Kotori Tegami, the stage 1 boss for Drillimation’s next Touhou Project fangame project, has had the unveiling of her lore delayed in response to the fiery and deadly plane crash involving a UPS aircraft in Louisville, Kentucky back on Tuesday.
Even Touhou Project fanworks and fictional characters aren’t immune to real-world sensitivities, whether domestic or foreign. Drillimation has opted to put off the unveiling of the character’s lore for at least a week due to the character’s main occupation being a mail courier, and her species being a crow tengu. In fact, one of the lines in the script for this new game includes a pun on the United Parcel Service’s abbreviation and its slogan.
The incident involved a UPS aircraft bound for Honolulu, Hawaii that crashed shortly after takeoff as a result of an engine separation and crashing into an industrial area, leaving over a dozen people dead as of this writing.
This is not the first time this year Drillimation had to adjust their content in response to real-world events; back in June, a pre-release piece of artwork for the 900 subscriber special of the company’s YouTube channel had to be altered just a day before the special released after a tornado outbreak ripped through the studio’s hometown, destroying multiple barns and leaving several animals dead. The video in question involved a “mysterious creature flying through the sky”, and a heron was picked instead.
The following month, the Central Texas floods left Drillimation’s latest Hifuu album Marvelous Faceless Reflection in a difficult situation, due to the first track involving Maribel Hearn overseeing children playing around near a church, and many of the victims were part of a religious organization. Later in the album, Maribel pours some holy water into a river that causes a storm to brew up, and Drillimation made the decision to cut out all mentions of death and have the Secret Sealing Club members of Renko and Maribel reincarnated in another time period.
Similar changes for similar events were also made at studios that Drillimation has partnered with. For example, the third chapter of Studio Emiko’s Helligbard fanfiction nearly got delayed after an earthquake on New Year’s Day in 2024 affected Japan’s Noto Peninsula, and the following day a fiery runaway collision occurred at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. The chapter had an arson as part of the plot.
These current changes reflect industry-wide practices of sensitivity towards recent tragedies. The video scheduled for release on November 12, 2025, will not feature Kotori in the thumbnail or a silhouette of her. No timeline has been announced for when the character’s lore may be unveiled.
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Drillimation Systems 
thank you
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This is a thoughtful and responsible piece of reporting — one that shows deep awareness of the delicate balance between creativity and compassion. 🌏✉️
The way you’ve captured Drillimation’s decision to delay the unveiling of Kotori Tegami’s lore highlights not only artistic sensitivity but also a genuine respect for real-world grief and tragedy. Your writing acknowledges that even fictional universes do not exist in isolation; they breathe within the same emotional ecosystem as our reality.
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That’s wild. I never thought how he event could impact something so different.
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