The Sweet Sixteen, our second round of Anime March Madness, begins today! But first, let’s go through the results of the wild first week of the tournament!
Thousands of Votes // Favorites Advance
Last year, we had just under 10,000 votes total for our entire tournament—we’re well on our way to Detroit Smashing that mark with more than 6,000 votes alone in round one, a single round record for us! Thanks to everyone who voted last week, and please keep on voting! This is a worthwhile competition because you make it that way. I hope it’s been fun so far for you!
There weren’t a lot of upsets in round one. In fact, most of the higher-seeded anime made it through their matches by large margins. Seven of the eight #1 and #2 seeds made it through (Those I would consider odds-on favorites to win—My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, and Cowboy Bebop—won their matches with 77.7%, 73.6%, and 70.5% of the vote, respectively). It’s a wide-open race this year, but certainly the two big shounen series of the moment, MHA and KNY, are on the fast track to the championship.
Two Close Votes // Two Key Upsets
Despite the usual suspects moving on, there were some surprises in round one, including one of the biggest shockers in the tourney’s history. But first, it’s worth mentioning what might come as a surprise to come. If you’ve been following events on Facebook, you would have seen that Code Geass, never previously a strong competitor, brought in a huge number of votes in its play-in game. It parlayed that success into an easy win over Haikyuu!! in what might represent a changing of the guard. Can it continue that strong streak by upsetting MHA next week? That remains to be seen. Another previously strong competitor, #3 seed ERASED, lost to new entrant Kimi ni Todoke despite smoking Sawako and company on FB and the blog. However, interest in the shoujo classic on on our new Instagram platform, whose audience is primarily female, carried the show and could carry it even further!
But the biggest upset in week one was in a match-up between a two and a seven. Last year’s runner-up, Violet Evergarden, which should have been bolstered by coverage here on Beneath the Tangles of a recent movie (soon coming to Netflix), lost to The Ancient Magus Bride by less than 4%. I don’t think anyone called this one. Violet won three of the accounts, but a strong push for Magus on Facebook carried it to the slim victory. It was the second closest competition of the week; only Mob Psycho 100 versus Fruits Basket (2019) was closer, with the latter winning by eight votes!
Onto the Sweet Sixteen
Here’s the updated bracket:
We’ll feature this week’s set of eight match-ups through two blog posts—today’s and a post on Wednesday. Please vote below, but we also encourage you to subscribe to our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts. The fun there is in participating in the communal aspect of the games, as our subscribers cheer for their favorites and express disdain for others.
Here’s the first set of matches for round two:
Ancient Magus Bride’s victory is the best reason I’ve ever seen to use Facebook.😁