Helligbard Series’ Future in Jeopardy Following Recent Japan Disasters

Helligbard, a series of fanfics written and published by Studio Emiko, entered a state of jeopardy starting New Year’s Day. Japan has had a rocky start to 2024 following a series of disasters in Japan, starting with the Ishikawa earthquake, the fiery plane crash at Tokyo Haneda International Airport, and now, a fire breaking out in an unspecified location.

The third chapter of the series is scheduled to be released on January 14, 2024.

The last straw that threatens this much-anticipated fanfic series’ future is the subject matter of Chapter 3 of Himmelrike, the very first installment of the series. There, the main protagonist Kieran witnesses a murder and a church arson in a town he was visiting while on a tour with his band. The arson ultimately leads to a slaughter of the people inside it, which was meant to be depicted rather bloody for a fanfic of a kid-friendly video game series.

Based on the disasters of a plane crash resulting the craft getting burned as well as a building getting caught on fire during the string of mayhems that struck Japan earlier this year, she is concerned that there’s a chance some of the readers who were grieving for their loss in the incidents might sue her for depicting the arson and murders in Chapter 3, as it is considered “triggering material”. As with Drillimation Systems, Emiko isn’t a wealthy personality and the two companies cannot cough up money for a lawyer if in the event a defamation or libel lawsuit entails.

She was considering adding additional content warning tags to the fanfic and even an end note at the end of that Chapter in order to mitigate the chances that she would get sued for the content of the fic, but as of now, the Helligbard series is in critical danger of being cancelled entirely, even when the 1st installment has just started a few weeks ago, at the end of 2023.

Emiko doesn’t guarantee that Helligbard won’t have any more details inspired by real-world controversial events. She said that in the backstory for the fic’s depictions of Piers and Marnie, their parents were assassinated by a person who asked for their father’s autograph, much like the assassination of Beatles frontman John Lennon. Another instances of such real-world event inspirations are:

• The COVID-19 pandemic was slightly alluded to in one of N’s stories in Himmelriket Tuleminen ~ Salvific Halation of Otherland, in which it also involved another character who will appear in (currently) two of the fanfics after it.
• The character Phyllis Clayden is partially inspired by Emiko’s experiences of being in a doomsday cult “worshipping” Allister (Pokémon Sword and Shield) during the pandemic. The organization which she lead bears some resemblances to various terrorist / doomsday cult fusion organizations around the world.
• The crimes of the fictitious Satanic group Diaboluctibus bears superficial resemblance to an infamous murder case involving an Italian nun and three teenaged girls during the 2000s, in which the girls claiming that they kill the nun for a Satanic sacrifice.