Forum - View topicBest Rivals/Adversaries Tournament: Post-Mortem
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18577 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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This series was advertised as a ninja version of Romeo and Juliet, so I don't see how you can hold the predictable ending against it. That the Basilisk ending was inevitable was an integral part of the tragedy inherent in the rivalry. I'm not sure where you're getting the "back seat to the plot" business, either. Yes, there was a plot behind initiating this stage of the rivalry and ultimately bringing it to a resolution, but the storytelling also clarified on several occasions that the long-standing feud only needed a small shove to spin into bloody warfare. And while the PT ending was less predictable, I would argue that, beyond a certain point, it was no longer about a Tutu/Krahe rivalry but instead about the greater foes: The Raven and Drosselmeyer's manipulations. |
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nightjuan
 Posts: 1473 |
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Group C Final
Princess Tutu vs. Princess Krahe, Princess Tutu vs. Kouga vs. Iga clans, Basilisk Voting for: Kouga vs. Iga clans I suppose I'm actually going with the far less original choice here, because the fact Basilisk's plot is predictable tends to be more of a criticism of the show than of the rivalry itself. It's still quite engaging to watch and the numerous duels between the rival ninja clans carry a lot of hatred and general emotional weight, from beginning to end, precisely because of the overarching sense of doom and gloom. I'd rate Princess Tutu higher as a series, all things considered, but as others have already argued...the true core of the story lies elsewhere. Group D Final Yuki Sohma vs. Kyo Sohma, Fruits Basket vs. Hikaru Shindou vs. Akira Touya, Hikaru no Go Voting for: Hikaru Shindou vs. Akira Touya I don't think they should win this tournament, in the grand scheme of things, but past and present arguments as well as the video clips have made me conclude it is still a better choice than Yuki vs. Kyo. I doubt I'll ever be genuinely interested in Go, but the interactions between Akira and Hikura seem to do a good job in terms of making the audience care about the outcome of their matches, mostly because there will apparently be some interesting consequences for characterization, regardless of the presence of melodramatic elements (which, once again, I don't necessarily consider as "bad" in this context). |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Well, I've dithered long enough:
Voting for Kouga and Iga Clans. My reasons are as stated before, in that there are many individual rivalries within the overarching conflict,and the rivalry is not just essential to the plot but actually is the plot. Voting for Hikaru and Akira. They aren't strong, but good enough I guess. Thanks go out to Ggultra2764 and Tris8 for lobbying for the Hikaru no Go rivalry, as their arguments were pretty much the tipping point in convincing me to vote this way. I'm not fully happy with Hikaru and Akira, but no-one really tried to go out to bat for Yuki and Kyo, and that was the difference in the end. |
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ccdx
 Posts: 312 |
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Group C Final
Princess Tutu vs. Princess Krahe, Princess Tutu vs. Kouga vs. Iga clans, Basilisk Gonna vote for Princess Tutu vs. Princess Krahe because of the uniqueness of the rivalry and because I prefer the poetic grace, style, and intelligence the series offers, over the bloody "kill everybody on the other side" rivalry in Basilisk. Group D Final Yuki Sohma vs. Kyo Sohma, Fruits Basket vs. Hikaru Shindou vs. Akira Touya, Hikaru no Go Still voting for Hikaru Shindou vs. Akira Touya. This pair seems stronger and stronger the more I learn about them. Their rivalry can sometimes be highly dramatized, but that's alright. Yuki and Kyo seem very mild in comparison, they just go through the same arguments/same motions every episode. |
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The Naked Beast
 Posts: 1028 Location: A Blue Planet |
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Group C Final
Princess Tutu vs. Princess Krahe, Princess Tutu vs. Kouga vs. Iga clans, Basilisk I have not seen either series so it is hard to vote here. In the end, I pick Princess Tutu vs. Princess Krahe after watching the clips. It was the elegance that won my vote. My vote goes to: Princess Tutu vs. Princess Krahe. Group D Final Yuki Sohma vs. Kyo Sohma, Fruits Basket vs. Hikaru Shindou vs. Akira Touya, Hikaru no Go Though I find the Fruits Basket rivalry more entertaining, my vote goes to the Hikaru no Go for its intensity and development. Their passion for Go and their wanting to surpass the other brings out what this rivalry has to offer. My vote goes to: Hikaru Shindou vs. Akira Touya. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18577 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Round 5: Group C and D Semifinals is now closed.
Results, with 15 votes in: Group C: Kouga vs. Iga clans outlasted Tutu vs. Krahe, 9-6. Group D: Hikaru vs. Akira more handily defeats Yuki vs. Kyo Sohma, 11-4. Group C really wasn't even that close, as the Basilisk rivalry steadily had a 3-5 vote lead. So now our Final Four is set. One rivalry is a clan blood feud, one is a game-centered rivalry, one is a deadly duel of wits between highly intelligent young men, and one is an ideological rivalry from a mecha-oriented series. In other words, the four surviving rivalries are all quite different. Of the four, Groups A and B were won by their respective #1 seeds based on the Nominations phase, while Groups C and D were won by 7th and 6th seeds, respectively, in each case beating the #1 seed in their Group to advance. Some may also be interested to know that all of the #2 seeds made it to at least the fourth round. The Final Four should be up soon. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18577 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Final Four: Tournament Semifinals are now closed.
Results can be found here. Only two weeks to go now, and two big face-offs this round. Should be good! Group A-B Semifinal Light Yagami vs. L, Death Note vs. Lelouch Lamperouge vs. Suzaku Kurugi, Code Geass Group C-D Semifinal Kouga vs. Iga clans, Basilisk vs. Hikaru Shindou vs. Akira Touya, Hikaru no Go Last edited by Key on Tue Nov 15, 2011 12:31 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Ggultra2764
 Subscriber Posts: 3991 Location: New York state. |
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Semi-Final Match #1: Light vs L (Death Note)
Both the rivalries in this match are solid ones despite the titles they belong in being wound up in melodramatics at points. But in terms of the more engaging feud for me at this point, Light and L's game of wits and deception with one another made a more stronger impression for me thanks to the intelligence of both men involved and the risks that were at hand. Semi-Final Match #2: Kouga vs Iga (Basilisk) Ha, ha. A battle between this tournament's dark horses. Hate to vote off the team I've been egging on for both their merits and making Key have meltdowns over plowing through rivalries from more well-known anime titles in Group D, but the Kouga and Iga have quite the messy and personal history in their rivalry that it makes up much of Basilisk's entirety; something that Hikaru and Akira can't attest to as even with the rivalry as great as it is, their series was prominently focused on the growth and dilemmas of Hikaru's character as he played Go. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18577 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Group A-B Semifinal
Light Yagami vs. L, Death Note vs. Lelouch Lamperouge vs. Suzaku Kurugi, Code Geass I have long felt that Lelouch vs. Suzaku's rivalry has been overrated by the voting and nominations in this tournament; just because a lot of people recognize it as a rivalry doesn't automatically mean that it's a strong one. And I think that they get killed here even though they won in a sweep last round. CG is one of the few series out there which can equal and even trump when it comes to melodramatic flair, so that effectively negates the one weakness that Light vs. L does have. Their rivalry simply beats Lelouch/Suzaku on all fronts: it's dramatically and incontestably established, drives the series from its origins in episode 2 until its resolution (and arguably beyond), shows many terrific scenes of the mental gymnastics each performs to outwit the other, and is played for incredibly high stakes. Lelouch/Suzaku can't beat Light/L on any of those points and falls short on many of them. Group C-D Semifinal Kouga vs. Iga clans, Basilisk vs. Hikaru Shindou vs. Akira Touya, Hikaru no Go The nominations phase made Kouga vs. Iga clans into a dark horse, but they never should have been in that situation. I always saw them as one of the top two or three contenders - in fact, they were the rivalry that I specifically had in mind when I discussed group-group rivalries in the Proposal and Nominations phases - and I have no qualms about seeing them advance to the Finals to face off against the strongest 1-1 rivalry. It's a rivalry so intense that every attempt to progress beyond the rivalry and establish peace gets ruthlessly crushed under the oppressive weight of the generations-old conflict. It functions on individual as well as group levels and generates tragedy in the way it interferes with two pairs of potential lovers. So all-consuming is it that only the death of everyone involved can truly bring it to an end. And while there is technically a plot about a succession dispute which brings about this round of fighting, the story is really about the rivalry and the love which tries to survive at its center. Anime rivalries simply don't get uglier than Kouga/Iga. That might not make its appealing, but its strength is formidable enough to outweigh Hikaru/Akira's advantages. |
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Dorcas_Aurelia
 Posts: 5344 Location: Philly |
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Interesting thing about the semifinals: most people expect L and Light to move on here, but the other 3 rivalries have 1 semifinal pick between them. The winners of Brackets C and D are comparatively dark horses. As such, the top 5 places are beyond the point where anyone can change places, so we've got our winners.
And in first place is... wait, who? Olliff, mow, and Ggultra have been at the top since round 2, and Key got up there in round 3, but it's none of those 4? In the past 7 tournaments, we've only had one other instance where the winner wasn't in the top 3 since the end of round 3. Our winner here overcame a 16 point deficit since C-3 to take first place by ONE POINT. spoiler[I still hold the record for going from 23 behind to 11 ahead in the Duos Tournament, though, neener neener.] Sorry about all the blabbering, this just sorta snuck up on me. I went back and checked the scores because, with my spreadsheet pretty automated with the calculations, I mostly don't need to, but, yeah, everything's good. Also, MediaFire is being difficult, so I don't have the spreadsheet ready at the moment. Hopefully I'll get it up tomorrow, but I've sent the information to ccdx, so he should have the results up soon. |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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Group A-B Semifinal
Voting for: Light Yagami vs. L, Death Note Unless things go really different from how I expect, the days of difficult decisions for me in this tournament are over. While I've fully supported Lelouch and Suzaku reaching this point, they don't have anything on Light and L. It's actually interesting to me that this is, I believe, the third time that there's been a Death Note vs Code Geass match-up in a tournament (Lelouch took out Light in the Intelligence tournament only to be defeated by L, IIRC). I've always found that these two series have lots of similarities, especially in their leads. And even these two rivalries do have a lot in common: idealogical values, life and death battling, even friendship being at least partially in the mix. But these similarities really do highlight why the Death Note rivals are the best and very easily get my vote. Group C-D Semifinal Voting for: Kouga vs. Iga clans, Basilisk I don't have much to say about this match-up, since I have never seen either series. This vote is pretty much just me staying consistent with previous rounds because arguments swayed me to support for Basilisk. |
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Ggultra2764
Subscriber Posts: 3991 Location: New York state. |
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Tris8, I'm guessing? 
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Dorcas_Aurelia
Posts: 5344 Location: Philly |
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It's a seeeecret.
spoiler[Yes, Tris8] Edit: Voting. Easy choice for me this week, so no need to wait for other people's opinions to help guide me. A-29 Light Yagami vs. L, Death Note vs. Lelouch Lamperouge vs. Suzaku Kurugi, Code Geass Choosing: Light vs L Because Of the final four, these two are the most similar, and in pretty much every aspect that matters (to me, at least), Light and L are superior. C-29 Kouga vs. Iga clans, Basilisk vs. Hikaru Shindou vs. Akira Touya, Hikaru no Go Choosing: Kouga vs Iga Because The grudge between the rival ninja clans is more intense and consuming. |
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nightjuan
Posts: 1473 |
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Group A-B Semifinal
Light Yagami vs. L, Death Note vs. Lelouch Lamperouge vs. Suzaku Kurugi, Code Geass Voting for: Light Yagami vs. L This isn't going to be a particularly hard choice for me either. Both of these rivalries are quite engaging and entertaining, in my opinion, but even I can't argue that Light vs. L is inferior, whether in terms of concept or execution. Although I could question certain statements here and there, because these rivalries aren't exactly going for the same angle despite the existence of a few obvious similarities (which explains why some of the aspects previously suggested or implied to be "weaknesses" for Lelouch vs. Suzaku and "strengths" for Light vs. L are simply part of an inherently different dynamic), I'm not going to discuss the actual result at length. In the end, I'll support the rivalry that most deserves to move on to the final round...and that's Light vs. L. Then again, I'd honestly wish to endorse Reinhard vs. Yang over any of these two, but that's quite clearly impossible. 
Group C-D Semifinal Kouga vs. Iga clans, Basilisk vs. Hikaru Shindou vs. Akira Touya, Hikaru no Go Voting for: Kouga vs. Iga clans In addition to what has already been mentioned in this and previous rounds, I guess it really comes down to what people prefer to see in a rivalry: gradual character growth or raw enmity? I suppose I'll go with the latter and support Basilisk here, one more time, because as much as the Hikaru vs. Akira conflict manages to bring a lot of dynamism and tension to an otherwise harmless game...it doesn't really pack the same punch, dramatically speaking, as the deadly fight between two ninja clans. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Wouldn't it be funny if both matches were complete shut-outs? I don't think that's going to happen, but imagine if it did. Surely would be a first for these tournaments, right?
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