SUN, I like your works very much too. But this one just happens to encompass everything I prefer in yukkuri abuse.
1) Background. Used as a tool for atmosphere. 2) Absense of imminent violence in picture. Like it better when they are about to be abused or abused already. 3) Reimu's facial expression. Priceless. Psychological abuse always sweeter for me than physical. With that, you can clearly say that loving-parent-yukkuri is better for abuse than some shithead who abandons her chikd right away. The more they love each other the sweeter psycholgical pain will be. 4) Gutter trash theme. Yukkuris should live a miserable life, that's for sure. 5) Blind, broken Marisa, as for opposing to non-giving up Reimu. 6) That you can imagine what have happened right before this picture (in more than one way). And what will happen in near future - child is most certainly dead already, Reimu just don't want to accept this fact yet. So the picture gets 4-th dimension, you can look into past and into future through it. 7) Yukkuris are drawn in dinamics.
How about this scenario: mother reimu is forced to trade in some of her children to anon in exchange for shelter. Say, a pet house or something like that.
now, she's not necessarily selfish mind you. It's just that she has has way too many children because Marisa was a horrible horny husband and she is forced to sacrifice some of her children so that others may survive
>What exactly did you mean when you said "dinamics"? You meant "dynamics" right? And what did you mean by that?
Dynamics, right. Curse my not-so-good knowledge of language.
I meant that yukkuris are not just sitting and talking or eating, they've shown in middle of some active process like walking.
Catched frame in middle of movement. Gives you feeling that they really are walking. Which in order "turns on" the feeling of time, transfoming picture from something still into one frame of some events.
I don't necessarily like violence for the sake of it, but i do enjoy the sense of realism inherent in this picture. I mean hell, for most animals it's a tough life in nature - for a yukkuri, which is a walking ball of food with little defence - life must be more harsh. Personally i'd love to see a series done as a documentry type thing, from a fairly objective standpoint (rather than 'they all live happily' or 'they're all gonna DIE' as we usually see).
^ There's a fanfic that sort of describes this. It's about a reimu that gets abandoned by its owner in the city. It doesn't have everything you're looking for but it is kind of similar. I'm looking to translate it sometime next week.
How sad... I really do like this picture, as it encompasses both the low points of being a yukkuri (abuse, miserable life, etc), and the high points (the highly dedicated Reimu mother trying to take her family to safety). Truly wonderful!