For those who did not follow the tournament, it's already at the semi-finals. It's a fight between Madoka, Kyouko, Mami and Erica Hartmann from Strike Witches and frankly, I don't see how Erica could stand a chance beating a Puella Magi. She made it this far only because her Group B was really weak, except Kanade from Angel Beats whom she defeated in the group finals. And Lotte is a mistake. I figure that she had the support of KugiRiefags right until Shana 3 came out.
And believe it, the only reason Homerun-chan didn't make it is because the Puella Magi Madoka Magica spammers failed to plan ahead. Had they started what they did for the other Puella Magis earlier, there's no doubt we'll see Homerun vs Kyouko vs Madoka vs Mami right now. I mean, she did go against a very strong Biribiri right off the bat, but cheating has always been rampant in Saimoe so it's really about how many of these guys you got supporting a character. Oh, Biribiri has also been accused of inflated results...
FYI, Sayaka made it till the Quarter-finals which finished yesterday, only to be defeated by Madoka. So yeah, these girls are totally owning the tournament.
No, I'm not making a post to complain about the results, and I know well that the however it may seem, there's still a large degree of legitimacy. My favourites didn't make it very far, but I wasn't exactly "supporting" them anyway; I've long since accepted that the tourney is really about spammers that got away with it, and no, I'm not saying this as my opinion; it's a pretty well accepted fact. Watching the tourney is fun, and I'm not going to complain about the nature of the competition or the results, but the current standing of the characters makes me question something that has been nagging at me for a while: What's so moé about PM3 characters?
I've always had a problem understanding the appeal of some popular characters, namely Fate Testarossa, Hitagi Senjougahara, and most recently, Shiraume Ume from Ben-to. Granted, my favourites characters like Akiyama Mio and Misaka Mikoto usually display very common traits that appeals to the majority of the market, and I like them for the same reason as the other guy. I figured my tastes are fairly simple, which is why I questioned the appeal of the girls from PM3. I don't question Mami's awesomeness (or Homura's gap moé), but come on, Kyouko? She's been a bitch for as long as I can remember, even if she did have a tragic past people can sympathize with. And Sayaka? She's been so selfish that I thought her character was meant to be hated. And Madoka has only been angst-ing and crying for almost the entire series.
The story of PM3 is awesome, and I even gave it a perfect score. But none of the 10 points was moé points. The awesome story was brought forth by awesome characters, but not necessarily moé characters and to me, and that is definitely not the case for PM3.
What does the moé here means to you?
edit: As expected, Erica lost to Kyouko.
