2811012M03 by U-Joe on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

Iku Nagae and Utsuho Reiuji from Touhou Project game series.

Why so much people love Touhou? One of the reasons is that everybody finds something personal in this setting. Somebody likes to imagine Gensokyou as some kind of Heaven, where cute girls srink tea and eat tasty cakes. Somebody likes Touhou for the spirit of adventures and mysteries. Others like Touhou for what it was created - for its 'grim darkness', where youkais eat humans, and magicians and witches fight each other till the one of them dies. I like all the 'components' of Touhou, but when I'm in low spirits, I draw the 'grim darkness'.

Firstly I planned to draw fervently crying Iku inside the 'soulstorm' with some lightnings and rain. Result was too boring. I added gigantic Unzan and several characters fighting each other with dammaku volleys. It was bloody epic, but I accidentaly didn't save the result. After restoring morale after that fail, I made this less successful version. Can't explain, what the hell is going on here, and where this 'here' is located.

I doubt Iku will die. 'Old youkais never die. Young ones wish they would'.

Why Iku faced Utsuho, you ask? Why not? I like Utsuho and Marisa, because they prefer to use reliable beam weapon instead of strange sparkling fireballs. When I look how somebody plays Touhou, I wonder about ineffectiveness of barrage using by bosses. They can fulfil their evil plans more easily, if somebody would equip them with simple fire control system to increase their accurasy and decrease ammo consumption. ^^'