2012 Round 1 E

9/01

9/02

This was an extraordinary match. Hinagiku was assassinated by Sanya Litvyak with a vengeance. Yumi, one of the weaker Saki characters, took out Erio with a massive 460 votes. Yuu, a Saki ace, burned the year's previous record vote totals with 639, 200 more votes than Kurisu got.

This match saw more votes than any match in the 2011 group phase, except for those involving cheating:

The reasons for this are unclear. Obviously, the Saki faction has good reason to assassinate both Hinagiku and Erio, but they were only able to muster slightly more than 400 votes earlier. Furthermore, Yumi's curve lacked the trademark extreme last hour rush you normally see from the Saki fans. There was a scandal in Japan tangentially involving Erio's VA, which produced a boycott list that included the new Hayate, but they aren't very prominent figures in the scandal, so it would be surprising if the association produced this many votes.

With the escalation in firepower we saw as Kurisu beat Mihoko and this match made her look small time, things could get unpredictable later in the tournament. All we know for sure is that this really wasn't Hina's year.

9/03

9/04

Prediction Record: 42-18