Round 1 of the #BestVidyaGirlContest is now finished, and the following girls made it through:

1) Samus Aran (Metroid) 
2) May/Sapphire (Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald) 
3) Pyra (Xenoblade 2) 
4) Alice (Monster Girl Quest) 
5) Reimu (Touhou)
6) 2B (Nier: Automata) 
8) Momiji (Touhou) 
9) Fio Germi (Metal Slug) 
13) Shanoa (Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia) 
14) Tamamo (Fate/Extra) 
15) Patchouli Knowledge (Touhou)  
16) Remilia Scarlet (Touhou)
21) Tamamo (Monster Girl Quest)
22) Marnie (Pokemon Sword/Shield) 
23) Reisalin Stout/Ryza (Atelier Ryza) 
26) Takanashi Hoshino (Blue Archive)

Round 2 begins on Friday, and the first match sees Samus taking on Remilia Scarlet.

So all in all, 75% of the higher seeds made it through, including all top 6 seeds. That’s honestly more accurate seeding than I expected it to turn out, given the small number of nominations backing the 14 top seeds. I think the only hilariously overseeded girl was Seele, who was probably easily the weakest entrant in the entire tournament. For Fedi at least, the vote totals have been very strong - the tournament was definitely blessed by having two 50-50 matches back-to-back, which demonstrably increased hype and vote counts for the whole thing by a lot.

I was surprised by the lack of complete blowouts – when Samus scored 76% against Yuri, I merely considered that an OK win, and expected the likes of Reimu and potentially 2B to outperform her – however, no other girl even broke 70%! My experience with GameFAQs character battles is that the top seeds often break 80%, sometimes 85% on their first opponent, but this tournament is a lot more competitive. Of course, we start off with fewer entrants, and with every girl having actually earned her spot, meaning that the chance of ending up with turbo-fodder filler garbage is much lower. I mean, look at someone like Yuri, who’s a cute Yandere and one of the main girls from a pretty internet famous game well known for its beautiful girls. Or Cerberus, who’s 3 cute dog girls for the price of 1. Basically, aside from maybe Seele, all 32 girls in this tournament were at least somewhat strong, too strong to be easily blown away even by truly elite competition. 

A couple of other takeaways from Round 1: Touhou remains very scary, with 4 girls left in the final 16. You could at least have argued that none of the girls truly looked like Champion material, until Patchouli went out and massacred Midna – not only was that a beastly performance, but the rise of Patche might give all the other Touhou girls a boost too, especially Remilia, who is closely associated with her. Monster Girl Quest and Pokemon both have 2 reps, but none of those girls will be favored to make it past Round 3. That said, *most* of the Round 2 matchups look at least somewhat competitive, with the exception of 2B VS Marnie, where Marnie is in for a whole world of hurt.

Anti-voting against Gacha and Normalfaggotry was a big story of Round 1, with Hoshino being the only Gacha girl to survive, while Tifa suffered a shock defeat. Ranni’s defeat also seemed to be due to Elden Ring’s mainstream popularity being weaponized against her, along with the blue witch being punished for the sins of modern gaming as well as specific issues with Elden Ring itself, like Overrated Degenerate Fattie McFatass (aka George R. R. Martin)’s involvement and the Body Type 1/Body Type 2 bullshit. 

Meanwhile, canine chicks continued to do well, with 2 fox girls and 1 wolf girl making it into the second round. Match pictures greatly seemed to boost characters like Ryza and Hoshino, while arguably hurting Midna (her Imp form, beloved by Zelda fans, seemed to turn off a lot of neutral voters). Also, Hoshino and Ryza meeting in Round 2 ensures that Round 3 is guaranteed to have at least one surviving low seed.

A little bit later today I will be giving out some awards, singling of the best- and worst-performing girls, as well as the best and the worst matches of Round 1.

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