I apologize for being so late. However, I live in the United States, and as it is Independence Day, it is rather a big deal, and I've been caught up in the festivities, therefore slowing myself down. No worries though. At least I'm still here, and this league will still be running.
With ISML having to deal with issues from Sapphire 8, the last thing I need is for Weebly to have a hardcore breakdown, but at approximately 0700 GMT, one of the hardware storage systems broke down. Then another. Then another. Then, well, you get the idea. Is it a conspiracy to shut down ISML (and take down about 200 sites in the process)? You can decide that.
More information about the breakdown can be found here.
This is a reminder that should the main site be down, ISML will not be responsible for any votes lost during that period. It is mentioned explicitly on the rules page that it is the voter's responsibility to save the main voting page in the case that this happens. (This is exactly the reason I elected to place the voting page in a separate server where I can control.)
Unless something happens in the polls where we will be forced to restart, we will NOT restart Emerald 5.
In case you haven't noticed, Japan is running nominations as we speak. Some crazy nominations there, but it is in progress, so we don't know who will be in until the first round begins.
Korea, on the other hand, takes all the characters that are even remotely eligible and gives all possibilities an entry, so we know the full entry list of Korea Best Moe 2008. They have just released the first round schedule. I'd figure it would be best to clue you in on who will be making their 2008 debuts in Korea or whatnot.
Because there are a whopping 96 arenas in the first round preliminaries this year, there is no way that I am covering all of them. Instead, for the preliminaries, I will cover matches that include respective ISML candidates, and I will continue to do so until Korea is down to the final 64. I'll give a reminder on the front page (when I can) whenever one of the ISML 2008 candidates are up for their match.
NOTE: Sakura Kinomoto qualified in part to a cameo in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles. The Princess Sakura is not eligible for Korea this year.
NOTE: Haruhi Suzumiya qualified in part to a cameo in Lucky Star. Konata Izumi, Kagami Hiiragi, and Tsukasa Hiiragi are not eligible for Korea this year.
KOREA 1st Round Schedule
Friday July 11 - 0900-3230 GMT
#46 Mion Sonozaki (12-27) @ Arena 8
Saturday, July 12 - 0900-3230 GMT
#11 C.C (30-9) @ Arena 9
#10 Hinagiku Katsura (32-7) @ Arena 11
#47 Chiaki Minami (12-27) @ Arena 11
#21 Nagi Sanzen'in (26-13) @ Arena 15
Sunday, July 13 - 0900-3230 GMT
#3 Tomoyo Sakagami (37-2) @ Arena 24
#13 Nagisa Furukawa (29-10) @ Arena 24
Monday, July 14 - 0900-3230 GMT
#44 Ayumu Nishizawa (13-26) @ Arena 30
Tuesday, July 15 - 0900-3230 GMT
#33 Ryou Fujibayashi (19-20) @ Arena 33
#55 Alice Carroll (6-33) @ Arena 36
Wednesday, July 16 - 0900-3230 GMT
#35 Louise Francoise (18-21) @ Arena 41
#1 Shana (37-2) @ Arena 43
#52 Tamaki Kawazoe (9-30) @ Arena 44
Thursday, July 17 - 0900-3230 GMT
#63 Konomi Yuzuhara (1-38) @ Arena 52
#19 Rika Furude (27-12) @ Arena 54
#2 Kyou Fujibayashi (37-2) @ Arena 54
#26 Maria (25-14) @ Arena 55
Friday, July 18 - 0900-3230 GMT
#27 Rena Ryuguu (24-15) @ Arena 58
#9 Kotomi Ichinose (33-6) @ Arena 58
#34 Hanyuu Furude (19-20) @ Arena 63
#56 Kiri Komori (4-35) @ Arena 64
Saturday, July 19 - 0900-3230 GMT
#59 Yuno (3-36) @ Arena 71
Sunday, July 20 - 0900-3230 GMT
#23 Sakura Kinomoto (26-13) @ Arena 74
#6 Haruhi Suzumiya (36-3) @ Arena 75
#28 Fuko Ibuki (23-16) @ Arena 76
#61 Tamaki Kousaka (2-37) @ Arena 79
Monday, July 21 - 0900-3230 GMT
#18 Horo (27-12) @ Arena 86
Tuesday, July 22 - 0900-3230 GMT
No ISML candidates
Sorry for not being around for a while - I had another exhaustion period. You know how that goes.
Anyway, I've been getting reports that the site went down, approximately right after I went to sleep. While I do apologize for not being available immediately, do notice that if the main site goes down, the voting site should still be up, so matches will continue to be conducted. Therefore, there shouldn't be any problem as far as this league will progress.
For those of you who are indeed very devoted to this league, I think that it is best that you save my e-mail. My e-mail is hendrickfan66@yahoo.com. Should the site go down, if you save the e-mail, you should be able to contact me. Some of the staff members already do have it, so it is best that you should hold on to it as well.
Let's get to the important business.
As some of you have already noticed with the breaking news on the site, ISML received a request from a devoted voter from this contest. If you recall, we had some major problems with Sapphire 8, and as a result, we only had 19 hours of the 24 accepted, and some who did vote during times in which the voting script went "down" did not receive a warning for that. While in normal conditions I would have restarted the match pronto, in this certain situation, I decided that we need to move on, as we already had one postponement for Sapphire 8. We did indeed do that, and eventually declared Kyou Fujibayashi as the final Sapphire winner, but once I received the recant message, pointing out valid arguments that I just couldn't argue against, we decided to consider it.
While I can't argue that the recant shouldn't be considered at all, the ISML staff have been mulling over this for quite a while, deciding what we would indeed do with this option. So, I've decided that you guys should have a say in this as well. For this next match set, an Arena 0 will be added right above the Haruhi vs. Fate match, in which you answer the question provided above. Take time to think about all the possibilities that could happen and try to answer honestly. The majority vote may or may not sway my decision, but I will take the final vote of Arena 0 into consideration.
Keep in mind that this is a Yes or No question. The No will be that we keep things the way they are and move on. The Yes will have the following conditions.
A) Emerald 6 will be moved to Thursday, July 3.
B) Sapphire 8 will be redone on Saturday, July 5.
C) Kyou will keep her Sapphire necklace. She will also be eligible for the necklace qualification for next year.
D) If there would have been a different winner for Sapphire (I'm looking at you, Haruhi), that winner will also receive a Sapphire necklace and will also be eligible for the necklace qualification for next year.
Therefore, keep all of that in mind when voting in Arena 0.
Also, some of you may be wondering whether the whole world will have a say in this. While I can't speak every single language, I'll try to get at least a text image of a translation of "Restart Sapphire 8?" and go from there.
In other news regarding ISML, you may have noticed that development on this league has slowed down rather considerably. In addition to the Sapphire 8 possible recant, this is also the last week of my June college course, and work includes a research paper and then some, so I have been working very hard on that. The good news is that I am off for one-week before returning to take my next college course in July, so hopefully whatever should be needed to get done will indeed be done.
Also, I promised that I will cover both J Saimoe and K Saimoe. The report on J Saimoe as of right now is thus: in addition to our candidates who are expected to compete in J Saimoe, Haruhi, Yuki, and Mikuru are crashing the party this year as candidates representing Lucky Star. Nominations are still continuing at this moment, and we usually wouldn't need to worry about them. Links will be provided once the preliminaries begin.
Finally, advertise, advertise, advertise. As I said, J Saimoe has begun, and this is a great opportunity to grab voters to come to this upstart league. Many of us are calling for diversity among voters, and while I congratulate the KyoAni crowd for dominating Amethyst and Sapphire, it's no fun when we don't have a humongous upset after a while. I'm looking at the Rozen Maiden, Higurashi, and Hayate no Gotoku crowd who doesn't know that we even exist, who can certainly pull a turn around and make this league much more exciting. Don't be afraid to give Haruhi some competition every once in a while, and let's make this much more fun.
Apologies for being very very late, but I was at least able to begin the match at the schedule time. It will end at the scheduled time of 2530 GMT.
As for the rest of the Emerald matches, they are posted on the Emerald page, which is found here.
Because of the problems we have experienced in Sapphire 8, our transition weekend has been cut short, so we're trying to speed things up this time around.
This is a reminder that Emerald 1 will begin at 0130 GMT tomorrow. The full Emerald schedule will be posted tomorrow evening at the latest.
Notice:
If anybody has an image of Kyou Fujibayashi in a dress, preferably one that can easily be vectored, please send it to KholdStare88, our victory poster graphics designer at the following e-mail: kholdstare88@gmail.com
I have been recently informed that there is a radical movement in progress trying to shut this league down by trying to crash our voting server.
Heh, it worked with SaiGAR, but it won't work here.
Please note that we are doing our best to try to rid these radical voters and keep them out of harms way. With the exception of Malaysia, regions on the current banlist are added on there without warning as a precaution. However, even after this "war" is over and ISML is albeit victorious, if you are banned and innocent, please send me an e-mail at hendrickfan66@yahoo.com or the IP region ban will NOT be lifted.
We will do our best to notify you if there are any problems. However, at any rate, we must continue forward with our matches at the moment. We will work on this and try to make our voting polls more secure.
I'm sorry guys, but apparently, somebody hacked into our server at 2445 GMT, 15 minutes before the match ended and deleted our data for Sapphire 8. Please note that the match has been restarted. While the match is going on, I will do my best to make sure that this does not happen again.
Also note that Sapphire 9 will now take place on Saturday at 0000 GMT.
Apologies, but we have had some technical difficulties and I haven't noticed until two hours late. Because of this, Sapphire 5 will end at 2700 GMT. Also note that because it will be so late in my timezone (I live about 30-50 miles from New York City), results may or may not be up immediately after, so you may have to wait to receive results in the morning.
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