4th Seed Alice (Monster Girl Quest) VS 13th Seed Shanoa (Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia)
Alice: 136 votes
Shanoa: 136 votes
I spent most of my Shanoa VS Tifa writeup going over just how catastrophically Tifa flopped, because quite frankly, it’s one of the greatest storylines of the entire contest. But of course, the time has now come to give Shanoa her due, because damn, her Cinderella run EASILY makes her one of the biggest Winners of this contest, up there with Tamamo-no-Mae, Ryza and even Samus. Shanoa very much seemed like another one of those Just Happy To Be Here contestants, so the mere fact that she reached the quarterfinals was amazing on its own. But it’s HOW she did it that truly cemented Shanoa as a Tournament Legend – eliminating fucking TIFA in round 1 by just 2 votes, before being involved in the first perfect tie of the contest, and then winning the first ever tiebreaker poll? If you’re a Shanoa fan, you were eating good this tournament…
The thing is, Shanoa really wasn’t all that strong of a contestant – she seems to have boasted only middling natural strength, but she had some very passionate fans, and she was also easy to vote for if you were neutral – her design not really being “weird” or objectionable in any way, originating from a proper hardcore game (rather than a meme title), Castlevania being a well-known and respected series, even if not too many people on Fedi have actually played Order of Ecclesia. Basically, Shanoa as a vidya girl was a good mix of niche and mainstream, - and DAMN, was she clutch as hell! Sure, she got lucky with her bracket, but the girl deserves some credit for her ability to always prevail in close matches.
Oh, and Shanoa also ended up knocking out the tournament’s #4 Seed, but this was the round where top seeds dropped like flies, so that particular factoid isn’t all that interesting in hindsight. In fact, Alice was actually so overseeded that in retrospect, she comes across as the clear underdog going into this match, because even just going by the Qualifier Poll, knocking out Tifa looks more impressive than getting 56% on Ganyu. Alice (ever-so-slightly) outperforming Tifa and achieving a tie in the first match with Shanoa is actually a sign that she managed to power up from round 1, just not QUITE enough.
The actual match, while another 50-50 result, was actually very different from Shanoa’s match with Tifa, due to Alice being a radically different opponent. While Tifa boasted great natural strength, but an incredibly disinterested and passive fanbase, Alice (like Shanoa) possessed mediocre natural strength, but a very passionate fanbase. Hell, these two girls actually shared one mega-fan in particular, locagainstwall, who used an alt to ensure that BOTH girls got proper support in this match, leading to various glorious The Duality of Man moments.
Of course, the girls overall had quite different fanbases, and different haters (Alice getting anti-voted by people who dislike monster girls and hentai games, while Shanoa was being targeted by angry Tifa fans), but in terms strengths and weaknesses, they proved remarkably evenly matched. It should therefore come as no surprise that this match was remarkable not only in terms of ending up a perfect tie, but for being super close for ALL the 24 hours that it lasted. It started off close, and then stayed close, and STAYED close. After 76 votes, the girls were still tied. After 86 votes, again 50-50. At 91 votes Alice did make a good attempt to break the deadlock, pulling away with a 3-vote lead, and eventually opening up a 6 vote gap, but just as the snake girl looked set to firmly tilt the match in her favor, Shanoa reduced her lead to just 3 votes, then 2 votes, then 1. At 124 votes, it was AGAIN dead even! Then Shanoa took the lead, racked up a 3-vote gap, before Alice brought it back, and at one point every even-numbered total vote count seemed to produce a new perfect tie.
Alice did however seem to be the slightly stronger of the two girls, making the more dangerous moves, and thus seemed to be the one capable of actually landing the knockout punch, or of chocking out her opponent. After a stall-fest, Alice managed to again break away and grab herself a 4-vote lead, and after some fight by Shanoa, Alice extended her lead to 5 votes, but AGAIN Shanoa made the comeback, coming within 1 vote, before Alice again fired back, and Shanoa countered yet again. At 174 votes, the girls were AGAIN tied! Then Shanoa went on the offensive, and after some back and forth she was up by 4 votes. Yet again a comeback was achieved by the girl under pressure, and by the 204 vote-mark it was yet AGAIN a perfect tie, before Shanoa made another attempt to pull away, and with just 2 hours left she had gotten a new 4-vote lead, but it was smacked down by Alice, who briefly took the lead for herself before we at the 236 vote-mark saw another perfect tie with less than 80 minutes left.
The match kept going back and forth, with Shanoa and Alice repeatedly trading leads. At 256 votes? Another tie! Half an hour left of the match, another tie. 260 votes, 20 minutes left, tied again. 15 minutes left, 131 – 131. Less than 10 minutes left, 132 – 132. Alice then took the lead with 5 minutes left, but Shanoa fought back for the umpteenth time. 134 -134 followed, 2 minutes left. But then, finally, Alice struck with a perfectly timed 2-vote lead, seemingly delivering the knockout blow in the final minute, only for Shanoa to SOMEHOW score the 2 clutchest votes of the tournament with less than 1 minute remaining, securing a perfect tie and another shot at glory in our first ever tiebreaker!
Obviously, it was insane just how close this match was, what a roller-coaster ride we had just witnessed – and it wasn’t even over yet! A tiebreaker match, which would take place in just 1 hour, and give both girls just 60 minutes to break the deadlock, was completely uncharted territory, and while you’d be foolish to bet against Shanoa’s clutch-factor at this point, Alice had definitely come the closest to winning their first mach.
#BestVidyaGirlContest
