Forums

First of all if you're a newcomer, check out this thread first: http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=738

Note that this season, you can manage your team with the FAL application (or FAL app for short)!
Check out this thread to read all about it: http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=168017

Rules

The rules for the Fall 2009 season are now void and shall be replaced by the following rules:

1. Each manager will choose five (5) active series and one (1) bench series of the Spring 2010 season, listed in the post below. Please note that movies/OVAs/ONAs/specials are not in the list.
   
2. Sequels can be used freely in your team. Spinoffs/remakes are also fine. However the anime "K-On!!" is a special exception and won't be eligible to be chosen as part of your team.
   
3. The spring season starts on March 28th, 2010.
   
4. Points will only accumulate within the 14 weeks this event is in session. Later episodes and weeks will not count towards your score. Only the anime on the player's active list will score points; the bench anime will not score any points.
   
5. A player may swap up to two (2) anime in the entire season. The player is also allowed to swap in consecutive weeks if desired. Click here to learn more about bench swaps.
   
6. Players are not required to be active for the duration of this event. Nor are they required to actually watch the anime in their team. They simply need to set a bracket at the beginning, let their anime rack up points, and swap benches and/or use the wildcard/aces when they feel it's beneficial to their score.
   
7. In the event that at the end of the FAL season two or more players wind up with the same score, their bench anime will be used as a tie breaker. The player with bench anime that scores the most points in the entire season wins.
   
8. The winner of the Spring Season will be able to choose from the following list of prizes:
   
   Fairy Tail manga (English) Volume 1-4
   One Piece: Season One, Volume 2 (contains episodes 14-26)
   Nendoroid Petite Bakemonogatari Set #01
   Two months anime membership on Crunchyroll
   $15 gift certificate to rightstuf.com

Physical prizes will need to be shipped to the winner, who will need to provide his/her mailing address to receive it. Gift certificates do not require mailing addresses.

Aside from a physical prize, we'll also award the top 3 with a banner for extra bragging rights.

If you decide/need to change your username while FAL is running, you must either PM the FAL Staff with your username change before changing it or change it yourself in the FAL app after changing it. Swaps, aces, wildcard requests and possible prizes will be rendered invalid if the team manager's name has been changed without notifying the staff with one of the above methods!

Registration

After you've read the rules, made your team and are ready to register, you can either register via the FAL app or PM FALbot in the following format:AnimeID#: These are the numbers provided with each eligible anime in the next post. The last one (AnimeID6) is your bench series. Please do not write "AnimeID#" in your PM.

AnimeName#: These are the names of the anime that correspond to the numbers given with in the AnimeIDs list.

For example:If you choose to register with FALbot, you must submit your registration in this format for your team to be correctly entered into the database.

Registration with either method (FAL app or PM) will need to be done before March 27th, 11:59 PM EST for your team to qualify. In there's a problem with this deadline, please feel free to contact the FAL Staff to discuss it.

Points Criteria

Automatically awarded points:
The following points are awarded without any input from the player over the course of the FAL season:

• Weekly points:
  
  • +1 point for each user who has anime under "Currently Watching" or "Completed" that week on MAL
    
  • Double the anime's "Currently Watching" points for the week if four or less players have it on their active team
    
  • +25 points for each forum post in the anime's episode discussion threads in the previous two weeks (counted every two weeks)
  
  
• Points scored only once:
  
  • +2000 points for each group that fansubs the anime in English (starting from 1st episode) Joint projects count only once. Fansub groups MUST have an IRC channel or a website to be counted.
    
  • -1500 points if dropped by a fansub group unless due to (a Crunchyroll) license. On top of an obvious announcement, a series is also considered dropped when a fansub group hasn't released a new episode in the 4 FAL weeks following the last episode was released AND is being unclear whether the series is on hold/stalled.
    
  • +1000 points for each group that fansubs the anime in English (starting after episode 1 of the anime)
    
  • -750 points if dropped by a fansub group that started in the middle (same rules apply with the full drop)
    
  • +10000 points if licensed in America during the season (restricted to 1 (one) license per anime). If anime is licensed before season begins then points are awarded in first week. (Licenses shall be defined by AnimeSuki's License Database excluding Crunchyroll "licenses", which are counted as a sub)
    
  • +1000*((un)weighted score) points for score ratings on MAL upon Week 7
    
  • +2000*((un)weighted score) points for score ratings on MAL at the end of FAL season
    
  • -5 for each user who has anime under "Dropped" upon week 7
    
  • -10 for each user who has anime under "Dropped" at the end of FAL season
    
  • +30 points for every user favoriting the anime at the end of FAL season

Strategically awarded points:
The following points are determined based on the player's discretion.

• Wildcard
  All players are given the opportunity to choose one of the following options as a wildcard starting on Week 9 of the season:
  
  1. The booster. Add a one-time 500 point bonus to the team's score for the week.
     
  2. The nuke (up version). At a cost of 250 points, subtract 1000 points from the team above or at the same rank as the player in the team ranking of the previous week (in other words, the most recently available team rankings).
     
  3. The nuke (down version). At a cost of 250 points, subtract 1000 points from the team below, or at the same rank as the player in the team ranking of the previous week (in other words, the most recently available team rankings).
     
  4. An extra swap. At a cost of 200 points, swap a bench anime with an active anime one more time. If you use this and don't want to use the FAL app, send the PM saying you want a swap and make a post in the swaps thread like how you would normally swap.

• Ace
  In any week of the season, an anime in your active team may be declared as the "Ace". The Ace will take effect the next time the scores are tallied. You will receive:
  
  • +1000 points if the "Ace" becomes the anime with the most points in your team for that week.
    
  • -1000 points if the "Ace" does not become the anime with the most points in your team for that week.
  Furthermore,
  
  • Each anime in your team may only be declared as the "Ace" once per season
    
  • Aces are available as soon as the season begins.

Wildcards and Aces are used by either submitting your choice in the FAL app or by PMing FALbot with your choice. If you're nuking and the rank above/below is shared by more than 1 person, make sure to mention who you want to nuke; otherwise just the choice is sufficient.

The following anime are eligible this season:

1 - Angel Beats
2 - Arakawa Under the Bridge
3 - B Gata H Kei
4 - Giant Killing
5 - Hakuouki
6 - Hanakappa
7 - Heroman
8 - Hime Chen! Otogi Chikku Idol Lilpri
9 - Ichiban Ushiro no Dai Maou
10 - Jewelpet Twinkle
11 - Kaichou wa Maid-sama
12 - Ketsuinu
13 - Kiss x Sis
14 - Major S6
15 - Marie & Gali 2.0
16 - Mayoi Neko Overrun!
17 - Metal Fight Beyblade: Baku
18 - Ookiku Furikabutte: Natsu no Taikai Hen
19 - RAINBOW - Nisha Rokubo no Shichinin
20 - Ring ni Kakero 1: Kage Dou Hen
21 - Saraiya Goyou
22 - SD Gundam Sangokuden
23 - Senkou no Night Raid
24 - ineligible title, don't use!
25 - Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru
26 - Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei

The following anime are ineligible and can NOT be chosen:
The number before each anime is the anime ID. Again, make sure you check the post above to read how to correctly register for the FAL Spring 2010 season.

If we are missing any anime or any of the above information is incorrect as it pertains to the Spring 2010 season, please let us know ASAP!

Shin Koihime Musou Otome Tairan episode 1 will be pre-aired on March 26 which is before the start of the season.

Also, Magic Kaito is not on the list (starts airing on April 17).

You're absolutely correct about shin koihime. It's been kicked out of the list now.

About magic kaito..........we can't seem to find much data on it. We know something's going to air with that name, but what it is exactly. There is reason enough to believe it's not going to be a series, but only a special. We have looked at it before and purposefully left it out just to be safe, but I forgot to add it to the list.

Thanks for your help. ^_^

Time to start researching! And just out of curiosity, why the change from two benches to one?

Looking forward to it! Just got to figure out my team now...

With the episode discussion thread post counts, is it:

A) All new posts in All episode threads are counted for those two weeks

or

B) Posts in the new episode threads for those two weeks are counted?

This season has a significantly smaller selection of anime to choose from. So basically we needed to increase the diverity in teams or else there wouldn't be much point in doing the season. There was even a motion to go to a 4-1 team, but for (obvious) reasons, we kept it at 5-1.
A

I'm predicting the majority of top scoring players from prior seasons having the same 6 anime teams. With the only ones diverging those going for a hunch in hopes it becomes a surprise hit and outscores one of the big 6.

Hmm I wonder about a certain sequel though...

I think Ookiku Furikabatte: Natsu no Taikai Hen is spelt wrong? It is listed on MAL as Ookiku Furikabutte ~Natsu no Taikai Hen~

Then what about Iron Man then? Its not on the list and it is in spring anime. :1

Ironman has been delayed until Autumn

I don't particularly see why Working had to be kicked off the list. That wasn't it's official airing date, just a pre-screening on the internet. It's still quite clearly a spring season anime.

Thanks. Title has been fixed.
I've been told it's airing together with Wolverine somewhere in october.
Not exactly true. The first ep was pre-aired on tv on Tokyo MX. And considering it was the actual first episode of the series, it got an unfair advantage over the other series (it already has 2,500 CW). So it seems logical to kick it off.

FAL application is not working for me, I have registered by PMing to FALbot. How do I know if my registration have been accepted before the date closure of registration(28 march)?

Thanks in advance.

I'll post a headcount thread somewhere in the last week of the registration period and update that regularly to show who have registered properly.

If you don't mind, could you please be more specific as to what's going on with the FAL app in this thread, so I can try to fix it. Like I mentioned there, there are bound to be bugs, but will need people to tell me what's going wrong so I can fix it. ^_^

is there some place where everything is posted all the time so i can watch how this is done?

ive read the rules n such but im having a hard time understanding it all. sorry ive always had some issues understanding things like this that deals with numbers and stuff. im actually a bit embarrassed by it.


but i really want to play sometime. it seems like fun!

You can always just go around the FAL sub-forum and check out the various result threads. They're not deleted, so you could technically go way back and see how FAL has developed over the seasons. :)

If you're really confused about how FAL works and how to do things, you can always try out the FAL app to check out results of past seasons in report management or you can get started in all the other parts of the application, which should be intuitive enough to understand. :)

what is anime ID? i cant find it anywhere.

It is the number next to each anime on the list provided by boursk.
Angel Beats' animeID# is 1, animeID for Arakawa Under The Bridge is 2 and etc

The List

thank you vary much (:

I can't seem to access the FAL application with the link provided with IE or Firefox.