Hello friends! Are you ready to Corenament?

‘Tis the season not for snow and pudding and snow and caroling, but for idols to vie for the title of Best Idol. Last year’s Corenament was different, sure, but it was also … rudimentary. Straightforward. Easily manipulated. Frustrating for me! So we’re going to do it differently this time around.

The Corenament takes its inspiration from the NCAA basketball tournaments (but not the stupid NIT), in which 68 teams (pared to 64 for the actual bracket) go through single-elimination hell on the way to the legendary Final Four and the crowning of a champion. Last year’s Corenament was satisfied with 16 entries, and that’s just silly, because we can do way better than 16 at this point.

Like the Tournament, entrants will be a combination of “conference” champions and at-large bids; like the Tournament, we’ll use seedings to determine the shape of the bracket. Like the Tournament, there will definitely be upsets galore and heartbreaking collisions between beloved programs. And, just like the Tournament, people are going to get mad about seedings and stuff!

It’ll be great!

So here’s how it’s going to go down:

I’ve taken just about everything that’s ever appeared on ye olde Homicidols.com and broken it out into reasonably sensible “conferences.” The idea there is to gather likes with likes, more or less, with a very college basketball-like uneven distribution of talent and some randomization to take into account how things like weird bounces, freakish injuries and recruiting scandals can throw a wrench into any otherwise flawless system.

The NCAA conference tournaments have in some cases already begun, but the big kids are on next week, which is when we’re going to do the same. Except, because we have way fewer conferences than the NCAA and need to limit the at-large entries somewhat, we’re going to give automatic bids to the regular season champions of each conference in addition to the “tournament” winners, and then use the regular season standings plus tournament results to determine the pecking order for the at-large bids. Also, the conferences are not evenly weighted on purpose, because screw fairness, this is war.

Make sense? PROBABLY NOT!

Anyway, here are your conferences at the end of the regular season, with standings determined by Kerrie’s famous Hunger Games simulator.

Kawaiicore East Conference E-yell Minna no Kodomo-chan Tokyo Rockets 30POSSE Batten Show Jo Tai Naniwa Rokkasen Kawaiicore West Conference Attain Music Party Rockets GT DEVIL NO ID Devil ANTHEM DEVIL GUN PANDA MIC Kimi to Utatane The Clash Legacy Conference Billie Idle Payrin’s RIOT BABY Malcolm Mask McLaren PiGU Tick-tic THE SPUNKY Screaming Sixties The SHiT Conference PLIC PROCK Alloy Mistress Zenbu Kimi no Sei Da MAPLEZ PassCode BiSH 969 Chemicari KIRAKIRA GERIRA yandoll Broken by the Scream The nerve Conference SHiX Sugartrap Not Secure, Loose Ends BiS Bokura no Oyugi Kitakaze Impact Choque! C-Style Yamitsuki Company Guso Drop NEVE SLIDE DOWN DAIDAIDAI DeadEyes The Breeders Conference Gokigen Teikoku Koutei Camera Gal uijin There There Theres Yanakoto Sotto Mute sora tob sakana amiinA Osaka Shunkashuto You’ll Melt More! The Bjork Conference Avandoned Musubizm Dots ICE CREAM SUICIDE GANG PARADE Kupipo Wonder Lander Maison Book Girl Hauptharmonie The Go Go’s Conference PIIIIIIIN Himekyun Fruit Can ayumikurikamaki Yamaguchi Kassei Gakuen Phantom Voice Moecore Gakuen GL TOKYO Q’ulle Candy GO!GO! Up Up Girls The KiTTie Conference WA-Side Yumemiro Adolescence Team Syachihoko STARMARIE GRATIA-ALA PASSPO MARiA Predianna Splash! The Runaways Conference Diamondollfly Full Power Girls R 81 Moment REGiNA KiSS Aphrodite Jeanne Maria Maboroshi Karen GeNE Babyraids JAPAN Tsuyogari Sensation Elfloat Spark Road Show

The Fuck Duke Conference Pour Lui Kamiya Saki Kisaragi Megumi Chitti Su-Metal First Summer Uika MAINA Uetaka Yua The Gonzaga Always Flames Out Conference Tanio Sakurako Rinahamu Shidare Haruka (PRGT) Sakura Nodoka Minami Nao Rei (Guso Drop) Kakizaki Risaki Asuma Shiori The Character Counts Conference Moametal Io Coco Partin Coco Kamiya Erina Narasaki Yuri Tsukino Moa Aina the End Yuimetal Tachibana Anna Mori Saki liNGliNG* Komachi Okamoto Mai Sari KIKA FRONT FRONTAL Hayashi Manatsu Zenkimi Mashiro Imada Yuna The Perform Here Conference Pop iD Cafe Nippon Budokan Extreme Idol Terror Tokyo Dome Heavy Sick Zero Yokohama Arena Tokyo Candoll Cure Fes Zepp DIVER CITY @JAM Idol Matsuri The Better Than Butcher Babies Conference FRUITPOCHETTE Under Beasty Desu.Rabbits NATASHA NECRONOMIDOL JyuJyu Lyric Holic Cure DEEP GIRL The Idol Formerly Known as Ladybaby Alice Liddell DISDOL The reanimated corpse of Mugen Regina Babymetal Iketeru Hearts The Company Conference Mad Magazine Trash-Up!! Codomomental Showroom A-minor WACK Aqbi Rec Stardust we-B Fujiyama Project Alice Project Avex One-to-One The Joan Jett Conference Ophelia 20mg Yajima Mai MiRi Sakohata Aya Takahashi Natsumi Hanako-san Yanase You Like, Hate, Love The Hayley Williams Conference Hoshina Fumimi Pikarin Yuimaru Ishido Natsumi Nameless 2& Ritsuka The Men in Our Lives Conference Tsunku Bucho Watanabe Junnosuke the anonymous translator Soezimax Ricky Wilson Ladybeard KOBAMETAL

For what it’s worth, I didn’t know what to do with Kamen Joshi, but they’re getting an automatic bye into the final field by dint of having won last year, and that seed will be determined somewhat randomly.

The conference tournaments begin on Monday and will be staggered throughout the week to keep things from being completely stupid. The final field will be revealed on Sunday, March 12, and opening-round competition will begin that Wednesday.

These won’t be straight-up popularity contests, either; we’ll find all kinds of screwed-up ways to get the best idols of a particular conference into the correct pecking order, don’t you worry — songs, videos, albums, who’d beat who in a fight, etc.

Hold on to your butts. This is about to get stupid.

*I had originally left out liNGliNG, which was an oversight as opposed to a deliberate choice; at Richard’s suggestion on Twitter, she’s in the Character Counts Conference, with her place determined by me running her through a matchup simulator until she won three in a row. Good job, liNGliNG!