List of tropes in The Drillimation Series

This is a **list of tropes** that are used in *The Drillimation Series*.

## Tropes used

* **American Kirby is Hardcore:** The North American and PAL localizations of the Drillimation games' box art. Happens a lot in the *Touhou Project* and *Chuhou Joutai* games.
* **Americans Hate Tingle:** Despite the series being very popular in North America, some countries such as Eruowood didn't really get caught on with the series. The source material, being the anime, wasn't very well received there. Only a few of the games were released in Eruowood, making this a case of **No Export For You** there.
* **Avoid the Dreaded G Rating:** Up until the Driller Engine Ultimate Era, almost all games in the *Mr. Driller*, *Lucky Star*, *Touhou Project*, and *Angry German Kid* franchises received E ratings. Starting with *Mr. Driller X2: Underground Humiliation*, *Lucky Star: Dawn of Sorrow*, and *Touhou 15: Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom*, all three series began taking on Everyone 10+ ratings.
* **Ballroom Blitz:** Happens once during the 2007 Minecraftia High School Prom when Driller is forced to rescue Kagami from Hearthcliffe in the Altar of Hidden Evil.
* **British Accent:** Some characters in the games and anime speak with one, even Susumu Takajima's English voice uses a Japanese-British accent. During the character's creation, Susumu Takajima tried several accents for him, including Canadian and British accents before settling on the above accent everyone knows today.
* **Costume Exaggeration:**
	+ Even though Kagami Ochiai's stage name is Princess Kagami, the outfit she often wears in the games and in her concerts in the anime have her wearing a short frilly skirt designed to replicate the outfits commonly worn by Vocaloid characters.
	+ Yumi Ochiai's prom gown has her wearing furisode-style sleeves over her gloves. They're the exact same color as her regular sleeves.
	+ Kumiko Uchida just looks like a normal miko, by just having a kimono and hakama over it. What's intended to surprise fans is her hakama's sky blue and not the normal red. Bizarrely, there are lots of fanart with Kumiko wearing the normal red hakama.
* **Crossdressing Voices:** In the original Japanese dub, Susumu Hori is voiced by Mitsuko Horie, while the English voice actor is Charles Martinet.
* **Cross Over:** With loads and loads of characters appearing in a variety of franchises, that doesn't stop Drillimation from crossing over their franchises in many of their games. They've crossed over *Mr. Driller*, *Lucky Star*, *Angry German Kid*, *Touhou Project*, and *Chuhou Joutai* into one either in the *Driller Engine Grand Prix* or *Killer Minecraft* series.
* **Dance of Romance:** The Minecraftia High School Prom. Driller often ends up with hearts in his eyes every time he and Kagami attend. Driller has at least fallen in love with Kagami at every one of their attendances to the event, mainly from the Victorian-style gown that Kagami wears and the fact that Driller thinks Kagami is a wonderful person.
	+ Kagami Ochiai (the real one) has even written a song named *The Waltz of Princess Kagami* in 1997, to help Susumu Takajima calm down after the death of his father, Hiroshi Takajima.
* **Darker and Edgier:** Originally, the Drillimation games and anime were intended for children and adolescents, before the series' target audience moved over to teens and adults when *Super Smash Keyboards* and *Killer Minecraft* were released, with the addition of graphic blood effects.
* **Dueling Dubs:**
	+ CinéGroupe and Audio Postproduction SPR Inc. recorded their own English dubs of the *Chuhou Joutai* anime and *Crystal Island* for broadcast in Canada and various foreign markets. Their scripts had little connection to Drillimation Studios California's dub, although they used their character names and their episode titles. Additionally, this allowed the dub to qualify as Canadian content, which all Canadian broadcasters are required to air minimum amounts of.
* **Everything's Better With Princesses:** Well, the deuteragonist of the series, Kagami Ochiai, has this because her stage name is Princess Kagami. So does Yumi, too.
* **Fictional Counterpart:** Both Susumu Takajima's and Kagami Ochiai's families are actually based on their real-world versions.
* **Germans Love David Hasselhoff:** *The Drillimation Series* was proven to be very popular in North America than its home country of Japan. This is the reason almost all Drillimation games get North American releases in the arcades and home consoles.
	+ *The Drillimation Series: Touhou Project* is the most popular video game and anime series in the Island of Sally, most likely due to *Touhou Project X*.
	+ In the *Touhou Project* series of games, Reimu Hakurei is the most popular character in Japan while Marisa Kirisame is the most popular character in the west.
* **Happily Married:** Exactly five years after the defeat of Hearthcliffe. Susumu Takajima and Kagami Ochiai ended up with this type of ending. And yes, they got married on prom night.
* **Hell-Face Turn:** Xiaomei Zhong was originally a Crimsonite, but quit after getting fed up with losing, joining Driller's side.
* **Hime Cut:** Several characters in the series use this hairstyle. This includes, but is not limited to Meira Katsumoto, Yumi Ochiai (alongside her mother), and Hikari Uchida. After Hearthcliffe's defeat, Kagami Ochiai transforms into a girl with this hairstyle.
* **Honorary Princess:** Only Queen Konata has the royalty status, and Kagami and Yumi Ochiai don't have a royalty status, although they do come from a clan of Shintoists.
* **Kicking Butt in All Her Finery:** For any of the playable girls in *Chuhou Joutai*, not only do they fight in their regular clothes, which are based on lolita outfits, but using a Spell Card with an intensity level of 100 or higher requires them to transform into their Chouhime form, which are based on the following:
	+ Kagami Ochiai transforms from a girl in a short frilly skirt into a girl in a beautiful orange ball gown complete with puff sleeves and long white gloves. She even has a super forme - using a tougher spell card, her gown turns purple and her gloves turn black. Her hair also turns from a pigtailed rainbow hue into a teal-to-violet gradient all arranged in a hime-cut.
	+ Kumiko Uchida goes from her standard miko outfit to a girl in a Chinese hanfu - the typical Chinese court outfit worn by women in Ancient China.
	+ The Katsumoto sisters, all of whom who wear maid outfits, just change from a maid into a Victorian party girl all dressed in the same style as Kagami. Meira wears maroon, Shira goes from blue to pink, Rikka wears the same style as Meira but it's purple, and Yui goes from black to lime green.
	+ Yumi Ochiai just goes from a girl in a cyan Hawaiian-style outfit with shrine maiden sleeves to a cyan gown with furisode-style sleeves. This even prompted complaints to Drillimation, who said this was difficult to cosplay.
* **Kimono is Traditional:** All members of the Ochiai Clan wear kimono while at their home castle. It should be noted that only those wearing kimono are allowed inside the Ochiai Clan's village. Generally, the daimyo and his consort generally wear a sokutai and a junihitoe, both of which were homemade, while the daughters-in-law of the daimyou wear five-layer kimonos. However, the granddaughters of the daimyou only wear furisode with a hakama over it. The guys, being the daimyou's sons and grandsons generally wear hakama trousers.
	+ Hikari Uchida, when she was not teaching, was always shown wearing kimono. So does her daughter Kumiko, but with a hakama over it.
* **Mascot Fighter:** The *Super Smash Keyboards* and *Killer Minecraft* series.
* **Mascot Racer:** The *Driller Engine Grand Prix* series.
* **Miko:** Kumiko Uchida is a miko at the Saint Ryuku Shrine, which amplifies her spiritual powers. Many of her bullet patterns and spell cards are Shinto-based. Susumu Takajima's wife, Kagami Ochiai, did miko work in a shrine when she was a child, which formed the basis for the character.
	+ In one episode of the *Chuhou Joutai* anime, Reika Enami temporarily covers up for Kumiko while she is busy at the Driller Engine Grand Prix tournament. Hilarity Ensues.
* **Missing Mom:** Kumiko Uchida's mother, Hikari Uchida, was murdered by Hearthcliffe when she was ten as an act of revenge for confiscating his Game Boy. Her father, Tomohiro Uchida, had to raise Kumiko for the second half of her childhood.
* **Multi-colored Hair:** Kagami Ochiai gets in on this trope. Her top hair is red, sidelocks are lime green, and back hair is pinkish-purple. From college beyond, she has a gradient of teal and purple hair in a hime-cut.
* **My Hair Came Out Green:** Happened to Kisumi during her freshman year in college. When she was trying to prepare for the Minecraftia High School Prom, she wanted to "transform into a completely different girl" for it. She intended to dye her hair from black to brown, but it came out purple instead. Hideo actually liked it and asked Kisumi to keep it.
* **No Export for You:** Neither the games or anime were released in Korea, due to political conflicts against the Japanese and Koreans after World War II. The ban was lifted in 2004, when Korea would finally get a chance to play the Drillimation games, but will only get to hear the Japanese dubs of those respective games. The games were mostly PC and mobile exclusive but translated into Korean by Nexon.
	+ Germany, Australia, and Korea aren't even permitted to play the *Super Smash Keyboards* games because of laws regarding blood and fatalities. This led to players pirating the games when they came out. This lasted until Steam was launched, when censored versions of them came out, finally giving them the chance to play the games.
	+ Subverted in Eruowood, only a few of the games made it there because of them not being able to catch on with it.
* **No Problem With Licensed Games:** The first *Mr. Driller* game was actually created by Hiroshi Takajima himself, who also created the anime. This was because he wanted to create a proper licensed game where he was heavily involved, and provided many of his important aspects in order to ensure the game received that immediate success. He also wanted to make sure the anime's humor made it into the game, and also have the cutscenes animated in the exact same style used in the anime.
	+ The Drillimation games are more popular than the anime itself, thanks to this trope.
* **Official Couple:** Generally the main protagonists of any Drillimation media. Most notable examples in the entire Drillimation franchise include:
	+ Susumu Hori and Konata Izumi, who has been the best known and most popular since Konata's debut in 1981.
	+ Wataru Hoshi and Miyuki Takara, the second popular.
	+ Ataru Hori and Kagami Hiiragi
	+ Chuta Bigbang and Tsukasa Hiiragi
	+ Susumu Takajima and Kagami Ochiai
	+ Ryuta Shigematsu and Kumiko Uchida
	+ Hiroki Takajima and Meira Katsumoto
* **Otaku:** The main protagonist of the series, Susumu Takajima, had been known to stay in his home for most weekends. Asides from playing video games, he is known for using mod trackers for making arrangements of his favorite songs from many popular video games. The character is based on Susumu Takajima himself, who played in a concert band when he was in junior high school and even played in his school's orchestra when he was in high school, which generated his musical influences.
* **Pinball Scoring:** *Touhou Project* has a different scoring system in every game:
	+ *Touhou 2: The Story of Eastern Wonderland* had scores that only reached up to 100 - 200 thousand points.
	+ *Touhou 4: Lotus Land Story* and *Touhou 5: Mystic Square* caused the score to go up to 1 million.
	+ In *Touhou 6: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil*, if you're that good, you can go up to 6 million.
	+ *Touhou 7: Perfect Cherry Blossom* takes this even further by raising the value of point items. The world record ended up being 63 million in *Touhou 8: Imperishable Night*, though you couldn't score more than 10 million in the Driller Engine 1 and 2 games. This was fixed in the Driller Engine 3 era.
* **Power Makes Your Hair Grow:** From a myth that Driller tells to Kagami, those who put the crown on their head will cause their hair to grow very long, elegantly, and beautifully. Kagami then imagines this in a dream sequence. Susumu Takajima confirmed in an interview in Nakayoshi that he got this idea for the myth from *Sailor Moon* when Usagi was revealed to be Princess Serenity for the first time.
	+ To quote Driller on this: "Well Princess Kagami, if we do win prom court, a lot of bizarre effects will happen to you once they place the crown on your head. Your hair's gonna start growing uncontrollably seconds after. You'll end up locking yourself in your room for days to weeks!"
	+ This happened to Kagami's mother, Kisumi, whose hair grew uncontrollably when she learned that she was prom queen for the first time during her first year at Minecraftia University. She ended up locking herself in her then-boyfriend Hideo Ochiai's dorm room for over a few weeks before he was able to cut it, but it kept growing. This led to her having floor-length hair, and she complained about it being inconveniently long, often getting it stuck in objects and other things.
* **Production Posse:**
	+ A Drillimation game or anime is gonna be dubbed into English? Expect Drillimation Studios California's non-union cast to dub the game/anime (with some exceptions, the English dub of the 1986 *Mr. Driller* anime was recorded in Canada and the English dub of *Crystal Island* was recorded in Iceland).
* **Rapunzel Hair:** Rikka Katsumoto. She nearly looks like Hatsune Miku, but her twin tails are twisted at the bottom.
* **Stock Sound Effects:** Many episodes in *The Drillimation Series*, both its original Japanese and English dubs have been known for their use of Hanna-Barbera sound effects in the anime, asides from using their own sound effects as well. They were able to do this as Hanna-Barbera was involved in a few productions. Some episodes even used Castle Thunder, usually for when the camera was panning across Dr. Manhole's Fortress. The *HotShots Party* series made heavy use of the Hanna-Barbera sound effects, usually for a retro feel. Drillimation stopped using them in the late 2000s and replaced them with newer, digitally recorded sounds.
* **Teen Idol:** One of the series' principal characters, Kagami Ochiai, is an idol who is known for performing her own renditions of popular pop songs throughout the series. Asides from doing this, she has also performed in productions at the Minecraftia Opera House. Susumu Takajima's wife is a theater actor and singer, which formed the basis for Ochiai herself.
* **The Makeover:** Right after Susumu Takajima and Kagami Ochiai graduate from high school, Ochiai dyes her hair with a blue and purple gradient, and wears a different outfit for her performances. However, right after graduating college, Ochiai's hair now comes all the way down to her upper calves, generally to look nubile. This was before Takajima married Ochiai, where The Daily Minecraftia wrote the article "The Real Driller Wants To Marry Princess Kagami, According to a Proposal at the Minecraftia High School Homecoming".
* **Yuki-onna:** Miyuki Takara is a youkai-born person who has the ability to create and manipulate ice. Wataru is always accompanied by Miyuki as he is a muggle-born and cannot use this type of magic. Whenever winter strikes her homeworld, she retains all abilities that normal yuki-onnas have. In fact, almost all of her outfits, mainly herself in her Lucky Star Kingdom dress robes are made entirely of snow and ice.
	+ To quote Takara on her Yuki-onna abilities: "*Well, I was going to use this spell card on Dr. Manhole, but guess what? I don't have control over it! With it, I can take anyone's body warmth, including yours.*"