2012 Round 1 C

8/23
The first day of block C features one of the most important matches of the first round: TOSHINOU KYOUKO vs. Shizuno and Rise. Kyouko is the favorite to win the block, but the split vote battle against Achiga-hen's official main character is an ideal opportunity to assassinate her. Saki fans are notorious for their solidarity, so Shizuno won't give up. The match will reveal how well Yuru Yuri can deal with split votes (if they're well-organized, Rise will make barely a whisper), how well they can respond to serious threats, and the relative tactical voting firepower of the two leading factions. Ayano only mustered 260 votes in her loss against Mei, but she's less popular than Kyouko, so Yuru Yuri should be able to win this time.

The other matches feature three Tamayura girls. However, they're all facing uphill battles and will have tough times overcoming Kanon and Ringo.

With the match more than half over, we have some very suspicious graphs:

The two leading Tamayura girls and Shizuno received bursts of votes at exactly the same times. Kao-tan flatlined from about 4:30 to 7:00 - something that is basically unheard of for a character with that many votes. It's safe to assume a huge portion of hers are fake, and Ringo is winning by a large margin. Speaking of flatlining, even Shizuno had brief periods with no votes around 11:00 and 1:00, and that vertical rise around 8:00 is as fake as it gets. Shizuno's real total will be nowhere near where her graph is now.

Based on a comparison between Kyouko's graph and Akari's, Kyouko is on pace to get 273 to 285 votes. She has 149 at 15:00 and Ayano had 156 with fakes (140 real) at the same point. Ayano ended up with 260. Koromo got 274 and Saki got 294, so Kyouko will need a strong finish to deal with the last minute miracle rush Saki fans will be planning. Miyanaga Saki had only 107 votes at 15:00, so even if Kyouko is currently leading after subtracting fakes, Shizuno is in tenpai. Will she complete haitei raoyue in the final hour, or will Kyouko eat the victory pudding Ayano missed out on?

The final results are now in:

Shizu has successfully assassinated Kyouko. Just like she did in the mahjong tournament, she made a fiery comeback to take the lead at the very end. She broke 400 votes after trailing slightly at 21:00.

The way it happened was very surprising: most of those suspicious looking votes were real. Shizu had 30 fakes at 15:00, which is substantial but not enough to change the shape of her weird curve. The same was true of the Tamayura girls. Ringo was actually trailing at 15:00. Meanwhile, Kyouko wasn't getting fakes at all.

So why were the curves so similar?
Shizuno voters also voted for: 144 Potte 129 Kanon and 144 Kao-tan 136 Ringo
Kyouko votes also voted for: 98 Potte 146 Kanon and 97 Kaotan 133 Ringo

Shizuno fans were drastically more likely to vote for Tamayura than Kyouko fans were.

Kyouko did put up a very respectable fight with 366 votes, greatly exceeding her early pace and Akari's total of 325. Rise only got 44, and the margin of victory was 43, so the result would've been the same without the split (theoretically, Kyouko should recover only half of those votes if an unrelated character took Rise's place). The fact that Kyouko's performance wasn't enough to win should be more frightening than Chinatsu's artwork to anyone who wants a non-Saki character to win the championship.

8/24

The winners were as expected, but Sae Nakata got quite a few votes for a girl who just barely made it in at 14th in a second preliminary match. Hisa was 4th in a first preliminary, but only won 285-218. Her 285 is about where several other moderately strong Saki characters ended up, so that seems to be the faction's cruise control range, and Sae probably gained sympathizers who were outraged by Kyouko's defeat yesterday and saw an opportunity to vote against two Saki characters at once.

8/25

Yune achieved a surprising victory over last year's finals qualifier Erica Hartmann with a powerful late rush that took her from tied to third to first by 4 votes. The Strike Witches won't be back in the finals at this rate, but at least Yune was pretty cute. Chinatsu failed, as expected, being one of the less popular Yuru Yuri characters. She was the victim of fake voting and had an anemic final hour. Yuru Yuri fans just don't seem to be very interested in faction tactics. Akari will be the only one getting any attention now.

8/26

Maon of Tamayura scored a surprising victory over Maria. Looking at her total, it was identical to Fuu and Kaoru, so this isn't a case of Maon outperforming. It was Maria failing to pull in the necessary votes. It looks like the kinds of not-every-match voters who piled into the Kyouko/Shizuno battle weren't into Tamayura, but Tamayura fans made sure to show up.

Sherlock's victory over Asuha is likely due to Lotte fans trying to avoid a split vote in the next round.

Cure Peace broke 300 without even trying (followed by the famous Haibara Ai, champion at qualifying for Saimoe many times) so she's every bit as strong as hoped or feared. We should get a good match between her and Lotte.

Prediction Record: 25-11