Arbok Coiling Tokitsukaze

About

Arbok Coiling Tokitsukaze, usually called "The Illustrations of Tokitsukaze from Kancolle Being Coiled by Arbok" (Japanese: 艦これの時津風がアーボックに巻かれてる絵) or "The Illustrations Ordered in Skeb Where Tokitsukaze Is Coiled by Arbok" (時津風がアーボックに巻かれてるskeb受注絵) in Japan, refers to a series of illustrations in which the character Tokitsukaze^[1] from Kantai Collection gets wrapped up by the Pokémon Arbok from the Pokemon series. In the latter half of 2021, one art enthusiast's interest in this one specific illustration caused the crossover to trend on Pixiv and Skeb, a Japanese art commission service.

Origin

According to Nico Nico Pedia^[2], in around late 2020 or early 2021, a few online artists noticed that Skeb's search results for "Tokitsukaze Arbok" implied that probably one person with unique sexual tastes continued requesting illustrations depicting the niche situation on the commission service. They also found that Pixiv hosted the same illustrations because online artists often repost their works on commission services to the illustrators' community for self-promotion or to make their portfolio when clients allow for it.

On June 1st, 2021, many Japanese Twitter users came to know about this situation through a tweet by popular illustrator @aka_ringo (赤りんご), joking that the commissioner was an "oil tycoon" (shown below).^[3] His tweet had earned over 10,000 retweets and likes within its first two months. Viewers imagined that this art commissioner must have spent hundreds of thousands of yen on drawings of Tokitsukaze being coiled by Arbok, considering Skeb's usual order price.

自分はやってないんですが、現在pixivを「艦これ　時津風」でR-18検索すると時津風がアーボックに巻かれてるskeb受注絵で1ページ目が埋め尽くされるの正直言ってメチャクチャ面白いし、変態石油王がオイルパワーを解放すると一人で時代が作れるんだ！ってわくわくしてくるので、skebは応援しています

— 赤りんご (@aka_ringo) June 1, 2021

Translation:

I don't participate in it. But if you search on Pixiv for "KanColle Tokitsukaze", you find that R-18 pictures via Skeb, in which Tokitsukaze is getting coiled by Arbock, are now filling the first page of the results. I'm excited to see that today one perverted oil tycoon can create an era all by himself! I'm rooting for Skeb.

Led by the viral tweet, the client, Devira (デビラ, @DEVIRAR789)^[4], finally spoke on Twitter that day and explained why he continued to commission the same requests (shown below).^[5] He added a few days later that he had sometimes commissioned the pieces in private out of concern that illustrators may feel bad if his requests appeared in their gallery and asked them to go public his previous requests if they wanted.^[6][7]

アーボック大好きななのと時津風大好きだからですね・・・
skebで描いて頂いてる皆様、ありがとうございます・・・

— デビラ#9月9日はぎゅうぎゅうの日を勝手に応援中 (@DEVIRAR789) June 1, 2021

Translation:

That's because I like Arbok very much and Tokitsukaze so much too… I'm grateful for the artists drawing illustrations of my requests on Skeb…

Spread

As artists who had previously kept their work for Devira's hidden were encouraged to post their work publicly, artworks of Arbok coiling Tokitsukaze began to flood Japanese internet. He continued sending the same requests to commission services and said in December of 2021 that he had sent 487 requests and spent about 3,000,000 Yen (roughly $26,500) for 297 Skeb works that year.^[8] His passion also inspired some artists to begin drawing Arbok coiling Tokitsukaze voluntarily and other commission service users began making similar requests. By October 2022, the number of illustrations inspired by Devira's continuous efforts on Skeb^[9], Pixiv^[10], and Nico Nico Seiga^[11] had reached over 500, including duplicates.

Effects on AI Art

At the beginning of October 2022, some people reported that NovelAI Diffusion^[12], an AI-assisted text-to-image service launched on the 3rd, could already provide illustrations of Arbok coiling Tokitsukaze^[13][14] or other girls^[15] in decent quality (shown below). People assumed the efforts by Devira enabled the generator, which was allegedly trained by unauthorized reprints on Danbooru, to have processed enough illustrations to recreate the highly specific situation.^[16] Devira unexpectedly received kudos from internet users for succeeding in advancing artificial intelligence.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References