Drillimation Studios

Drillimation Studios (株式会社ドリメーションスタジオ), is a Japanese video game developer and publisher, animation studio, and licensing agency, headquartered in, ,. The company specializes in anime and video games, and they also have developed & produced films, tokusatsu series, and computer software. The studio is currently owned by Spacial Entertainment Holdings. Their franchises have topped many rankings throughout their history.

The studio is famous for the ultra-successful The Drillimation Series anime and video-game series, with it winning numerous awards for their excellence and the characters have become cultural icons in Japan and North America. Drillimation is also famous for their "bullet hell" shoot-'em-ups, mainly for popularizing the maniac shooter genre in the 1990s, with several notable franchises being Professor Bazinger and Shōkan. Several games by Drillimation have won the Game of the Year award while some have been nominated. Drillimation was also considered the very first anime studio to produce anime exclusively for the internet, with the creation of Anime Atrocities on VidSpace and YouTube. However, Drillimation had been criticised for controversies they have caused from the late 1980s and onwards over studio acquisition and/or promotion of violence and sexuality to children. Drillimation uses more specific brands to market more mature content in order to separate it from their flagship family-friendly brands.

1958–1968: Early era
Drillimation Studios was founded as Takashima Production (高島プロダクション) in 1958 by a recent graduate of the Tokyo University named Hiroshi Takajima. Hiroshi began creating independently-distributed anime shorts made by him with some of his college classmates in the garage of an American G.I. friend. As time flew by, Takajima and his staff presented the anime shorts to Toho, the famous studio for producing the Godzilla film series. Toho found them useful and Toho signed an agreement with Takashima Production to act as distributor for all of their anime productions. Toho also gave the company an unlimited budget and let them make any anime series they wish. Due to theatrical shorts being on the decline in the 1960s, Takashima Production mostly shifted their resources to television in the late 1960s.

1969–1985: Toho era
With the unlimited budget, Takashima Production went on to produce their first big hit, Ranger Man Fantasma, aired by NET TV (now TV Asahi). Fantasma was the first anime series broadcasted by NET to be aired in color. The group would work around 14 hours a day to continue their ongoing success with Space Ninja Boy Oija, which began airing in 1972 on NET. In 1974, Takajima was visiting with a friend when he bumped into  and  of. Takajima asked Lou about working with Filmation on a series. In 1977, Filmation produced Bazinger!, which featured character designs created by Takashima Production but was animated, scripted, and storyboarded entirely by Filmation.

While Filmation was producing Bazinger!, Takajima wanted to do a series based on girl fighters. He also wanted a new name for the studio, as he thought Takashima Production sounded "too bland". During a meeting with Lou Scheimer, Lou told Hiroshi that he was "drilling into the American animation market", which gave Takajima an idea. In tribute to Filmation and Lou's statement, Takajima changed the name of Takashima Production to "Drillimation".

In 1984, Takajima's idea for a show about girl fighters finally was realized when Star Girl Mayuko debuted on NHK General TV. The series was Drillimation's biggest success at that point, and Drillimation earned nearly 2 million yen in royalties from a wide range of merchandising.

1986–1997: Gaming era
In 1982, when Takajima was taking a vacation in the United Kingdom, he purchased a Commodore 64. With it, he began making simple games featuring Drillimation characters. In 1985, employees from visited Drillimation Studios, looking for purchase offers. In November 1985, Namco paid a total of $200 million to partner with Drillimation to produce video games and anime shows.

Shortly after, the studio was split into two halves. One half remained at the animation department to work on the Mr. Driller anime, while the other half moved to the new-formed game development department. The first game that Drillimation and Namco co-produced was Mr. Driller using the new Driller Engine game engine in 1986. It was a huge success in Japan and the United States with the impressive anime-style cutscenes and catchy music, prompting Drillimation USA Inc. to produce an English adaptation of the Mr. Driller anime series. It went on to become the number one weekly syndicated children's show in the Nielsen ratings for the 1987-88 U.S. television season.

In 1987, Hiroshi sold Drillimation to for US$21 million.

In 1993, Drillimation hired American cartoonist of Doug fame to help them create a magical girl anime. Jinkins created a series of designs which were incorporated into the Drillimation series Otter Magician Sammy. Jinkins shared creator credits with Hiroshi's son Hiroki Takajima and then-Drillimation producer Nobuo. Jinkins stated that Otter Magician Sammy later served as inspiration for his later Playhouse Disney series PB&J Otter.

1989–2019: The New Driller era
In 1996, Drillimation Studios was brought news that Hiroshi Takajima suffered from a brain tumor. He quickly underwent a successful surgery to remove the tumor. When he reappeared in Nintendo Power interviews later that year, he was noticeably different.

While Drillimation was continuing to crank out new games for the Driller Engine 3000 arcade board such as Otter Magician Sammy: Symphony of the Night (known as Otter Magician Sammy - Bliss on the Nintendo 64) and CrashKeyboards, all of which were released in 1997, Drillimation went on to produce a game originally supposed to be on the Driller Engine 2000 board called To Heart. Originally supposed to be a light-hearted action-adventure game, the game was transformed into a raunchy, vulgar game about a teenage boy with a hangover at the request of. The critics loved it, but sadly it caused several controversies. During this period, Drillimation Studios also released Shōkan.

In the summer of 1997, Hiroshi Takajima sadly passed away at the age of 61 after having issued with a stroke: the tumor had returned. All attractions at Creation Universe Tokyo did not operate due to Takajima's death. This ultimately ended the original era with his son Susumu Takajima taking over the company as the present, starting a whole new era. Despite his takeover, many fans started liking him and despite his passion, he can speak excellent English.

In 2000, Drillimation released the Driller Engine 4000 board, the fourth version of the Driller Engine series. On of the games that were released using the board that didn't come out in the arcades was Otter Magician Sammy: I've Always Lived Twice. Originally a run-and-gun shooter called Grief Syndrome for the Driller Engine 3000 board, it later became an action-adventure game on the Driller Engine 4000 board.

In 2001, Drillimation was put up for sale by Fujisankei. Among the bidders included, , , , and a investment consortium led by Mexican mining mogul , who's nephew was a huge fan of Drillimation's video games. Velasco and his company made the winning bid of US$85 million, as a result Grupo México gained ownership of Drillimation. In 2005, Grupo México Communications was formed by Grupo México after the mining conglomerate purchased the -based Rochdale Media Group for US$12 million, as a result Drillimation was placed under that division.

In 2003, Susumu Takajima and Kagami Ochiai got married, and later that year, Drillimation released another big hit, Driller Engine Grand Prix 2x2. The game sold more than 20 million copies worldwide for all platforms it was released for. The game's online mode is still being played today.

In 2006, the Drillimation YouTube channel was launched, featuring clips from the anime and the films they have produced. The same year, Aggrattackers debuted, produced by and  in Canada with vehicle designs & marketing by Drillimation Studios and Latikuu.

In 2010, Grupo México announced that it began negotiating a potential sale of Grupo México Communications to help pay a corporate criminal fine of EK$511,251,000 from the El Kadsreian government for failing to report the collapse of an unoccupied mine shaft at the company's Spear Island mine in the Ikeda Islands. The El Kadsreian government had given Grupo México until January 18, 2013 to pay the fine. Drillimation, which had been placed under that division, was part of the sale. On December 20, 2012, Grupo México announced that Drillimation was in the process of being sold to CEO Susumu Takajima and several Japanese and Thai investors under the newly-formed company Visual Takajima Group, while the other assets of Grupo México Communications were being sold to, and. Visual Takajima Group became Drillimation's owner on January 2, 2013.

In 2017, Spacial Entertainment Holdings partened with, and  to purchase Drillimation and Visual Takajima Group's assets for around 5 million yen. Upon purchase, Visual Takajima Group and most of it's assets (save for Visual Takajima Capital, which was spun off as an independent company owned by Susumu) were absorbed into Spacial and Drillimation.

2019–present: Suko era
On December 20, 2019, Susumu Takajima stepped down as Drillimation CEO, being succeeded by Suko Akamona, previously the manager of Drillimation Studios Florida and then Drillimation Studios Europe. Suko then announced the shutdown of the Chuhou Joutai servers to allow the game to be "heavily revamped and re-imagined."

Games
During the Driller Engine 1 Era, games were produced using Commodore Amiga computers. Surprisingly, Takajima created a new type of music: the mod tracker. The decision to make this was because Takajima did not want to program songs with complex MML, so he used an eight-channel synthesizer based off of the Nintendo Entertainment System retaining all five channels while adding three FM Synthesis channels based off of the YM3812. As of today, Amiga computers are no longer being used. As Amiga software cannot run properly on Windows, an emulator is required to play Driller Engine 1 games.

Since the Driller Engine 2 Era, games were produced on MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows computers. The updated version of his tracker had twelve channels, with all eight channels coming from the Super Nintendo, with the addition of four FM channels based on any sound chip.

Drillimation's games have topped many rankings across the world, with several of their games receiving critical acclaim. During their growth in the gaming industry, Drillimation has had one game in each franchise that received universal acclaim (Metacritic score of 90% or higher). Some of these include Driller Engine Grand Prix 2x2 (97%), Super Smash Keyboards 8 (96%), To Heart (95%), Touhou 7: Perfect Cherry Blossom (94%), and Super Lucky Star 4 (93%).

Music
Games generally use tracker music for soundtracks, with some or all mainly composed by award-winning composers such as Kinuyo Yamashita, Go Shiina, and Nintendo-composers Koji Kondo and Kenta Nagata for some games. The software mainly used for composing music for Drillimation games was mainly ProTracker when Drillimation was using Amiga computers during the Driller Engine 1 Era. The games mainly used the .mod format for storing music. When the Driller Engine 2 Era hit the shores, Drillimation switched to MS-DOS computers and began using Scream Tracker for remastering the Driller Engine 1 songs in .s3m format. All the Driller Engine 2 songs were composed in Impulse Tracker in .it format. Since the Driller Engine 3 Era, Drillimation has been using OpenMPT for composing game soundtracks. Ian Luck, an engineer at Drillimation Studios California, created the .mo3 format for storing music. The first game to use the .mo3 format for soundtracks was the 1993 game Seihou 3: Pennant Purple Dragon on the Super Nintendo, the last game published under the Amusement Software name.

Art and animation
The art style used for The Drillimation Series was originally inspired by kamishibai plays, especially Ōgon Bat. The founder and the main animators for the anime took art-focused classes in high school, as well as college.

Up until the early 1990s, Drillimation mainly relied on pen and ink for the animation, with Drillimation working 14 hours a day animating the anime. It takes one to three weeks to produce an episode of the anime. During the 1990s, Drillimation began using their proprietary ANICPS system to animate the anime, as well as using Alias PowerAnimator on Silicon Graphics machines for designing the character models in Driller Engine games. The first episode of the fourth season of the 1986 Mr. Driller anime, which premiered on February 26, 1989, became the first anime episode to be animated using digital technology, and was a test run for the prototype build of the ANICPS system, which began full usage by Drillimation in 1992 on most of their anime series at the time. In 2000, Drillimation began using to animate their animes, with production rates only taking 3 - 7 days. Starting in 2008, Drillimation began using their newest proprietary system, DAPC, for animation with production rates taking only 3 - 5 days.

Drillimation's animators are salaried employees rather than freelance animators paid per frame or cel produced. Therefore, the animators are able to focus more on the quality and quantity of all the frames and cels they produce.

Themes
The Drillimation Series spans a variety of themes. According to an interview with GameInformer, Susumu Takajima stated, "Drillimation came up with a new theme for each anime".

Notable staff

 * Hiroshi Takajima, founder and director of several Drillimation games and anime.
 * Susumu Takajima, president of the company from 1998 to 2019.
 * Suko Akamona, president of the company since December 20, 2019.
 * Nobuo, producer and director of several Drillimation animes until 2001.
 * Hinako Mochinaga, longtime Drillimation anime director. Daughter of.
 * Tadatsune Wakiya, director of several Drillimation animes until 2010.
 * Zenjiro Eda, writer for several Drillimation projects.

Controversies and criticism
Drillimation Studios had been criticized for numerous controversies they have caused over the years over studio acquisition, promotion of violence and sexuality, and advertising efforts.

Studio acquisition

 * Main Article: List of acquisitions by Drillimation Studios

During their period of growth in the gaming industry, Drillimation was often criticized by people in Japan and others around the globe for buying out smaller development studios, doujin groups, and animation studios, mainly for their intellectual property assets, and then producing drastically changed versions of their games and anime.

At one point, Drillimation was criticized for trying to acquire Alexonia-based Tenma Games in 2002 but ended up getting only 25% of the stake. The stake was sold back to Tenma Animation in 2010. Drillimation also faced criticism for attempting to buy the rights to the Klonoa franchise to reboot it but failed to do so.

Promotion of violence against women in Girls' Battle
In 1994, Drillimation Girls' Battle was released in the arcades to a financial and critical success. However, with the almost all-female cast with the exception of a few male characters such as Professor Bazinger, Susumu Hori, Mayo Wakakoshi, and Emperor Seiuchi, this has sparked anger among female players and mothers of players as well. Girls' Battle carried over the blood-splatter effects from Crashing! The Ultimate Action Game, which was released two years earlier. When the ESRB was founded in 1994, both games received a Teen rating for "Animated Blood" and "Animated Violence". Their arcade counterparts use a different rating system and were rated "Animated Violence - Strong" by the AAMA.

While the game did not spark controversy in Japan but in North America and PAL regions, both games still faced censorship for some of the fatality moves in order to prevent the game from receiving a "Mature" rating from the ESRB. Journalist Wayne Footloose stated this in 1995 article for the El Kadsre Daily Inquirer:


 * Crashing! and Girls' Battle reached mainstream popularity within a matter of months when they first came out. It was a great transition for The Drillimation Series to enter the fighting genre, but not with its use of blood and guts. I have an 8-year-old son who loves The Drillimation Series and we do own some of the games, these two series are the only games I will not let him play as a result of this. I enacted this after I had went into an arcade and saw him playing this exaggerated game, especially where he was like "attacking women".

To Heart
In 1997 and 2004, Drillimation released two games of the To Heart anthology for the Nintendo 64 and Nintendo GameCube consoles, with production assisted by Rareware in the first title and Digital Gaming Republic in the second title. During those times, there were numerous reports of teens engaging in the activities featured in both games. Nintendo has filed lawsuits against Drillimation for the controversies.

Driller Engine Grand Prix series
In March 2001, Drillimation released the third game in the Driller Engine Grand Prix series in the arcades. Shortly after the arcade release, Drillimation began airing commercials for the game, and one was pulled from broadcast after it was discovered that the song playing in said commercial supposedly had lyrics taken from verses 13-26 of Chapter 69 of the Qu'ran, even though they were sung in Basque and not in its native Arabic. In Islam, it is forbidden to recite anything from the Qu'ran in public.

In May 2017, a few days after the release of the online MMORPG version of Driller Engine Grand Prix 8 Ultimate, one of the game's most popular DLC characters, Matthias from the Redwall franchise, was temporarily removed after he generated controversy from one of his taunting animations. The animation depicted him gripping his bicep and raising his fist, resembling a Bras D'Honneur. This prompted a negative response from South American and European players and even the BBC, as that gesture is considered highly disrespectful in those territories. As a result, he was temporarily removed from online play while an update was made to patch out the highly offensive pose. He was re-added back into all versions of the game on May 17, 2017.

Recruiting of Drillimation Online users as terrorists
In the summer of 2005, Drillimation Online fell into controversy due to it being accused of being an Al-Qaeda recruiting tool. CNN reported that Drillimation Online was used to discuss and plan the London 7/7 bombings which occurred around the same time. CEO Susumu Takajima encouraged users to report users who claimed to be with terrorist groups. As a result, a total of 5,000 Drillimation Online accounts who claimed to be with the group were device-banned.

Ranger Man Fantasma: Bullet Ballet and vote manipulation on Steam
In 2006, Drillimation released the game Ranger Man Fantasma: Bullet Ballet. It was also a launch title for the Nintendo Wii in the United States and Canada. The game was poorly received and drew a great deal of mixed to negative reception due to a long tutorial, bland backgrounds, and a "buggy" online multiplayer mode. Critics noted an in-game prompt stated "Five-star ratings will help us give you free updates!", suggesting Drillimation would stop giving them new content if the game did not get enough high ratings. This led to widespread criticism of Drillimation manipulating the game's score on storefronts.

Drillimation Studios CEO Susumu Takajima apologized for this in an article in The Sydney Morning Herald, regarding this to be a shame for the gaming industry. Nonetheless, the game was also featured in an episode of Angry Video Game Nerd.

Later that year, Drillimation released another game from the Ranger Man Fantasma franchise named Ranger Man Fantasma: Smash 'n Crash Palace, which received better reviews, with it being mixed but not perfect. The main criticism was being similar to the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series of games.

YouTube
In 2009, the accused Drillimation Studios of abusing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in order to remove criticism by forcing YouTube to remove many videos that contain Drillimation content. As a result, Drillimation has persistently blocked/muted videos with Content ID matches or takedown notices, as well as rejecting disputes for Content ID claims, even though many of them were covered by fair use. This caused so much anger and frustration to many YouTubers, one of the videos they took off was a group of high school students at a local high school in Holly Ridge, North Carolina doing a cover of the first OP for Otter Magician Sammy. In the same year, Drillimation was accused of abusing the DMCA to indiscriminately remove Drillimation-related videos, and most notably a 1-minute home video which a child played Ranger Man Fantasma: Smash 'n Crash Palace on a Nintendo Wii. Drillimation eventually retracted many of their claims and responded to many counter-notifications they received. The copyright manager for the Japan facility was demoted from the position and transferred to Les Studios Drillimation in Montreal, and Drillimation hired a new copyright manager for the Japanese facility who had a better understanding of fair use. WatchMojo.com ranked this controversy as #4 on the Top 10 Worst Things Drillimation Has Ever Done

In 2012, a small group of Team Crimson hackers hacked the Drillimation Studios YouTube channel in an attempt to ruin the 2012 Double Dash Classic tournament in,. Specifically, the hackers muted the audio track during the Austrian national anthem, .

Mismanagement of Drillimation Studios New York
Drillimation Studios New York was established in 1999 in New York City, mainly to help the main branch at Anaheim, California and Miami (then Orlando), Florida with the English localizations of Drillimation games and their DLC. However, the New York studio did not see very many chances in their early years, as the California and Florida facility was mainly focusing on Mr. Driller X ' s development, the first Drillimation game that was produced outside of Japan.

The international version of Ranger Man Fantasma: Bullet Ballet was rushed by Drillimation Studios New York, who had to start from scratch in order to accommodate the new Driller Engine Ultimate engine, as the original game was made using Driller Engine 5. As a result of the rush, the game was met with numerous technical issues and received mediocre reviews from critics. This eventually led to the infamous Amazon review manipulation.

Drillimation Studios America
Drillimation operates three subsidiaries in the United States: Drillimation Studios California, which was established in 1982 as Drillimation USA Inc. and located in Anaheim, California, Drillimation Studios Florida, which was established in 1996 and is located in Miami, Florida, and Drillimation Studios New York, which was established in 1999 and is located in New York City, New York.

The first American subsidiary of Drillmation Studios was formed in 1982 as Drillimation USA Inc. to produce Saturday morning cartoons on behalf of the main Japanese office, and was initially managed by, who was responsible for bringing several Japanese anime productions to the United States. In 1986, they began localizing and releasing Drillmation games in North America for NES, as well as their respective arcade versions. They also asked Box Office, Inc. to port these budget PC titles into the NES, all using Driller Engine 1, these included The $100,000 Pyramid and High Rollers.

In 1996, Drillimation Studios Florida was founded, causing Drillimation USA Inc. to be renamed to Drillimation Studios California. Drillimation Studios Florida was originally based at in Orlando, and was initially managed by Cuban-born Raul Hernandez. In 2002, Drillimation Studios Florida was moved to Miami as a cost-cutting measure. During it's first two years in Miami, Drillimation Studios Florida shared office space with until 2004 were it was moved to the downtown area.

In 1999, Drillimation Studios New York was established, and was initially managed by Kimmy Setoguchi, a native. Drillimation Studios New York's first work was Banzai Kids, created by Mike Jupp of The Dreamstone fame, which had writing & animation work outsourced to Drillimation Studios California and voice recording & casting outsourced to the and New England Anime Inc. of Boston.

Drillimation Studios California and Florida initially outsourced their dubbing services to Vitello Productions and Intersound in and  in  whilst Drillimation Studios New York outsourced dubbing services to TAJ Productions in. But, starting in 2002, all three studios switched the dubbing services for their majority of Drillimation's video games and anime to Sound Venture Productions in as a cost-cutting measure (though in recent years Drillimation has also dubbed projects at  in,  in Los Angeles and New York City, and Blue Water Studios in  - with Ocean Productions in Vancouver still being used for some projects). Several of Drillimation's anime projects that were dubbed by Sound Venture have received Canadian content credits with the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

Les Studios Drillimation
In 2000, Drillimation opened up a Canadian subsidiary in Montreal, Quebec named Les Studios Drillimation. It is responsible for assisting the American subsidiaries with localization and is also in charge of localizing Drillimation's games and anime into Canadian French. All of Drillimation's Canadian French localized projects are dubbed at Difuze in Montreal, receiving Canadian content credits with the (SODEC).

Drillimation Studios Latin America
Prior to 2006, Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese localization for Drillimation games was handled by Drillimation Studios California, who outsourced the Latin Spanish dubbing duties to Audiomaster 3000 in and occasionally to Etcétera Group in  whilst outsourcing Brazilian Portuguese dubbing duties to Alamo in, but in 2001 Latin Spanish dubbing duties were switched to Alcatraz Digital in. According to Hiroki Takajima, this was due to the rise in popularity of animes such as Pokemon in Mexico causing the dubbing industry there to become more busier than usual and because it was cheaper to dub in Chile than in Mexico.

In 2006, Drillimation Studios Latin America was founded to localize games into Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese and to assist Drillimation Studios Europe with Castilian Spanish localization. The subsidiary is based in, with offices in ,  and ,.

Drillimation Studios Europe
Prior to 1994, various publishers such as and  released Drillimation games in. In 1994, Drillimation Studios Europe was founded in. The following years, offices were established in and.

Originally, Drillimation Studios Europe produced the European French dubs of the company's animes in Monaco using local Monégasque actors, but later on began outsourcing European French dubs to companies in and.