Do you ever get curious who Japanese otaku think is the most moe character of this past year? Ponder no further--after about 4 months of trials and tribulations, the greater otaku hive mind of 2ch has determined that Taiga Aisaka of Toradora is the most moe of them all!
2ch is the world's largest forum, and a central place where Japanese fans gather to talk about everything under the sun. That makes Saimoe, short for "Anime Saimoe Tournament," one of the largest voting event for fans world wide. Keep reading and you might find some Taiga pictures at the end...
Because 2ch is a purely text-based forum, supporters for each character can only link to images and videos that highlight the juicy goodness of their favorites in order to encourage others to discover something they've been missing. To me, however, it is the only place where you can find "ASCII" art of anime characters, since you can post those in-line with the posts. There are all sort of other curiosities, shall you care to dive into the depths of 2ch.
In years past, Saimoe selected its winners from an extremely exhaustive pool of characters. I mean, in the preliminary rounds this year you could have found the "Girl who was worried about the food undercooking when the breaker flipped" from K-ON as one of the choices you could have voted for. So be assured that anyone you've heard of, in a new anime this past year, is well-represented.
All the more that makes Taiga's victory an authoritative one...
The English-language fan site, animesaimoe, stood up to burden the need-to-know of English-speaking fans who participated in the Saimoe this year, so a big props to the guys responsible!Feel free to hit up that site for more details on Saimoe 2009, who was in it, and what kind of nonsense transpired.