BoBA Special: An interview with ISML Commissioner Minhtam Nguyen

Earlier this week, I was able to chat with International Saimoe League Commissioner/Administrator Minhtam Nguyen about the ISML. The transcript is shown below.

How did you come up with the International Saimoe League? Was it out of frustration with 2chan Saimoe and other Anime Saimoe Tournaments? Were you unsatisfied with the process? Or did you feel that there needed to be this one HUGE contest that spans the world's tournaments?

To be honest, the process of 2chan Saimoe and other Anime Saimoe Tournaments itself only played a role in the format of the International Saimoe League, which I will explain later. However, it was because of its results that became part of my desire to run a contest as huge and prestigious as what the International Saimoe League is now, concept wise.

I first was introduced to the concept of Saimoe as a Shana fan, and I was almost captivated by it that I’ve started participating late in 2007. When I went to do some research, I learned about the past matches and realized that there were popular rivalries, such as Shana vs. Suiseiseki, Haruhi vs. Yuki, Fate+Nanoha vs. the Rozen Maidens, etc, as well as matches many have come to expect to happen that have never happened. I thought to myself what might happened if all of the characters, now known as candidates, came together and fought each other one on one for a long time. Hence I made a mock Round Robin schedule taking the top 16 candidates from past tournaments. Then many people from AnimeSuki asked me to run the contest. The rest, as you say, is history.

I guess if you want a short answer, I ran the contest sort of on a whim, so to speak, but standing here one year later, I’m kind of glad I did it.

Give those who are new to the ISML a little background on the selection process. How are the best characters in all of anime and manga selected? I would assume it's a convoluted process, but a comprehensive one as well.

Well, since this is for the people who are new to ISML, I guess I wouldn’t have to explain last year’s process, which was intended for only the first year, but you are right, the process is very convoluted and comprehensive.

This time around, we have a new background checking system. ANYBODY who makes it in would have to pass the new background check rule, which in summary, you have to be female, have a name, represent a series rated below 18+, and have sufficient screentime in the anime being represented. Think of this as showing ID at an airport.

We first take the top 16 candidates from the International Saimoe League the preceding year, or in this case, ISML 2008. That’s 16 candidates right there. Second, we also include any necklace winner who has had at least a .500 record, which unfortunately excludes Topaz winner Setsuna Sakurazaki from Negima?! , who had a .365 record last year.

Third, we take the “top 8” from the main tournaments from Korea and Japan. Excluding candidates already qualified, that adds 8 more. I would like to add to the fact that although Konjiki no Yami of To Love-Ru officially finished 9^th in that contest, as she would have made the top 8 if a very well-documented tie didn’t happen, we have decided to allow Yami an automatic entry as well. We also take the top 8 from AniZone’s exhibition tourney, Korea Super Best Moe, but as those from the top 8 in that tourney are already in or would be out thanks to the new background check rule, that adds no new candidates.

Finally, if there’s less than 48 candidates, we invite all of the .500 winners from the last year who didn’t meet the requirements above to come back to fill up that roster. This year, however, we only have 37 candidates, which means 11 extra spots are open and added to the 16 that were reserved for nominations.

This year, the nomination process will take place as two parts. First, a voter would go on to nominate eight candidates who didn’t make it already using a weighted system, giving 10 points to the candidate one most wants to see in and going down to 1 point. From there, the staff members will sort it out and take the top 48 candidates by points and have them participate in the new preliminary system, in which we divide those candidates to groups, take a winner from them, and reshuffle and repeat the process.

That’s as much as I can say without a reader falling asleep, but it is a very comprehenseive process that it’s so hard to describe it in short. I guess I should invite any reader who wants to know more about the process to contact me using the contact form on the site.

Also, tell us a little bit about the regular season and postseason, including the necklaces, the locations for the battles, and the Tiara. How do you put it all together?

The regular season is a 64 x 64 round robin league, which means all candidates will have to face every other candidate in a head-to-head matchup eventually. This means that every matchup is expected and it also gives voters time to gauge other candidates and prepare for when it is the best time to go campaigning for votes and which matches are shoe-in wins.

The necklaces were actually not in the original plan for this contest, but then again, it would be boring to just have a round-robin contest straight out. It would render some of the early matches “pointless” as there would be nothing at stake. The necklaces provide an incentive to each candidate to try to do her best in a three-week section of the season and also enable her to be recognized for being successful in ISML, even if she isn’t the overall champion.

The postseason is a straight seeded double-elimination contest. This is probably where the frustration of the 2chan Saimoe process comes in. Instead of matches being randomized and strong candidates eliminated early as a result, the matches are seeded and set up due to relative strength parlayed in the regular season. Once again, matches are expected, and the winner gets the final prize, the Tiara. In short, the Necklaces and Tiara are what distinguishes this competition from others because anime characters actually “win” something rather than just finishing first.

The locations of the battles are something new we’ve added for this year. Last year, we’ve just named them Arenas 1 to 32, but again, that’s sort of boring if you think about it, so we actually gave them Cities to be located. The locations are picked solely because geographical location, population (3 million minimum), and absence of political conflict. I would like to add that we are going to try to get the locations to coincide with real world conflicts, meaning that we will relocate matches if one of the venues selected has a strong worldwide conflict during that time.

How has the ISML been received in places like Korea and Japan? Has the feedback generally been positive, or do they feel it just doesn't have the same muscle their tournaments have?

This is a very interesting question, and it’s somewhat hard for me to answer with a straight face. We do indeed have voters from Japan, but I have yet to see that we have yet made an influence in the home country of anime, largely due in part to a lack of an actual Japanese translator, which… we are still looking for at the moment. So the feedback from Japan is certainly nonexistent, and it is currently a target audience we would reach for this year.

South Korea, on the other hand, is ranked second to the US in participation, thanks in large part to one of our most devoted voters, who tries to advertise the Korea Best Moe in the US. As a matter of fact, he was one of those who convinced me to start the International Saimoe League, and as I had done so, he’s done his best to serve as an ambassador of ISML in Korea, as he is the US ambassador of Korea Best Moe. Feedback I generally get from South Korea is mostly positive, up to the point that Koreans are already planning on campaigning days to get others to vote for said candidate on particular days. AniZone, in fact, has considered ISML to be a worthy rival Saimoe contest that they have begun to try to make their own contest better, adding features that ISML will probably never include to try to make their contest as unique as possible.

Other countries do have regular followings, such as China and Vietnam among others. We hope to someday reach a point in which ISML would truly be international, with possibly more languages to be able to accommodate foreign voters.

In your opinion, and this is one where you can go on a spiel on, what makes the International Saimoe League special? Is it the girls competing? The locations? The necklaces and Tiara? What is the one thing that makes the ISML awesome?

Almost everything ISML has to offer makes ISML awesome. Peirod. The only way to truly experience how “awesome” ISML is is to fully participate and visit regularly. What you do with the experience is up to you.

If I changed the word “awesome” to “unique”, then the answer would be different. Though many voters would miss this rather minor detail, if you look at the staff page, you can see that I am also listed as “Story Director”. Yes. International Saimoe League is probably one of the only contests to include an actual storyline, which is what I take out of this competition a lot. The seven necklaces that reveal the heavenly Tiara, the chaos that is round-robin, the rivalries between the candidates themselves, new and revived, etc. It is all part of one central storyline, and it is one that I continually try to form regularly. In fact, my original contribution to the Saimoe community is a storyline based on 2006 and 2007 results, one that has been put on hold for the moment due to real life implications, but I find myself continually writing stories based on the results of these competitions.

This year’s story is a continuation of the 2008 story, which is something a fellow staff member and I continually try to rewrite to come up with the best prologue possible. While the story is still trying to be rewritten detail by detail, the structure of the story is what gives ISML its now pernament image of the seven necklaces and its revelation of the tiara, and one can merely imagine the storyroute of his or her favorite candidate by looking at the results that come out of this contest.

Others will give you a different answer, I am sure, and many of them would definitely say it is the unique round-robin structure, but I am certain that it is the storyline concept and the image that comes with it that sets the International Saimoe League apart from others.

What are your future plans for the International Saimoe League? Is this something that will be here for the long haul? Are tournaments from other countries like China and Thailand in the discussion for having an automatic bid? Tell us what's in store for people following the ISML.

I generally try to think long term as much as possible, but the International Saimoe League, after its successful 2008 season (albeit with the well documented glitch issues and miscounts), is definitely here to say. Does it have a long way to go before it can reach the standards of the Japan Saimoe tournaments, if not surprass, definitely, but I am confident that we will reach that point in which the International Saimoe League will be the one contest everybody talks about.

It is ironic that you mention the Saimoe in China competition. Actually, staff members from China’s competition have already contacted me asking to make their competition an automatic bid for our contest, which is saying a lot. I responded to them that they needed to make an attempt to reach an international fanbase before we start talking about it, but I am sure that they will do just that.

What’s in store for the next few years, I can’t really say much, because we’re not sure if looking ahead to 2013 is a strong priority. But we have almost finished everything for 2009, and I am sure our first attempt at the preliminary rounds will give us success. I guess you can say that we will have to wait and see. Check the news page often for anything that is going on with ISML at this point, because I think that’s the best place to go to follow ISML as close as possible.

The Bedlam on Baltic Avenue thanks Mr. Nguyen for his time talking about the International Saimoe League. For more information on the tournament, the participants, and the upcoming 2009 season, visit the ISML web site at www.internationalsaimoe.com.