Refugees huddled inside evacuation centres all over the Islands, Rangers fought the weather to get backup to their comrades, and a handful of courageous Trainers braved the outdoors in attempts to slow down Franz's team to buy the final two standing against him more time.

Never had the meaning of Ohana been fought for so fervently.

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It's been a long nearly-three-years since the launch of Year 2, and we've seen people come and go, friendships form, and art evolve. Through it all, there have been hundreds of submissions from more members than we can count, in events, side-stories, Ranger tasks, and of course the main Tournament. Our two finalists have persevered through every artist's challenge we've been able to come up with, put in a countless amount of time and effort, and developed their own stories from start to finish, working them in alongside that of the group to come out in the final round. We can only award the title of Champion to one person but both YuriaThames and synodicmeg have made amazing showings and we're incredibly proud of them.

As you can expect, judging these two finalists was no easy task. As we said, the two have come a very, very long way in all areas, and so we'll spend a moment to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of both entries, and what ultimately led to our decision on who is BFOI's Y2 Champion.



Casper/Kazza has had some of the best and most original character development we've ever seen in an OCT. You go back and look at his app and earlier entries and see a frail character with not much physicality - only to develop into a psychic badass Pokémon. Watching how you have portrayed Kazza slowly overtaking Casper has been an absolute treat, and the sense of realism in regards to the consequences of abusing his newfound power created a scenario that we could both relate to and feel for.

The limited palette, while visually striking in the previous round, unfortunately worked against you in the final round, falling flat against the competition, and making the artwork sometimes difficult to figure out. The colours are too close to each others at times, forcing the reader to stop and look for what exactly is happening. This also at times conflicts with the layout, as the reader did have to stop on occasion to figure out what order dialogue was meant to be read in.



Right from the word go, Meg's story has our hearts in a death grip, and crushes us with every single page. The depth of the pain of Orrin is overwhelming, yet you cannot turn away. From the beginning to the end, we ride a rollercoaster of masterfully controlled emotions.
The stark, vivid use of colour also complements the story very well - The use of red, in particular, really conveys the terrifying anger emanating from the character and hits you hard.

However, the rushed nature of the round, particularly towards the end, breaks the immersion from the story, as the detail and cohesion gives out, as well as a number of typos starting to crop up in the dialogue, which can take away from the grand finale of the comic.



Both stories, toying with the dark side, had us on the edges of our seats constantly. There's no doubt that the both of you are highly skilled and have a real talent for storytelling.

Your art has grown so much over the course of the entire challenge, and everything we pushed you with during said challenge definitely showed in this final round.

But of course, we cannot call a tie, and the scales did tip in one direction more than the other. Through a higher display of technical skill in her use of colour and story layout, synodicmeg has inched ahead of YuriaThames and taken the title for Y2. So without further ado:



We're extremely glad we've been able to join you on this ride from start to finish, and we cannot say it enough how proud we are of both you and YuriaThames.

We'll be in touch with all of our final six regarding prizes by mid-January at the latest.

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We'll be keeping our momentum up and moving into launching Year 3 within the first week of the new year. The group will be undergoing an overhaul in looks, there'll be an updated FAQ, and the whole system for Y3 will be vastly different to how the previous two tournaments have been operated.

While the above will begin to take place over the course of the week, the first thing to happen will be the posting of the Y2 Epilogue, closing off the Y2 story once and for all, before we move into the next story, and await the next wave of storytellers and heroes to step up to the plate.

But for now, eat, drink, be merry and a Happy New Year to All!!