{"id":43566,"date":"2025-01-31T17:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-01-31T08:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=43566"},"modified":"2025-01-31T17:27:12","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T08:27:12","slug":"ninja-gaiden-developer-koei-tecmo-asks-fans-not-to-send-them-romantic-offerings-addressed-to-staff-or-fictional-characters-for-valentines-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/ninja-gaiden-developer-koei-tecmo-asks-fans-not-to-send-them-romantic-offerings-addressed-to-staff-or-fictional-characters-for-valentines-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Ninja Gaiden developer Koei Tecmo asks fans not to send them romantic offerings addressed to staff or fictional characters for Valentine\u2019s Day\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>You can put down that card and chocolate box you were preparing for your favorite warlord from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, because Koei Tecmo Games has issued an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamecity.ne.jp\/support\/notice\/22013.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">announcement<\/a> politely informing fans that it will be declining all Valentine\u2019s Day or White Day presents sent this year due to safety concerns.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1189\" height=\"668\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1189px) 100vw, 1189px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250123-43135-002.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-43139\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250123-43135-002.jpg 1189w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250123-43135-002-380x213.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250123-43135-002-768x431.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In the announcement, the company expressed gratitude for all the gifts fans send to its staff and fictional characters daily. However, they explain that they\u2019ve decided to place a ban on Valentine\u2019s Day and White Day presents again this year, no doubt picturing an unmanageable mountain of gifts flooding in on these romantic days. If you\u2019re wondering \u201cIs that even a thing?\u201d then you\u2019re probably not alone, but it is indeed a thing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Japan is big on Valentine\u2019s Day presents, and every year on February 14, people give their loved ones chocolates and other gifts, which are customarily reciprocated on White Day, celebrated on March 14. However, recipients of Valentine\u2019s Day presents aren\u2019t just limited to real people. It&#8217;s not uncommon for people to give gifts to their beloved fictional characters \u2013 and the most logical way to do so is by sending these presents to the companies and developers that created them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1275\" height=\"710\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1275px) 100vw, 1275px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250131-43526-003.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-43571\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250131-43526-003.jpg 1275w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250131-43526-003-380x212.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250131-43526-003-768x428.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This was a relatively common phenomenon among some Japanese game companies, but the COVID-19 pandemic sadly changed that. Koei Tecmo has been declining Valentine\u2019s Day presents <a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20230131-17679\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">for a couple of years now<\/a>, and Square Enix previously requested that FF14 players stop sending food as gifts.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Interestingly, in response to Koei Tecmo\u2019s post on X, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/bluegreenherb\/status\/1885187376299036835\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">one Japanese user mentioned<\/a> that it used to be common for fans who sent Valentine\u2019s Day gifts to characters from Koei Tecmo games to receive letters in return on White Day (written by staff, obviously). It\u2019s not really possible to verify if this is true, but if it is, it\u2019s a very sweet gesture, and it&#8217;s kind of a pity that the whole custom is gone now (although it\u2019s for legitimate reasons). It would have been a real experience to receive a White Day card from Liu Bei.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Due to safety and logistics reasons, Koei Tecmo Games will be declining all Valentine&#8217;s Day and White Day related presents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":43288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-43566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Ninja Gaiden developer Koei Tecmo asks fans not to send them romantic offerings addressed to staff or fictional characters for Valentine\u2019s Day\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Due to safety and logistics reasons, Koei Tecmo Games will be declining all Valentine&#039;s Day and White Day related presents.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/ninja-gaiden-developer-koei-tecmo-asks-fans-not-to-send-them-romantic-offerings-addressed-to-staff-or-fictional-characters-for-valentines-day\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ninja Gaiden developer Koei Tecmo asks fans not to send them romantic offerings addressed to staff or fictional characters for Valentine\u2019s Day\u00a0 - 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Currently devoted to growing Automaton West to the size of its Japanese sister-site, while making sure to keep news concise and developer stories deep and stimulating.","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/author\/amber-vjestica\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43566"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43572,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43566\/revisions\/43572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}