That Anime Character Contest I Get Involved in Every Year…

I have been running a little game over at Megatokyo forums (LOL) for the past few years. Few refers to some number I lost track of, but probably greater than 5. This year, for a change, I wasn’t running the game. But somehow I am now, again.

Long story short,  you get a forum account, you find a poll that has the person(s) you like, and you vote for that person. There’s a schedule of when things happen, and there is a bracket prediction contest in which the winner gets a box of random junk from me and several other people who have stuff to give away. In years past it consists of mostly DVDs, CDs, figures, books of all kinds, stationary, and what weird things you may find in your daily CD Japan email subscription for their goods store. In years past I mail the thing on my own dime, but only as far as Romania. Or was it in some Latin American nation? My geography is not so good. Of course others contributed to the pot via helping out on shipping.

The final round ends in another day or two, and it boils down to Kuroneko versus Homura. I think Kuroneko also headlines Japanator’s “saimoe” contest. That one has a sample size not too different than the one I’m running, maybe 10-15% fewer voters show up there.

I think that is probably going to be a good indicator of Korea’s Best Moe. How will 2ch’s annual Saimoe unfold, that’ll be hard to tell. But I think Homura and Kuroneko are both going to be forerunners, and Kanade will also make a strong show. What are some other “big” polls running out there along the same rules? AnimeSuki does one too, right? And I kind of ignore ISML just because it runs on for way too long and requires too much book keeping.

Personally Ruri Gokou may be the first pure otaku type that I liked since…may be as far back since Hikaru Amano. Man, that’s a long streak. I don’t know how I was largely immune to the girls’ charms from Genshiken, but I was. I typically dislike those otaku-type characters, too. Maybe for once, snark is being done right.