‘Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket’ Asks Players To “Strictly Refrain From Criticizing Or Slandering The Illustrator” Of Pulled Ho-oh EX And Lugia EX Art
In the face of an apparent firestorm related to the game’s recent Wisdom of Sea and Sky art controversy, Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket has issued an official request for its more angry and explosive players to “strictly refrain” from unduly attacking the illustrator behind the infringing Ho-oh EX and Lugia EX cards.
As previously reported, players were taken aback just ahead of the July 30th release of the mobile TCG’s Wisdom of Sea and Sky expansion by Chinese fan artist @lanjiujiu’s discovery that the Immersive Print variant produced by longtime franchise illustrator SIE NANAHARA for the set’s Ho-oh EX card bore a striking similarity to one of his own pieces, itself originally produced in 2021.
Subsequently finding their various inboxes and customer support lines filled with unhappy players demanding answers regarding their seeming support for art theft, The Pokémon Company offered a prompt response to the matter, explaining that while the @lanjiujiu’s art had been used as a reference for the relevant card, this was due to any outright plagiarism on the behalf of SIE NANAHARA, but rather the company itself incorrectly providing the piece as an official reference material.
“It has come to our attention that there was a production issue regarding the illustration of Ho-Oh featured in the immersive card artwork for Ho-Oh ex (3-Star) and Lugia ex (3-Star),” they detailed. “After internal review, we discovered that the card production team provided incorrect materials as official documents to the illustrator commissioned to create these cards.”
(While the art for Lugia EX was not accused of being plagiarized, it was ostensibly targeted for removal due to being illustrated by the same artist.)
In seeking to quickly rectify the situation, The Pokémon Company further announced, “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. We are also conducting a broader investigation to ensure no similar issues exist elsewhere in the game.”
For his part, @lanjiujiu expressed gratitude for the situation’s quick resolution and provided a further clarification regarding his side of the story.
“Having seen the official announcement, I appreciate the prompt resolution and hope this matter rests here,” he wrote, as read via an English translation of his statement provided by the artist with assistance from an unspecified machine translation service. “My original post stemmed solely from perplexity upon encountering questionable images online, with no means to verify their authenticity as game assets. As discussions escalated beyond control, I intentionally refrained from social media engagement yesterday.”
“To reiterate: I solely delivered commissioned 2D artwork, with no involvement in subsequent model production, sales, or profit-sharing. This revealed past gaps in copyright awareness; future commissions will require strict verification of usage rights.
“Profound gratitude to the operations team for their attentiveness and swift action in removing the image. Relieved by the timely resolution. I also thank those who contributed constructive perspectives.”
Unfortunately for both Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket and SIE NANAHARA, many players either did not fully read the above statement or outright did not believe it, and thus rather than allowing the situation to resolve and everyone to move forward instead continued to attack the involved parties for a myriad of assumed offenses.
So explosive was this continued backlash that the very next day, the official Japanese Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket Twitter account issued a statement, as machine translated by Google Translate, directly asking said players to, in essence, chill out:
“We have become aware of some criticism of the illustrator. The defect in the illustrations was caused by the card production team of The Pokémon Company and Creatures Inc. providing the illustrator with incorrect information as official.
“All responsibility lies with the client. Usually, most illustrations are created with a strong emphasis on the illustrator’s creativity and individuality, but for some illustrations, the illustrator may be asked to simply copy the concept sketches created by the card production team. In this case, the latter type of request was made, and the situation arose because the card production team provided incorrect concept sketches, and the illustrator faithfully produced the illustration in accordance with the client’s request.
“Therefore, we ask that you strictly refrain from criticizing or slandering the illustrator in question.
“We would like to once again offer our deepest apologies to all the fans who support Pokémon on a daily basis, and to all the illustrators who support the production of Pokémon cards, for the inconvenience caused.
“We hope that you will continue to enjoy the Pokémon Card Game with peace of mind.
“We will continue to work harder than ever to ensure thorough quality control and prevent recurrence.”
At present, Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket has yet to officially update the Immersive Print variant artworks for the Wisdom of Sea and Sky set’s Ho-oh EX and Lugia EX.
