Onigashima
[touhou] Today's Year of Touhou plurk is breaking down the best character design in the series, Utsuho Reiuji
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She made her debut in the 11th mainline game, Subterannean Animism, as the final boss
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she's a hell raven who was granted the power of Yatagarasu, mythical crow god and incarnation of the sun
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which granted her power over nuclear fusion
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an airheaded goofball who was driven mad with power and tried to turn the world into a nuclear inferno
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to break it down
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big black wings, because she's a crow
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the red gem on her chest is one of the eyes of Yagatarasu and serves as proof of the source of her power
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Yagatarasu is mythically described as a three-legged raven
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and in touhou canon, gave her three powers accordingly
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the Left Leg of Fission - in game sprites, she has three glowing dots orbiting her left leg, representing orbiting electrons
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the Right Leg of Fusion - the congealed stone covering her right leg is a direct reference to the Elephant's Leg at Chernobyl 
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and the Third Leg, represented by her right arm, which is both an arm cannon and a nuclear control rod
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that backdrop isn't just a background, it's the inside of her cape, which is held up by her wings, and the pattern doesn't move when she does, making it look like a hole in space
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she has a lot of star theming due to stars being nuclear furnaces and yagatarasu being a sun god
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yatagarasu*
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the symbols on her cannon I don't 100% recognize but they look like molecular bond diagrams
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the background during her spell cards uses two real-world images
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one, with the star subtheme, is a photo of the Carina Nebula
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the other is a picture of a cat, believed to be a reference to the fact that feral cats moved in to inhabit Pripyat after it was abandoned by humans
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and the whole thing, the whole character, top to bottom, may also be a reference to a real world urban legend, the Black Bird of Chernobyl
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her design is just firing on all cylinders, there's barely a single pixel that doesn't have some symbolic meaning
her design is just firing on all cylinders, there's barely a single pixel that doesn't have some symbolic meaning
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SA Stage 6 Boss - Utsuho Reiuji's Theme - Solar Sect...
and her music fucking owns
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ZUN is a world class character designer
oh i'm scary
holy shit, I didn't know she was Mothman
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no
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she's RADIOACTIVE mothman
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a radioactive moth bit her and turned her into mothman
oh i'm scary
I think I vaguely entertained the idea of a Mothman-based character for Touhou Valor
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Eric did one
oh i'm scary
that might have been someone else actually doing it that I'm remembering--
oh i'm scary
okay
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straight up
oh i'm scary
props to Eric
Villain
HotXC
utsuho's got a lot of huge obscenely bright projectiles too
HotXC
so it sure feels like she's incinerating you
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another just, smaller fun fact
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her moveset in the fighting games is full of references to Souther in the PS2 Fist of the North Star fighting game for some reason
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fastest mario
SWR/Soku just absolutely loved its HnK references, up to and including having Reimu have a Fatal KO complete with bootleg You Wa Shock
fastest mario
also third fun fact: Utsuho was the first one to mess around with interface as part of her aesthetic, changing the usual spellcard declarations into warning klaxons and caution banners
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UNL Reimu's "Fantasy Heaven" Theme: Mystic Oriental ...
yeah it rules
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although Fantasy Heaven was a HnK reference from the start