Greetings, and welcome to the 2015 Winter / Spring Edition of the Namine's Café Newsletter
First, I would like to thank everyone who has joined the cafe, as well as those who actively support us. After being open for less than 18 months, we are closing in on 5000 members and 100 affiliations. And Namine's cafe just recently passed the incredible milestone of 8000 pages of chat comments (that's 160,000 comments), the first club in MAL to ever achieve this goal.
We have an amazing amount of things happening at the cafe: First, we have three major competitions coming, including an Anime Couples Competition, a Voice Actor Competition, as well as the 2nd Annual Namine's Cafe Best Girl Competition. We'll also be having several other small competitions along the way, including an Anime Scavenger Hunt, a Best Scene Competition, a card making competition, plus many more. In addition to our competitions, there some big news at the cafe. First of all, Skype is back!!! While we still have a dedicated IRC chat, we've brought back Skype, and it's as popular as it ever was in the cafe. Also, member card editions are returning to the cafe shortly, with some of the best card makers in MAL signed up to help make wonderful cards, so stop by early and often to see what cards are available.
The details for each of our event sare listed in the below spoilers:
Namine's Café Anime Couple's Competition
Following the success of our previous competitions we held last year, we've decided to follow that up with another competition. Last month, we held a vote on what type of character competition we should hold, and Couple's Competition won.
Here's how it works:
The competition takes place in two phases. The first phase is where everyone gets to nominate a couple for the competition. You can nominate up to 3 anime/manga couples. They must be a real couple in the anime (no wishful thinking here :-)), having at least dated or kissed in the anime as a minimum. You rank your nominees from 1 to 3. The ranking determines how many points each character gets, like so:
#1 choice is worth 5 points
#2 choice is worth 3 points
#3 choice is worth 1 points
The points each character gets from each members nomination are cumulative, and when the nominations are over, the points will be counted, and the top 32 couples will compete in a double elimination bracket style competition where then members vote on them in one on one, er... two on two, competitions xD.
The nomination phase will last 15 days, starting on Sunday, 2/15/2015, and will close on Saturday, 2/28/2015. The first voting competition will start on Tuesday, 3/3/2015. A new competition will start every day, and each vote is open for 2 days. If a couple wins, they move on to the next round. If a couple loses, they move to the single loss bracket, where they will face off against the other match losers. If a couple wins their match in the second bracket, they will move on for another match in the second bracket. If they lose a match in the second bracket, they are out. This means that even if your favorite couple loses, they still have a chance.
Here are the rules:
As stated above, you can nominate up to 3 anime/manga couples. It can be less than 3, but it cannot be more. Any couple over the first 3 will be removed.
The couple must be a couple in the anime/manga. If they are not, but are a couple, or have kissed or dated in a LN or VN, then they will be accepted (proof must be provided in this case). Straight, yuri, and yaoi couples are acceptable. For threesomes and love triangles, make a choice on which pairing to nominate (or nominate both separately :-)).
List the full name of both characters in the couple to be nominated, as well as an anime that they are in. Hot-linking the characters to their MAL page is welcome, but not required.
Only one nomination list per member, please.
Namine's Café Second Annual Best Girl Competition
Our first competition last year, the Moe Competition, was an incredible success. This is the second annual competition, but instead of just moe girls, all girls will be allowed to be nominated.
Here's how it works:
Similar to last year's Moe Competition and the Couples Competition, this competition also takes place in two phases. The first phase is where everyone gets to nominate supporting characters for the competition. Since we're allowing all girls, we're also increasing the field of play. You can nominate up to 7 anime characters, listed in the MAL database. They can be your favorites, or just characters that you believe are the most cool. You rank your nominees from 1 to 7. The ranking determines how many points each girl gets, with special bonus points for #1 & #2 pics, like so:
#1 choice is worth 10 points
#2 choice is worth 7 points
#3 choice is worth 5 points
#4 choice is worth 4 points
#5 choice is worth 3 points
#6 choice is worth 2 points
#7 choice is worth 1 point
The points each character gets from each members nomination are cumulative, and when the nominations are over, the points will be counted, and the top 64 girls will compete in a single elimination bracket style competition where then members vote on them in one on one competitions.
The nomination phase will last 15 days, starting sometime in March (exact date TBD). The first voting competition will start shortly after the nominations have been closed. A new competition will start every day, and each vote is open for 2 days. Because the field will be double the size of the other competitions, the best girl competition will be single elimination and not double elimination.
Here are the rules:
As stated above, you can nominate up to 7 anime girls.
The nominee must be listed in MAL, and must be in at least one an anime - sorry, but no pure manga girls allowed. Furthermore, nominees must be female - no traps allowed.
List the full name of each character to be nominated, as well as an anime that she is in. Hot-linking the character to their MAL page is welcome, but not required.
Only one nomination list per member, please.
No double nominating. Meaning that the same character is nominated as your 1st and 3rd choice. If this happens, the 2nd listing will be removed.
Namine's Café Voice Actor Competition
Another competition we'll be having is the Voice Actor Competition
Here's how it works:
The competition takes place in three phases. The first phase is where everyone gets to nominate Voice Actors the competitions. You can nominate up to 5 Japanese Voice Actors, and up to 5 non-Japanese Voice Actors. Following the nominations, there will be two separate competitions: one for Japanese VAs and one for non-Japanese VAs. The VAs must be listed in MAL. You rank your nominees from 1 to 5. The ranking determines how many points each character gets, like so:
#1 choice is worth 5 points
#2 choice is worth 4 points
#3 choice is worth 3 points
#4 choice is worth 2 points
#5 choice is worth 1 point
The points each VA gets from each members nomination are cumulative, and when the nominations are over, the points will be counted, and the top 32 Japanese VAs and the top 32 non-Japanese VAs will compete in separate single elimination bracket style competition where then members vote on them in one on one competitions.
The nomination phase will last 15 days, starting sometime in April / May (exact date TBD). The first voting competition will start shortly after the nominations have been closed. A new competition will start every other day, with the Japanese and non-Japanese matches alternating, with each vote open for 2 days. Because there will be two separate competitions, the field will be double the size of the other competitions, similar to the best girl competition, so the VA competitions will be single elimination and not double elimination.
Here are the rules:
As stated above, you can nominate up to 10 Voice Actors - 5 Japanese and 5 English a/o non-Japanese.
The VAs must be listed in MAL.
List the full name of the VA, as well as at least one to two characters they've portrayed (so that others know who they are). Hot-linking the VAs to their MAL page is welcome, but not required.
Sometime witin the next couple of months, we'll hold an Anime Scavenger Hunt. There will be prizes for the winners.
Here's how it works:
The scavenger hunt will actually be a series of hunts, differing in levels of difficulty. Every couple days, a list will be pulished at the cafe for a new hunt. The list will contain objects, characters, quotes, etc. The job of the hunters is to find what anime the items on the list come from.
Here are the rules:
Each list will contain a set of items that need to be identified from specifica anime. The list will also include a MAL user account
If an item on the list can be found in multiple anime, listing o ne of the anime is acceptable
Teaming up is allowed
When all the items have been identified, a PM needs to be sent to the user account identified on the list. The first PM, based on datestamp, that correctly identifies everything on the list is the winner.
Namine's Café Best Scene Competition
Another competition the cafe will be having is the best scene competition.
Here's how it works:
The competition takes place in two phases. First, anyone can nominate up to two scenes that they like in anime - either it's really funny, sad, kawaii, uber-erotic, etc. To enter a nomination, members will need to make a snippet of an anime containing that scene and turn it into a video. Scenes can be up to 5 minutes long. The first 50 scenes will be accepted. If turnout is high, that can be increased. Once all the nominations are in, the compettions will begin. Each week, 5 scenes will be selected at random and added to a poll therad. The top vote counter will win that week. The #2 vote counter will also stay alive. Follign the 10 weeks of voting, the 10 2nd placers will compete in 2 weekly votes, with the 2 winners added to the 10 1st placers. The 12 remaining scenes will vote in 4 separate votes of 3 random scenes each, with the winner going to the final. The championship will be a week long vote of the final 3 scenes. The one who submitted the winning scene will win a major prize.
Namine's Café card making competition
Namine's cafe will hold a card making competiton, where anyone who wants to try to make a card can join. Once the competition starts, there will be a 2 - 3 week period where everyone can make and submit a single member card. The cards (exact number TBD), will then be pitted against each other in head to head competitions. Don't think you can make a card - don't worry so much. Try your cand at making a card and who knows, if coul dbe amazing.
Namine's Café Skype Group
The cafe once again has Skype. please Click Here for more information on the Skype Group, and to get an invitation to it.
Namine's Café Official Steam Group Activities
As many of you are aware, the Cafe has it's own Steam Group. Please click here for more information on the Steam Group, and to get an invitation to it. We are currently planning some possible Steam game tournaments in the future, and feedback on this would be awesome. Also, we may be getting our Minecraft server back, as well.
If you can use photoshop than you can do an About me like this. There are enough font database in google. Just google "fonts" and find one you like. Overlay effects can be done by filter and various brushes. By including other image elements or renders you can achieve this kind of effects. I used it also in my about me.
Well this my guess, best would be if you ask her personally though.
The Slice of Life Club has a new layout! To help our members get into the Christmas spirit, we've put a little something festive up. We hope that all of our members have a happy and safe holiday season!
Male Competition Updates Newsletter
We're down to our final four male characters! After a handful of close battles, four male characters moved on as our finalists! Those four would be Little Busters!'s Kyousuke Natsume, Natsume Yuujinchou's Takashi Natsume, Hyouka's Houtarou Oreki and Barakamon's Seishuu Handa! Who will be our champion? You decide in our final two matches!
[u]Championships: Silver Round Matches[/u]
Kyousuke Natsume (Little Busters!) vs Takashi Natsume (Natsume Yuujinchou)
Houtaru Oreki (Hyouka) vs Handa Seishuu (Barakamon) >>>Click here to vote on the Championship polls!<<<
[u]Sapphire Round: Group A Matches[/u]
Kyousuke Natsume (Little Busters!) vs Makoto Tachibana (Free!)
Kyon (Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu) vs Eikichi Onizuka (Great Teacher Onizuka) >>>Click here to vote on the Group A polls!<<<
[u]Sapphire Round: Group B Matches[/u]
Ginko (Mushishi) vs Jun Satou (Working!!)
Takashi Natsume (Natsume Yuujinchou) vs Daikichi Kawachi (Usagi Drop) >>>Click here to vote on the Group B polls!<<<
[u]Sapphire Round: Group C Matches[/u]
Shougo Kiryuu (Isshuukan Friends.) vs Houtaru Oreki (Hyouka)
Shouyou Hinata (Haikyuu!!) vs Chiaki Shinichi (Nodame Cantabile) >>>Click here to vote on the Group C polls!<<<
[u]Sapphire Round: Group D Matches[/u]
Handa Seishuu (Barakamon) vs Nagisa Hazuki (Free!)
Shouta Kazehaya (Kimi ni Todoke) vs Rin Matsuoka (Free!) >>>Click here to vote on the Group D polls!<<<
The Slice of Life Club will be hosting a couple events to celebrate the Christmas season with! We will be doing our third annual Secret Santa event and a Christmas themed MAL Scavenger Hint! More information on the events and links to their threads can be found under the spoiler tag:
[u]Secret Santa Information:[/u]
It is time for our third annual Secret Santa event! Every year for Christmas we have our members signup to exchange presents with each other. Every person who signs up will be private messaged a name of another participating member to make a gift for. You will be assigned someone at random, so I'm afraid you can't pick who you get to play Santa for. The point of this event is to try to have members meet new friends and to spread the Christmas spirit!
Are you not confident with your graphic designing or writing skills? Do not worry! There are plenty of gifts you can make for your target that do not involve those things; any gift that you put some amount of effort into is an acceptable gift. Examples of some gift ideas are the following:
- Graphic design gift (banner, profile picture, signature, badge, layout, etc)
- A fanfiction
- A poem
- A list of anime recommendations for that specific person (your target) and why you would recommend them each show.
- A drawing
- A video
- A song performed by you
- A folder full of high quality fanart of the target's favorite character
etc...
There are plenty of things you can do if you put your mind to it. Click here to signup!
[u]Scavenger Hunt Information[/u]
The Slice of Life Club will be hosting a scavenger hunt to celebrate Christmas! Staff members will hide different colored Christmas tree ornaments all around MAL throughout December. You will have to search through profile pages, blogs, old posts in MAL forums, old clubs, etc to find the ornaments. Does that sound too hard? Do not worry! We understand that it would be impossible without hints, so we plan to give out many hints about the locations each day. I will be splitting participants up into groups of three (meaning you'll have a couple of teammates to help you search). At the end of the event, the top three teams will get a winners banner to display on their profiles/blogs. Click here to signup!
We will also have some Christmas themed card editions, and special Christmas cards that you can request to have sent to your friends.
We hope you'll join in on our festivities and spend Christmas with us!
Male Character Competition Updates:
It's time to for Ruby Round to begin!
[u]Ruby Round: Group A Matches[/u]
Kyousuke Natsume (Little Busters!) vs Hikaru Hitachiin (Ouran Host Club)
Makoto Tachibana (Free!) vs Hosaka (Minami-ke)
Kenji Harima (School Rumble) vs Kyon (Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu)
Youhei Sunohara (Clannad) vs Eikichi Onizuka (Great Teacher Onizuka) >>>Click here to vote on the Group A polls!<<<
[u]Ruby Round: Group B Matches[/u]
Ginko (Mushishi) vs Yasushi Takagi (Nana)
Yuuta Togashi (Chuunibyou) vs Jun Satou (Working!!)
Shinobu Morita (Hachimitsu to Clover) vs Takashi Natsume (Natsume Yuujinchou)
Daikichi Kawachi (Usagi Drop) vs Mutta Nanba (Uchuu Kyodai) >>>Click here to vote on the Group B polls!<<<
[u]Ruby Round: Group C Matches[/u]
Tomoya Okazaki (Clannad) vs Shougo Kiryuu (Isshuukan Friends.)
Houtaru Oreki (Hyouka) vs Haruka Nanase (Free!)
Momotarou Mikoshiba (Free!) vs Shouyou Hinata (Haikyuu!!)
Chiaki Shinichi (Nodame Cantabile) vs Kazunari Usa (Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou) >>>Click here to vote on the Group C polls!<<<
[u]Ruby Round: Group D Matches[/u]
Hikigaya Hachiman (Oregairu) vs Handa Seishuu (Barakamon)
Ryuuji Takasu (Toradora!) vs Nagisa Hazuki (Free!)
Yuu Nishinoya (Haikyuu!!) vs Shouta Kazehaya (Kimi ni Todoke)
Yuuki Hase (Isshuukan Friends.) vs Rin Matsuoka (Free!) >>>Click here to vote on the Group D polls!<<<
The Slice of Life Club has a competition going on/upcoming events! Our current competition is the Male Character Competition. For more information on that, please click the spoiler tag below. As for our upcoming events, we have a few fun things planned for December/Christmas. Those things include our third annual Secret Santa gift exchange, seasons greetings to send to your friends and more! We'll be releasing more information on our upcoming events in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned!
Now without further adieu, onto the Male Character Competition stuff:
Over the next five weeks the Slice of Life Club will be hosting a Male Character Competition. We have had two competitions for female characters, so this time we are letting the guys have some of the spotlight. Please come in each week to vote for your favorite male characters! For some more information on the contest, please visit this thread. Our current matches are the following:
[u]Emerald Round: Group A Matches[/u]
Kyousuke Natsume vs Tobio Kageyama
Hikaru Hitachiin vs Kyo Sohma
Makoto Tachibana vs Claude Claudel
Hosaka vs Yuuta Takemoto
Sentarou Kawabuchi vs Kenji Harima
Kyon vs Haru Yoshida
Youhei Sunohara vs Nobuo Terashima
Eikichi Onizuka vs Takaya Abe >>>Click here to vote on the Group A polls!<<<
[u]Emerald Round: Group B Matches[/u]
Ginko vs Eiichirou Maruo
Yasushi Takagi vs Kiyokazu Fujimoto
Yuuta Togashi vs Raku Ichijou
Kisumi Shigino vs Jun Satou
Shinobu Morita vs Shinichi Okazaki
Takashi Natsume vs Masato Inohara
Atsushi Miyagawa vs Daikichi Kawachi
Mutta Nanba vs Ryuu Sasakura >>>Click here to vote on the Group B polls!<<<
[u]Emerald Round: Group C Matches[/u]
Tomoya Okazaki vs Tamaki Suoh
Suguru Koshigaya vs Shougo Kiryuu
Houtaru Oreki vs Akihito Kanbara
Haruka Nanase vs Chizuru Tachibana
Momotarou Mikoshiba vs Kaoru Nishimi
Shouyou Hinata vs Hidenori Tabata
Chiaki Shinichi vs Kimihiro Watanuki
Yugo Hachiken vs Kazunari Usa >>>Click here to vote on the Group C polls!<<<
[u]Emerald Round: Group D Matches[/u]
Hikigaya Hachiman vs Akio Furakawa
Handa Seishuu vs Hayate Ayasaki
Kou Mabuchi vs Ryuuji Takasu
Nagisa Hazuki vs Kenji Kazama
Hiroomi Souma vs Yuu Nishinoya
Shouta Kazehaya vs Kyouya Shinomiya
Yuuki Hase vs Kyousuke Kousaka
Rin Matsuoka vs Kanade Amakusa >>>Click here to vote on the Group D polls!<<<[/color]
Well
1. I thought of the size. I took a real card for the measures.
2. Then I looked for a render for the symbols. like this http://i.imgur.com/Z1YZwHz.png
3. I added it to the sample card I've already created in the first step.
4. Added flower brushes (google for it, there are tons of them) to the corners of the cards
5. And altered the symbols a bit.
Result in high res:
6. eventually added these cards to the card design I've prepared like Alice, Mio etc.
It all comes down to this! Who will be our champion of cute?
Will it be our beloved idol and mascot of Muse, Nico Yazawa? Or will it be our cute little "alien investigator," Erio Touwa? You decide!
The Slice of Life Club will be hosting our second team event. This event will have a Halloween theme to it, if you didn't gather that much from the name. Members who signup for the event will be divided into two different Halloween themed teams. Through the whole month of October, members will want to try to earn points for their team so that their team will win at the end of the month. The winning team will get to request all of the Halloween edition cards and help pick out two of our weekly editions for November. We're going to have lots of fun stuff planned for our members to do, such as special games, a test of courage, trick or treating (for small prizes from our card makers), daily riddles, a poem writing contest, a Cards Against Humanity tournament and more! Please join in on our festivities.
Spookafest will start on October 1st and end on October 31st.
To signup for Spookafest, post in this thread.
The Slice of Life Club will be hosting a Male Character Competition next. Nominations for the competition are currently open.
To nominate characters, please click here.
All Comments (11) Comments
Best Female Character of 2014 Nominations
Here
Well this my guess, best would be if you ask her personally though.
The Slice of Life Club has a new layout! To help our members get into the Christmas spirit, we've put a little something festive up. We hope that all of our members have a happy and safe holiday season!
Male Competition Updates Newsletter
Male Character Competition Update News
The Slice of Life Club will be hosting a couple events to celebrate the Christmas season with! We will be doing our third annual Secret Santa event and a Christmas themed MAL Scavenger Hint! More information on the events and links to their threads can be found under the spoiler tag:
Male Character Competition Updates:
The Slice of Life Club has a competition going on/upcoming events! Our current competition is the Male Character Competition. For more information on that, please click the spoiler tag below. As for our upcoming events, we have a few fun things planned for December/Christmas. Those things include our third annual Secret Santa gift exchange, seasons greetings to send to your friends and more! We'll be releasing more information on our upcoming events in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned!
Now without further adieu, onto the Male Character Competition stuff:
1. I thought of the size. I took a real card for the measures.
2. Then I looked for a render for the symbols. like this http://i.imgur.com/Z1YZwHz.png
3. I added it to the sample card I've already created in the first step.
4. Added flower brushes (google for it, there are tons of them) to the corners of the cards
5. And altered the symbols a bit.
Result in high res:
6. eventually added these cards to the card design I've prepared like Alice, Mio etc.
[color=#C68E17]Cute Competition update and October club event news
Cute Competition update and Male Character Competition Info
the shiny overlay effects arent that hard to add. They are simple brushes. If you google Sparkle brushes you will find them easily.