The Wisdom of Sea and Sky expansion set for Pokemon TCG Pocket released on July 30th with players already able to collect the cards. One Pokemon is causing a problem amongst players, and not because of its in-game ability, but because of its artwork. Fans have discovered similarities between the official Immersive Ho-Oh ex card and the work done by a fan, leading many to believe the Pokemon TCG Pocket card was traced from the fan art. However, an official response has now cleared matters up.
The Immersive Ho-Oh ex for Pokemon TCG Pocket’s Wisdom of Sea and Sky set appears nearly identical to the work of Pokemon fan lanjiujiu, which was created in 2021. This had led fans to call out The Pokemon Company and DeNA using an artist’s work without permission, as it appears the artist for Ho-Oh ex, SIE NANAHARA, may have traced it.
An official response acknowledges the art in question, pulling both cards from Pokemon TCG Pocket and replacing them with placeholder images. While DeNA and The Pokemon Company did not outright say the art was traced, it revealed that “the card production team provided incorrect reference materials” which seems to indicate the fan art by lanjiujiu was used to create the immersive Ho-Oh ex. An investigation is being conducted further to look for other instances of stolen art in Pokemon TCG Pocket.
“After internal review, we discovered that the card production team provided incorrect reference materials as official documents to the illustrator commissioned to create these cards,” the statement said. “As a result, both cards have been replaced with a temporary placeholder that the team is actively working to replace with new artwork as soon as it’s ready.”
Video game companies have previously been seen to use fans’ work without permission, most notably Bungie with Marathon. With many of the art for Pokemon TCG Pocket and Pokemon TCG being commissioned rather than done in-house, it is entirely possible this has nothing to do with The Pokemon Company and rests solely on the artist. Hopefully, this is the only instance of this happening in Pokemon TCG Pocket and the issue will be resolved soon.
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