escapism? Maybe your feelings are never that strong … but if you’ve come to anime to evaluate everything irrationally, without ever letting just one person stir your emotions … you’ve come for the wrong reasons.

What is it? Love is the best form of insanity? Something like that.

And I’ll show you that if you’re going to be insane, you might as well be insane with style.

Because the last thing I want is for the average ‘otaku’ to be as fickle as the wind – or perhaps, as fickle as husbands in Vegas – when it comes to their waifu. You know how it is. You’re a new anime fanboy, you watch Haruhi. She is God. Literally, figuratively, every sense of the word.

Then you pick up Clannad. Kyou is unparalleled. Haruhi is nobody, a drop in the bucket compared to her. And then you find Bakemonogatari …

It’s a vicious cycle. It’s a bad role model. If you’re going to find a ‘waifu’, why not find one that you can truly believe in? The derogatory part in ‘waifu’ shouldn’t be because of the incapability of a girl to be acceptable as ‘wife material’.

Usually, it’s the person that changes, right? More ‘meetings’, more maturing of emotions, and suddenly your little crush on Sailor Mercury is all but ridiculous.

Mistakes of youth, isn’t it?

(image by Niichi Doriimu)
So perhaps, what I plan to attempt in an epic, Keima-Katsuragi-style lesson in two-dimensional love, is to use my experience, to further develop this concept of a ‘waifu’. If there’s something I’ve learned about myself from my year of campaigning in ISML (to which I thank all of you who participated), it’s that I am crazy feel that if you believe in something, you should believe in it all the way.

I don’t mean to say that I want you to be deadly serious about this kind of thing. Of course, if you aren’t having some enjoyment, then you aren’t having anything at all.

But, without some sort of deeper meaning, there is no strength.

And this strength is the passion that drives the otakusphere – the passion that drives me ever closer to that cliff of insanity – the passion to talk about something that simultaneously means everything and nothing. The world … of a false world.

Although … is it really false, if we’ve internalized it? I’ve sworn many days by the mindset of girls like Akari. This is how, something that is so unreal, something that is so pointless … can be meaningful. To me. At least for a bit now, even if I come back in a year and -really- regret busting out 3000 words on ‘waifus’, that -moment- is important, isn’t it?

That’s why, I’m trying to make this moment not something that I do half-heartedly. And hopefully, after my exposition, you’ll be encouraged to do the same.

(image by Tachibana Sakuya)
Well, not that all of you should go out and find 18 anime girls you really like, and then sort them out in a soul-searching, word-limit-breaking fashion. I don’t even insist that you take the definition of a ‘waifu’ seriously (even if I am, just for a bit). I mean, come on. The spelling.

But … when you find something that you think you want to believe in … make it count, won’t you?

I guess this concludes the ’serious’ side of the Waifu Post. Some introspection into my discovery of myself, that will hopefully cause you to also introspect sometime and do the same. For these girls have gotten close to our hearts for a reason, right …?

And it’s up to you to find that reason.

Next time, I’ll show you my reason for this much passion and this many words:
All these waifus and you’re selecting it wrong. I’ll lead you under the banner of Keima Katsuragi to show you the true meaning of a waifu LEXUS.

-CCY

(fun reader exercises to do in the week it will take me to write the other half: speculate on the 18 girls)

Wait, perhaps that is the wrong girl. For today. But that thought still stands. For this final stand.

Bounded Field “Boundary of Life and Death”

This is, beyond anything, Minori Kushieda standing at the precipice between success and failure in the International Saimoe League; for those who she has fallen before, and those who she has triumphed over, none matter more than the one standing before her.

“Don’t underestimate us! We don’t care about time or space or multi-dimensional whatevers. We don’t give a damn about that.”

Surely, it seems daunting.
Perhaps, it might be better to say that surely, it -seemed- daunting.

9 rounds ago, it was calculated that Minori needed to win 75% of her final 12 matches in order to clear the .500 bar that seemed so far away.

And now, with just three to go, it seems harder, in that she must be absolutely flawless in her final three in order to achieve a mere record of 32-31.

“Even messiahs need to perform miracles if they are to be acknowledged. Therefore, we have to produce our own miracle, don’t we?” (image source: takahara akiji)

But, it’s not impossible.

Minori’s final two opponents, whether I like them or not, have been performing rather poorly in ISML, so they should be fairly easy to clear.

Which means, that it really does just come down to this match.

“There is no such thing as a coincidence in this world. There is only the inevitable.”

I don’t know if a match between Minori and Sakura Kinomoto can be called something like ‘inevitable’ – maybe just the placing of this quote was inevitable – but it’s an inscrutable match in so many different ways, in that it’s nearly impossible to predict.

Of course, many fans will hold Sakura dear as the girl from their youths, whether in terms of physical youth or in terms of anime-fandom youth, and so asking them to vote for Minori is a tough choice.

Plus, Sakura and Minori are both girls of similar feather – while perhaps one may have a more complicated outlook than the other, on the exterior both of them are still very happy-go-lucky, confident, always-smiling girls that can’t help but warm your heart.

In the end, for me, it’s one that is influenced slightly by numbers, in that while Sakura and Minori, on the stage of ISML, are of equal caliber, Sakura is slightly above the .500 line, already with 32 wins, while Minori is slightly below, needing these 3 wins in these last 3 matches.

“But because the slave is in that despairing situation, having nothing … it can overthrow the emperor!” (image source: kyoku tou)

Maybe Sakura can’t be called an empress (even if a lot of us hold her to that esteem), nor Minori the slave, but definitely, Minori here, is the one who has had nothing all along, whether in the canon of Toradora or in the last 12 matches here, clawing for votes to stay afloat above the .500 line.

But, like in any gamble, it’s not hopeless.

That door of opportunity hasn’t shut yet for our genki girl. But it’s closing fast. She’s been trying to pry it open for the longest period of matches; accepting victory over Rena, attempting to overthrow Kagami, all the tough matches, the tough choices, all for that small chance of being able to achieve that milestone, that so many before her have fallen before.

Ami and Taiga are waiting on the bright side of .500. You won’t keep them waiting, will you?

One shot.
One goal.
One vote.

Will you help make it happen?

-CCY
(image source: mani)
(tip: click that last link to vote)

I have a code I recieved from AX (check the back of those demo CDs) that expires at the end of August.

That’s in a week and I don’t think I’ll be convincing myself to buy two VNs any time soon (unless Higurashi is magically released for preorders which is unlikely), so if anyone else is more free-spending than I am, drop me a comment and I’ll send you the code.

MangaGamer offers English-translated visual novels for digital download (honestly, another reason I didn’t decide to use the code – I’m a collector-type myself that likes physical product). Their catalog includes:
* SHUFFLE!
* Da Capo
* Kirakira
* Suika A.S.
* And a bunch of trashy-sounding sex romps

All for a price which you may or may not consider reasonable. With the buy-one-get-one free, you can pick up SHUFFLE! and Da Capo for 50 euros total ($70, which is 35 bucks apiece). Or, SHUFFLE! and Kirakira for 37 euros total ($50, which is $25 apiece). For me, it’s a bit much, but it might not be too bad to finally see these games in English after all~

And uncensored (with full voice acting), if that’s your thing.

Let me know if you want the code, and it’s yours.
-CCY

If it goes well, this is the first chapter.

-CCY

===

“You know I have a big appetite, Yukari,”

Yuyuko Saigyouji said in a dreamy fashion, rotating a poker chip in her right hand. She closed her eyes and smiled as if to further accentuate her pleasant manner.

“Which is why I always enjoy festivals like this,” she continued, tilting her head as her expression would better explain things. “When everyone gets together, bringing a bit of their specialty, that variety which makes Gensokyo a fantastic place … it’s simply fantastic.”

As Yuyuko said this, she gestured to the crowd gathered around the table at which three people sat: Yuyuko Saigyouji, the pink-haired ghost; Yukari Yakumo, the purple-and-white mastermind with blond hair, and Shikieki Yamaxanadu, the small-framed but imposing green-haired judge who presided over the events of this night, which could be termed one of Gensokyo’s more curious competitions.

It was a diverse mix that represented some of the best, the brightest, and the most oddball characters from throughout the land. Their presence seemed to form a near-rainbow of hair colors, least to mention clothing fashion, hat size, and origins. Although many were human-looking, all knew that was anything but the case.

But one thing was common in the crowd and that was the silence that enveloped them, as they watched, enraptured, curious, and perhaps a bit jealous, as the two women at the final table battled.

Or, as the present would have it, as one of them monologued.

“But at every festival, although the food and drink always seems infinite, there’s always an end to the fun; the offerings are consumed and the wine runs dry. It’s saddening,” Yuyuko continued, her expression fading to something distant and serious.

“That’s why I wish to keep my supply stocked, so that Hakugyokurou can hold the grandest parties in the land for ages to come. And at this point, my only supply is you, Yukari. So I’ll have to take yours.”

“All in.”

Yuyuko pushes a fearsome stack of chips into the center of the table, supplementing an already large pile resting next to five cards: the Four of Hearts, Queen of Spades, Jack of Hearts, Two of Spades, and King of Hearts.

“The bet is to you, Yukari,” Shikeiki nodded in the direction of the woman with the blond hair, who chuckled in response.

“You know yourself that your logic is flawed, Yuyuko,” Yukari smirked in a fashion that almost seems haughty. There was no response from the ghost clad in a blue kimono.

“The difference between poker and festivals, of course, is that while food and drink are depleted as they are consumed, money only spreads from person to person,” she explained. “There’s no need to worry about it running out…”

She rested her head on her hands, looking to some point off to the side. “…unless of course, it’s taken by someone else. And even then, you can get it back, as long as you don’t lose all of it.”

“All those theatrics hides the fact that I will have to put my game on the line as well, in order to challenge you,” Yukari glanced between her pile of chips and that which Yuyuko just bet, finally resting her gaze on Yuyuko herself.

“Since we have exactly the same amount remaining.”

Yuyuko smiled brilliantly in response, almost as if she wanted to diffuse the dramatic tension. “Nothing less from you, Yukari, that’s why we’re good friends, isn’t it?”

She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. “Ah, I tried … I’m not too bad at the art myself, but I still think Youmu is better as being poetic, when she’s not being all terse and serious.”

There was a loud crash in the stands, prompting a giggle from Yuyuko. “Ah, she’s as easily-flustered as ever.”

“But, Yukari,” Yuyuko suddenly wore a grin that was half playful and half malicious.

“You know I’m not trying to provoke you into submitting. I’m trying to provoke you into fighting.”

She looked thoughtful for a bit, then returned to her default smile. “Like good friends,” she added.

Yukari retorted back, almost in a joshing fashion. “Your speciality is to invite people to death, after all, of course I’m going to be careful while considering my mortality – even if it just my life in a fleeting competition such as this.”

“A fleeting competition?” Yuyuko continued the argument, which sounded serious but was rather quite light-hearted, like that of playful ribbing between close friends. “You were the one that offered that once-in-a-lifetime prize that spurred the wave of interest that sweeped the land.”

“Yes, but, if it’s something that I offer, then the only incentive to win, is so I do not lose such a prize.” Yukari faked a bored look. “Although it’s not a prize, more like a privilege. It’d be more interesting if someone else won anyway…”

Yuyuko gave Yukari another pure smile. “If that’s the case, then why not let me win? Are you worried about another incident, like before?” She said, in a jokingly threatening voice.

Yukari laughed. “I know you’ve matured since then, Yuyuko. Perhaps in many ways.” She paused her sentence to glance into the audience, where there was another loud crash.

“But, I have no intention of throwing a competition. I’m lazy, but I’m strong-spirited.”

Tapping the cards she held in her right hand against the table, she continued, “And, even if I’m lazy, I know when to act. And I think now is the time to finish this.”

Not even bothering to push her chips into the table, she made a slight glance to Shikeiki and tersely stated,

“I call.”

As the crowd murmured, Yuyuko again turned her head to the side, with a bit of a questioning look, that reverted to the typical spacey stare of hers. “… I see. I can’t decide if it’s fitting or not that it’s come down to a mere matter of chance, the way that this ends.”

She slowly and deliberately flipped over her cards, the 9 of Spades and 10 of Diamonds.

“Straight. Nine through King.”

Yukari nodded, almost if she knew what cards Yuyuko would flip over. “Chance, you say… it makes me wonder just how hungry you are right now, Yuyuko, to lie so earnestly.”

Sighing in comical fashion, Yuyuko admitted, “Quite a lot, to be honest.”

Undeterred, Yukari continued, “For a game like this, chance should be the last thing on your mind… if you have to resort to such a power as that, maybe that’s a sign that you need to strengthen yourself more.”

Continuing to drag out the monologue and the conclusion of the tournament, Yuyuko questioned back with a flat tone, “Well, certainly that is true, but in carefree times like this, sometimes it’s best not to know what will happen next. It makes life more splendid.”

“Perhaps that is true,” Yukari stood up from her chair, tilting her cards 90 degrees onto their edge. “I wouldn’t know myself, after so long manipulating boundaries.”

“But … I think I can be happy that I knew how this was going to end.”

As a hush fell over the room, Yukari, staring right into Yuyuko’s eyes with a inscrutable smile, gave the cards a light push, and they fell onto the table face-up, revealing their values.

Yuyuko looked at the cards, genuinely astonished for a second, then, without words, stood up, smiled gracefully, and made a motion to shake Yukari’s hand.

(tl;dr Still hoping for votes for Minori Kushieda, to help make a miracle perfect-run to .500, the magic number for ISML. Please help, voting only takes a minute! But I really like this article today…)

“It’s called a miracle, because it has a chance of happening!”

One-third of the way there, everyone.

For those of you not already up-to-date, the International Saimoe regular season is winding down (coincidentally just as the J-Saimoe tournament kicks into gear), with the battles for the top 16 girls (out of 64) heating up; these are the girls who will head on to the playoff round of ISML and compete in a cut-throat battle to determine Miss Moe or whatever you want to call it.

Of course, there are other battles going on under that surface though (although it is a fantastic battle so far, with many big-name girls in a battle which even I can’t gauge); devout fans will always continue fighting for their favorite girls no matter the odds, and one of my favorite fights is the fight for .500.

It’s that perfect mix of relevancy and obscurity, for someone like me that likes fighting for the underdogs. The battles that are still possible to win, and are definitely worth winning; this is the underground of ISML, not the big stage where the giants play for fame, but the streets where each battle is a fight for survival, just trying to stay afloat above that line.

.500. That line. The magic number which grants a ISML contestant a golden ticket straight to next year’s competition (or at least next year’s preliminaries, according to rule changes for ISML 2010). It’s almost a sign of redemption, something that can be accomplished for the girls who just don’t have the backing to make that challenge for the necklace and the big time.

And that, is the stage set for Minori Kushieda. A great girl, from a great series, making one last great challenge here at the end of ISML 2009.

(Image source and artist link)

She is the one of the few girls remaining whose fate that has not been decided. Of those gunning for 32 wins and the .500 marker, Hanyuu, Sakura, Ami, and Rena have not cleared the bar yet but only require a trivial amount of wins (less than 3). Misuzu and Louise will need to pull off miracles beyond the scope of even the most hardened deux-ex-machina believer (100% win records required).

This leaves Mai, Mei, and Minori as those who are still walking the tightrope. Mai and Mei must win 5 rounds (a 50-50 record exactly), while Minori must win 7 out of the 10 matches remaining to clear the .500 mark.

In fact, none of their roads are easy; Mai and Mei have more room for error but have a much more difficult schedule; a rough estimate of their schedule says they have room for being upset once, but not more than that. So certainly, fans of those two Key characters may want to push a bit harder as well.

Minori has the toughest job though; 7 out of 10 is daunting enough as it is, and it gets more difficult with the fact that she faces Mikuru, Kagami, and Nagisa in the final period – three girls that are all top 16 contenders, and three that will certainly defeat her unless she hits the lottery.

Therefore, this leaves the reality that she must be perfect in the other seven matches.

(Image source and artist link)

Luckily, there is one ray of hope – or rather, five – in that five of her opponents-to-come are significantly weaker than her, and thus should be extremely likely victories for her.

This leaves two pivot matches. One against Misuzu this round, and one against Sakura in the third-to-last round of the season.

Minori has already claimed a surprising upset over Rena (P.S. thanks to everyone for help in that match, you guys are incredible) two rounds ago in what was the first pivotal round of her charge for .500; certainly it was one that I was feeling a bit troubled on myself, especially because Rena is a favorite of mine as well, as well as a girl who seemed stronger than Minori.

However, our softball-playing, MAD-starring, hyperactive-genki-girling favorite Minori managed to turn a brilliant close victory – either because Rena is already set for .500, so fans decided to give Minori a hand – or maybe she’s more popular than I thought! I can’t even say.

Certainly this round will be a hard one for many fans as well. I’m a card-carrying (Memorial-Box-wielding) Key fan myself, and I’ll be hurting for not voting for Misuzu, someone who I’ve spilled much emotion for in my early anime days.

But, with Minori’s chances at stake here, with Misuzu’s looking like a distant dream, I feel it’s more important to vote for the miracle that definitely has a chance of happening, the miracle that everyone can have a part in and bring to reality. Minori is deserving as well. I feel Misuzu could understand.

(Image source and artist link)
Am I overblowing this Saimoe thing? Of course I am. But that’s what’s beautiful about the competition. It is the one thing that drives people like me to the edge of insanity and beyond, dancing on the stage of numbers, statistics, and burning passion.

There are the ugly bits like tactical voting, hate voting, the conspiracy theories and the drama and the whole thing where I always end up having to pick between Shiori and Hanyuu which just hurts, but, this doesn’t matter in the end to the truly devout.

For us, this is love in action.

You know love.
Minori knows love.
I think it’s fair to express that, just a little, isn’t it, for someone’s sake?

-CCY

(P.S. My Wordpress fails at displaying Japanese so I can’t credit the artist’s name, but the links to the original images are provided.)

One more time, one more chance.

It’s been a great time Shiori campaigning (covertly, for the most part, after that initial push), as currently she’s moved up into the middle half of the field (barely) at 48th place, something that – yes – I’m actually kind of proud of! Especially for a girl who wasn’t even expected to make the main field, coming from last in nominations.

But now it’s time to make one last push for a favored girl in ISML, as we come down to the last 12 matches of the regular season, in which two competitions become clear:

1) The fight for the top 16, the girls who will continue to the double-elimination playoffs.
2) The fight for .500, the magical number which allows automatic re-entry into the next ISML competition in 2010.

The first one is rather complex and involves an inordinate amount of players, with 9 girls within 3 wins of each other, in the fight for the last 4 spots (as well as a few more with only one or two wins more). Right now, Mikuru, Nanoha, Konata, and Saber (in order of increasing danger) are on the inside, while Holo, Kotomi, Nagisa, Shinku, and Rika (closer to top 16 first) are on the outside looking in. If you’re a fan of any of these, it may be wise to campaign now before it’s too late, as every battle will matter.

Around the .500 line it is a bit more calm; only Mei Sunohara lies extremely close with a record of 26-25, needing to go 6-6 or better in these final matches. Mai Kawasumi is a touch above, requiring 5-7 or better; Rena Ryuuguu just needs 4-8 and nothing short of collapse (2-10) or worse will stop the likes of Sakura Kinomoto, Hanyuu, or Ami Kawashima.

Looking below it gets even more barren, as the closest to .500 that isn’t already above the line is Minori Kushieda, at 23-28 and requiring a 9-3 finish, a 75% win percentage which is fairly difficult for someone struggling to run .500. After Minori you get into the near-impossible, with Sayuri Kurata, Misuzu Kamio, and Louise Valliere needing to make miracle runs (11-1 or better) to break even.

So in the end we come down to only one miracle story in the closing rounds of the ISML season, and her name is Minori Kushieda. What a fitting girl, too, as I can think of few that I’d rather back more.

The good news is that pulling this miracle off is very possible for Minori with good luck and strong backing; she can lose a maximum of three battles, which is fortunate considering that she only has three difficult opponents (in the top 16 or fighting for it).

This means that she will have to be absolutely flawless in the other nine battles, but again, things look bright. She again only has three opponents at her level, that she will have to fight toe-to-toe with to her full ability. The other six, should be relatively easy.

So as long as she can win in these three pivotal battles, her return to grace the presence of ISML 2010 should be assured.

And that’s something that’s very possible, and worth fighting for! And your vote can help!

But why Minorin?

Those of you who have watched Toradora should know that it’s a great romantic comedy that moves at a pace nearly unparalleled by any other; and beyond that, it has a cast that’s second-to-none. Nearly every character is developed strongly, from the lead couple to the secondary characters and even some of their parents as well.

Minori, as one of the lead girls, fights with passion and energy on a daily basis, being one of the brightest characters in the show and one that is almost impossible to not be in a good mood around.

She is the alpha and omega of genki girls, full of energy, good humor, and a brilliant smile.

And yet there is that other side to her – one might call it a bit angsty but it may just be a bit of realism to a confused teenager, one who isn’t just fighting for herself but also for someone else that she cares deeply for (actually, make that two someones). When you understand the trouble Minori goes through, and the extents to which she pushes herself, your heart has to ache a bit.

These two elements make Minori both a character I respect and adore, and I hope it can be the same for you.

If you believe the same, please help Minori make this miracle by voting for her in the current round of ISML here. It’s a simple process and shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes.

Vote! Tell your friends to vote! Give Minori moruze votes, chou moruze~~~

-CCY

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS OF MINORI’S SCHEDULE
Ruby 7: vs. Rena (32nd / 28-23)
CRITICAL POINT #1
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Ruby 8: vs. Remilia (53rd / 8-42)
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Diamond 1: vs. Nagisa (19th / 37-14)
LOSS #1
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Diamond 2: vs. Mikuru (13th / 39-12)
LOSS #2
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Diamond 3: vs. Shiki (56th / 7-44)
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Diamond 4: vs. Kagami (8th / 43-8)
LOSS #3
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Diamond 5: vs. Kirino (59th / 5-46)
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Diamond 6: vs. Kallen (58th / 6-45)
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Diamond 7: vs. Sakura (31st / 29-22)
CRITICAL POINT #3
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Diamond 8: vs. Aya (63rd / 1-50)
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Diamond 9: vs. Anya (52nd / 10-41)
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(UPDATE: Another report is in, suggesting that this block is not in response to content but in response to attacks being launched. Time will tell who is right; there have been confirmations that AT&T is blocking /b/, but no specifics as to why.

UPDATE 2: AT&T has issued a statement that seems to confirm this. So Code Green after all, which is good to hear, although they could have resolved this matter a lot earlier if they had gone out and explained why a bit earlier.

p.s. I like how Sankaku gets to pretend it was right all along. Enjoy looking down on the rest of us.)

Well, it’s pretty much as it says. I haven’t seen any posts around the otakusphere yet regarding this (although Twitter is alight) so I figure I’ll bring it up; I didn’t know myself for quite a while, but I think it’s something that’s noteworthy.

Here’s what’s been reported so far, which is probably as close to straight facts as you will get (my opinion follows afterward), if you can’t confirm yourself (i.e. you don’t use AT&T):

• Most users who use AT&T for internet access cannot access /b/ and /r9k/. Other 4chan boards are still accessible.
• The block is caused by AT&T dropping the packets within its own network, making it seem like the website is simply inaccessible.

This should be a very familiar and a very important issue to anime fans as well; no matter your opinion on /b/ or 4chan, we’ve been through this mess with Equality Now and the eroge IP bannings – or more correctly, we’re still going through that mess – and this move by AT&T isn’t much different, except for the fact that they’re actually taking action. And in blunt form, too.

I’m a proponent of free speech, so of course such a thing is alarming to me – especially if you consider a slippery slope argument (ye olde ‘first they came for /b/, but I didn’t speak up…’), the validity of which, I cannot say … but I don’t think this kind of action is right.

The simplest way to put it is, it doesn’t matter what kind of content /b/ has, whether I support it or don’t support it, whether I like it or don’t like it, it’s still my choice whether I want to expose myself to it or not.

Which is why something like this is, to understate it, an issue. Shouldn’t you stand up for your rights too?

Of course, the argument becomes tricky as it can easily be countered that /b/ is perhaps a shady place to be (on a good day), especially when it falls into legal territory; but at the least, the way in which AT&T is enforcing this block (making it look like it is merely a connection problem) seems to be equally shady tactics; as one commenter said, if AT&T had redirected to some sort of  ‘this site is blocked’ page, it would be news in every paper and TV show.

Instead, AT&T is just trying to slide the issue past the public. We should show them that we aren’t that blind.

Encyclopedia Dramatica provides some contact info for you to voice your opinion to:
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-CCY