Well, we’ve done it. We’ve gone through the entirety of the first series of matches, and in a surprising twist, Star Wars (Yes, Star Wars, one of the biggest media empires of all time) lost in the first round. We’ve gone from sixteen fandoms down to just eight. So before we get into the quarter-finals, I thought we’d give a quick recap. Let’s look at the bracket so far…
RESULTS
In the first round, we had Power Rangers vs Dragon Ball. With an overwhelming 71% of the vote, Dragon Ball proved victorious.
In the second round, The Lord of the Rings had a similar showing (after mixed results at the beginning. It ended up besting Borderlands with 80% of the vote.
Next we had Fire Emblem VS Psych. This one had the closest showing at first, with both sides having the lead at one point or another. But Fire Emblem ended up pushing ahead with 68.8% of the vote.
I found the next round very surprising. Transformers definitely lost to Marvel, but Marvel only had 73% of the vote. I expected it to be a far more crushing defeat for Transformers. Perhaps my lack of argument for Marvel contributed to that. Or we’ve got some intense Transformers fans.
I had a moderate amount of surprise for the next match, Pokemon VS The Legend of Zelda. I expected it to be the closest match of the first series of the bracket. In the end, Zelda ended up with 73% of the vote. Pokemon didn’t make as great of a stand as I thought it would.
Man, did Sonic get crushed against Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan ended up with 78% of the vote. But then again, Jackie Chan is awesome, so…
I was also pretty surprised with TMNT VS Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy is great, don’t get me wrong, but I expected TMNT to put up a much better fight. In the end, Final Fantasy got 75% of the vote.
Lastly, we had perhaps the most surprising results of the first series. Star Wars lost to Kingdom Hearts, which got 67% of the vote.
Rankings of the Losers
While far from being objective, I think it’s appropriate that we give a finishing place for all the fandoms. So, based on the percentage of the votes we got…
#16- Borderlands
Borderlands had the unlucky fate of being matched up against The Lord of the Rings. It’s still one of my favorite video games series of all time, but I can see why it lost.
#15- Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic being paired against my favorite actor of all time didn’t exactly spell out good news for Sonic. Still, I think there are fandoms that were on the bracket that Sonic had a decent chance against. Poor thing.
#14- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Honestly, if Michael Bay’s movies hadn’t been released, I think that the Turtles would have potentially done a lot better. Then we’d have the excellent animated movie on our minds, not the underwhelming Megan Fox vehicles.
#13- Transformers
While technically Pokemon and Transformers had the same percentages, Transformers was never at any time in the lead. I know, not a really objective way to rank things, but I stick by it. Plus, it’s hard to imagine an audience pool where Transformers beats Marvel.
#12- Pokemon
Honestly, Pokemon had it rough. On a general note, the fan base for Pokemon and Zelda is pretty similar. And I believe the general consensus is that Zelda is better. But I could totally imagine a world where Pokemon would have made it to the next round.
#11- Psych
There were a couple of moments when I thought Psych would actually win. The show is not anything like Fire Emblem, its opponent. Still, I think that if the entire world was polled, Fire Emblem would beat Psych pretty easy. Good job, Psych, for keeping up as best as you could.
#10- Power Rangers
It’s kinda hard to believe that Power Rangers performed better than Pokemon or TMNT. It’s not as if its opponent was a slouch. Dragon Ball is about a mainstream and successful as animes get. Just shows you how powerful nostalgia is.
#9- Star Wars
Well, Star Wars fans can at least take some solace in the fact that Star Wars performed the best of all the losers. Man, that just isn’t a hopeful sentence, is it? But think the criticisms pointed out in the debate were valid. Still, there is some thought to be put into this.
Some Observations
It’s interesting that the ratios have all been around the 70% mark. What does that say about those who vote? I’m not exactly sure. Obviously these polls speak a bunch about who reads these blogs. But I think that most of these choices were easy for the readers.
I think that the polls from here on out will be very difficult decisions, maybe with an exception here or there. To be clear, this bracket did not turn out the way that I would have voted. But I love all of these fandoms, so I’m pretty happy.
So just as a tip to those who want to see their fandom survive- feel free to mention the poll to a friend. It’d be fun to get a large sampling size.
Thanks again to everyone for reading. Looking forward to the next match-up soon.
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