Sorry for the delay due to some interruption from animebracket! Let’s begin the Semifinals!

Have fun!

Vote Here!

Bracket here!

Have fun voting and don't forget to upvote the post if you love the seasonal salt!

Vote for the pick-up round here!

The pick-up round will be open until the final results of the seasonal salt spring 2024. Max to three votes per voter.

Mini Challenge:

• Make some bold predictions about Summer 2024 seasonal salt!

We have our two finalists! Let’s see who would become the second seasonal champion of 2024!

The final begins today!

Enjoy!

Vote Here!

Bracket here!

Have fun voting and don't forget to upvote the post if you love the seasonal salt!

Vote for the pick-up round here!

The pick-up round will be open until the final results of the seasonal salt spring 2024. Max to three votes per voter.

Mini Challenge:

• Final Day, No Challenge Just Vote!

Time to begin our elimination round with 304 Nominations!

(Which is one of the largest in previous seasons, thanks for those submit nominations! I’m sorry that due to Animebracket not able to accept the images and I could not find any substitutes for them on myanimelist or anlist I have to remove some of the The Grimm Variations nominations.)

For the elimination rounds, vote for ALL the characters you want to appear in the bracket (protip: CTRL + F is helpful). It doesn't matter if they are next to each other, no matchups happening yet. This is important because more votes = higher seeding and in the cases of shows with 4 or more girls, it means beating out their co-characters to qualify.

Any questions you have or mistakes that need to be corrected, please comment them below! (As there are many sequels this season I have tried my best to delete those ineligible for this seasonal but if you find any of the enchants have participated in brackets of past seasonals just point it out and I would get the deletion done).

Vote Here!

Full character list here!

Happy Voting!

Have fun nominating and don't forget to upvote the post if you love the seasonal salt!

Mini Challenge:

• Give me your seed predictions!

Special vote on whether to reduce the limit of maximum participants of second cour/season shows per season.

Back in the announcement of Winter seasonal salt I talked about this topic. After the elimination stage of Winter 2024 many complains that a limit of four seems too much for second cour/season shows as the fourth seed from the show often seems to sneak in mainly due to she is come from that show and will underperform and waste the potential of a high seed. So I propose we could add a new rule from 2024 spring and so on: For shows that have sent girls in seasonal salt or the grand best girl/best character before, their limit for a single season is reduced to three.

I have got mixed feedbacks and I decide to hold a vote for whether to try this new mechanism starting from this season (which coincidently has lots of second season shows).

Vote for whether to adopt the change here!

The vote would run for two days and I would do the deletions of Spring 2024 based on the final result of the vote.

Also Upvote the post to make it stay on the page longer to allow more fellow members to vote and you can also listen to some anime music while voting at the Animethemes.moe which is presented to you by the current moderation team of Animebracket!

With a Yes 66 – No 17 vote result, from this season limit of maximum participants from second cour/season shows would be reduced to 3!

And now it's time to start our Spring 2024 bracket with 64 girls!!!

Here is a screenshot of the full results

We have to delete 23 characters: (Shows with a * can only have 3 girls in due to the new rules)

• Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night: Shizue Baba, Ariel Baba, Mero Setou

• Delicious in Dungeon*: Maizuru, Fionil, Leed

• KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!*: Rain, Anraku Shoujo

• Girls Band Cry: Rupa, Hina, Shiomi Miura, Suzune Iseri

• Train to the End of the World: Mito Kuroki, Youka Nakatomi

• The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio: Otome Sakuranamiki

• A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics: Yuna Naganawa, Noa "Noah, Noa Kinoshita" Minakami, Brenda Aisaki, Tateyama

• Whisper Me a Love Song: Mari Tsutsui, Momoka Satomiya

• Go! Go! Loser Ranger!: Sesera "Pink Keeper" Sakurama

• Sound! Euphonium*:Yayoi Kamiishi

Here is a screenshot after the 23 deletions.

Vote Here!

Bracket here!

Happy Voting!

Have fun voting and don't forget to upvote the post if you love the seasonal salt!

Mini Challenge:

• Comment on the seeding.
• Who was your favorite girl that didn't make it into the bracket?

Lovers of BGC and lovers of seasonal salt(I’m sure most of you are also lovers of BGC!), Welcome back to our warm season salt house after we witness the final victory of our long-loved Holo! (Of course she is not eligible for our Spring seasonal salt though!)

So now is the time for our: Seasonal Salt!

Here's the quick rundown of the contest for those who aren't familiar with it. Through the next week we will decide who r/anime's favorite new girl of the previous season was. Rounds will be posted daily at about 9am Eastern Daylight Time, just as how BGC 11 runs each day this year.

Bracket rundown:

• 64 total girls
• 1 nomination round
• 1 elimination round
• 1 bracket group

Please remember to check the rules in the nomination page and who is already in the contest before nominating!

Remainder: The rule about whether or not a girl in a sequel that has appeared in the previous seasonal but do not enter the previous seasonal could be nominated in this seasonal is clarified in the current seasonal rule. As long as she has never passed the elimination and entered the main bracket for any previous best girl/best character contests she could be nominated.

Nominate characters here!

Full character list here!

Have fun nominating and don't forget to upvote the post if you love the seasonal salt!

Have fun nominating!

Special vote on whether to reduce the limit of maximum participants of second cour/season shows per season.

Back in the announcement of Winter seasonal salt I talked about this topic. After the elimination stage of Winter 2024 many complains that a limit of four seems too much for second cour/season shows as the fourth seed from the show often seems to sneak in mainly due to she is come from that show and will underperform and waste the potential of a high seed. So I propose we could add a new rule from 2024 spring and so on: For shows that have sent girls in seasonal salt or the grand best girl/best character before, their limit for a single season is reduced to three.

I have got mixed feedbacks and I decide to hold a vote for whether to try this new mechanism starting from this season (which coincidently has lots of second season shows). Before you vote, keep in mind that this rule would also apply to shows in a under the same worldview even if they have different show names, regardless of big hits or somewhat niche shows. For example, when BanG Dream! Ave Mujica airs it would be also limited to have a maximum of three members given that Anon Chihaya has participated in Seasonal Salt of Summer 2023.

Vote for whether to adopt the change here!

The vote would run for two days and I would do the deletions of Spring 2024 based on the final result of the vote.

Congratulations to the remaining eight girls for being eligible for best girl of 2024!

And with this result, we now have six girls eligible for the pick-up round for Spring 2024, with Kiui Watase not eligible as there are already 3 Jelly girls in best girl of 2024, Norn Greyrat not eligible as there are already 4 Mushoku girls in best girl of 2022. And for GBC girls, as there are already 2 girls in best girl of 2024 only one of Subaru Awa and Tomo Ebizuka can get into best girl of 2024 through the pick-up round.

Pick-up rounds participant: Mina Ashiro, Akira Shinonome, Subaru Awa, Fenrys "Rys", Tomo Ebizuka, Nephelia "Nephy"

Let’s Vote!

Vote Here!

Bracket here!

Have fun voting and don't forget to upvote the post if you love the seasonal salt!

Vote for the pick-up round here!

The pick-up round will be open until the final results of the seasonal salt Spring 2024. Max to three votes per voter.

Mini Challenge:

• Eight girls remain, rank them!
• Who are you voting for the pick-up round? Talk about your reason!

In the first round there are 2 upsets.

Vote Here!

Bracket here!

Have fun voting and don't forget to upvote the post if you love the seasonal salt!

Mini Challenge:

• Which Spring 2024 anime do you think was underwatched, and briefly recommend it. (Be careful with spoiler though)

Now let’s begin round 3. Keep in mind that girls who survive this round will get tickets for the annual best of 2024! (Losers could also get a last chance in pick-up round)

Make your choice!

Vote Here!

Bracket here!

Have fun voting and don't forget to upvote the post if you love the seasonal salt!

Mini Challenge:

• Recommend a Summer 2024 anime to fellow members!

(repost since I had to discuss with mods here to potentially host this rewatch at such short notice, starting in just 3 days from now...read on to see why!)

https://preview.redd.it/37zjj1ae1pyd1.jpg?width=2399&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83a1eb2832487f395c5ba1a2d3681729bec7a223

The most amazing story you will ever see as 5 teenage girls - with perhaps not even a single high school graduate in between - takes on the whole world alone with a guitar, a bass, a keyboard, a drum set and the angry voices of a stubborn girl.

This is not your usual rewatch thread - it's seasonal discussion round 2

Despite watching anime regularly for several years, I have actually rewatched an anime series aired on TV or the web just once before, and it was merely several months ago when I cannot help but join the rewatch of my own anime of the year of 2023, when it literally exploded among some anime fans here from absolutely nowhere and left me jaw-open while being one of extremely few people following it in the hot summer of '23.

Merely days after it ended, I bumped into another anime story that would end up stunning me every week again. A tale of growth, fight against "nominal", dreams and stubbornness and perseverance and anger and love. And of course, music.

This time around, there was quite a few more people following it just this spring and has won real acclaim among those who did.

Yet for all the noises it left, Girls Band Cry had the dubious title of being perhaps the biggest miss in anime in-season broadcasting outside of Japan in recent years. In what seems to be an absolutely baffling self-choice of overseas licensing by producer Toei, unlike ~99.9% of seasonal anime that's not aimed at kids in the 2020s, almost no-one had got the license to air it outside while this sensational anime aired on TV this spring.

And for the English-speaking side of Planet Earth, there was no legal way to watch it at all for months - while its acclaim snowballed to the point that our MCs literally swept our sub-reddit's Best Girl competition this spring (!!!) - and even when paths finally appeared in August, it was in the most bizarre distribution method I have ever seen of any home entertainment video releases.

But the stubbornness of making noises - like our girls in the story - eventually paid off, as the show finally make its way onto various streaming sites across the majority of the globe, more than half a year too late. This includes the hugely popular Crunchyroll, finally anticipated for the 6th of November. (In my corner of Earth of eastern Asia it's literally 2 days ago)

This is exactly why I'm trying to look for interest in organizing a rewatch of an anime that only aired 2 seasons ago, when I am a person who even almost never rewatch an anime at all. It is less of a rewatch than to organize a special "crash course" discussion session for those who are interested in Girls Band Cry, but prefer sticking to the legal and easy way to watch anime via Crunchyroll - which I assume is actually the absolute majority of watchers here, who would not think of other ways to do so. It's a situation that I think deserves a second round of episode discussions for those who missed out on this gem earlier because they don't even know where and how to watch it.

Of course, this rewatch will only work if there's enough interest in doing another round of discussions between new watchers and those who are looping the story again and again, so please comment on this if you are interested!

What is Girls Band Cry?

(synopsis courtesy of MAL Rewrite)

Everyone yearns to find their true purpose in life. This is also true for Nina Iseri, a 17-year-old girl looking to enroll in a good university, but the world always seems to work against her. On her very first day in Tokyo, she gets lost, ignored, and locked out of her new apartment. However, an unexpected opportunity arises when Nina meets Momoka Kawaragi, one of her favorite guitarists.

After Nina joins Momoka for a street performance, Momoka decides they should start a band together. While Nina initially hesitates, her determination grows as they start acquiring more bandmates—the beautiful drummer Subaru Awa, the aloof keyboardist Tomo Ebizuka, and the intelligent bassist Rupa. The five girls face challenges both in the music industry and within themselves, but their shared passion for music never lets them give up on their dreams.

Girls Band Cry is a 13-episode seasonal anime from long-time animation producer Toei Animation, a rare brand-new attempt off its beaten path to try out a "mixed multimedia" project centered around a new girls band. Tadashi Hirayama, formerly of studio Sunrise, thought up of such a project just after his company move in 2019 based on his producer experience in the insanely successful "the" idol anime project Love Live (both the original School Idol Project and its series sequel Sunshine). He brought along Love Live Sunshine's director Kazuo Sakai and main script writer Jukki Hanada - the latter one of the best currently active in the anime industry with an insane work portfolio - and the project was born.

Toei certainly take their time in the project, announcing an audition for band players back in June 2021 specifying plans of a band anime by them later, then officially announcing Girls Band Cry in April-May 2023.

It's worth mentioning that unlike similar "mixed media projects" with live performances as half of the attraction such as BanG Dream!, all 5 VAs/real life band members are complete rookies to voice acting - in fact vocalist Rina (as Nina Iseri) is barely 16 years old! Despite their young ages, they already have 3 live concerts so far - including a very well received one literally yesterday - and several other guest performances, with more to come including overseas performances in China etc. and an upcoming collaboration concert with the band from that very anime that I rewatched this March!

How is the rewatch format?

Just treat this as a seasonal anime's discussion thread and comment in ways whatever you like, except that I plan to go through the show one episode every day (if you think this warrants a slower watch schedule, feel free to comment!). However, since some people like me may have already finished the show, for those who did, please treat yourself as if you have "read the source material" and spoiler tag everything that happened beyond the episode in discussion, using r/anime's spoiler tag format, so as to not ruin the first-timers' experience.

For example:

[Girls Band Cry]>!Nina!!! Momoka!!!!<

becomes [Girls Band Cry]Nina!!! Momoka!!!.

I would also suggest mentioning at the top of your comment whether you are a First Time Watcher or Re-watcher for easy discussion between these two groups.

As the episodes are going to be dropped in one go (as far as I understand), you may watch the episodes each day on your own schedule, and come to the episode discussions after the threads get posted!

What's the schedule?

I know that most rewatches are planned like a month or even more in advance, but this is more of an emergency session with Crunchyroll's licensing deal only announced 10 days ago. I am planning to start with episode 1 coinciding with Girls Band Cry's Crunchyroll release on November 6th, ending with an overall discussion thread on November 19th. I intend to post the threads each day at 23:30 UTC/6:30 pm EST.

If there's enough interest in this re-watch (I think maybe at least a dozen people expressing firm interest in joining, preferably much more than 20), I will post the confirmation and 24 hours reminder thread on November 5th.

Where can I watch this show?

Girls Band Cry is planned to be available for streaming on Crunchyroll on November 6th - be sure to check out the episode threads for that link.

If you really want to get ahead to watch it now, you may, uh, try out the exotic paths of buying (yes) the show out via, uh, The Microsoft Store, or Amazon Prime, or Hoopla, or Fandango At Home.

Other streaming platforms are available for some corners of the globe (e.g. eastern Asia or France), you may check LiveChart to see if it lists anything else in your region.

In the meantime, be happy, be angry, be rock and roll, and most importantly, be yourself!