Drillimation Will No Longer Produce Entries for the Touhou Subreddit Banner Contests

Drillimation Systems announced today that they will no longer be producing entries for banner contests on the Touhou Subreddit on Reddit. This decision was a request from Studio Emiko discouraging the company from entering these contests.

Drillimation submitted their first entry to these banner contests in September of last year. The image in question depicted Touhou Project character Sanae Kochiya standing in front of a Photoshopped image of the Duquesne Incline in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania reading Moriya Incline instead. The city of Pittsburgh also served as inspiration for the city of Kinmyou in the Drillimation Danmaku Universe, namely in Chuhou Joutai 2: Paraided! and Touhou Kourinden ~ Mythos of Phantasmagoria.

The banner placed dead last in the contest.

Drillimation attempted again in December of that same year for the subreddit’s Christmas contest, featuring images of (from left to right) Yatsuhashi Tsukumo, Raiko Horikawa, and Benben Tsukumo, all of whom debuted in 2013’s Touhou 14: Double Dealing Character (released in 2003 in the Drillimation Danmaku Universe canon), in front of a church during the winter.

Like the previous banner, it placed dead last in the contest.

Drillimation tried again last month with an image of Reisen and Tewi Inaba looking at Easter eggs. The contest only involved two entrants, and Drillimation ended up placing last as in previous contests. Despite the loss, Drillimation agreed to license an image of Reisen to be used as the subreddit’s icon.

Drillimation’s reliance on VRoid to design characters has been met with mixed reactions from critics and players. Drillimation will continue to use VRoid for the base models, but may modify them to not resemble such models.

Sources

• https://www.reddit.com/r/touhou/comments/169p0cg/backtoschool_banner_contest_voting/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/touhou/comments/18n6vfs/ddcember_banner_contest_voting/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/touhou/comments/1bnqhll/easter_banner_contest_voting_open_until_march_28/