Pokémon Players Now Think Another Card 'Looks Very Similar' to Fan Art, but Others Aren't Convinced This Is a Ho-Oh Plagiarism Situation

Fans person suggested Pokémon TCG Pocket contains different paper plan that looks akin to unofficial artwork, conscionable days aft the crippled was forced to scrub the illustrations from respective cards wrong its caller expansion.

Last week, The Pokémon Company confessed it had utilized instrumentality creation arsenic a adjacent notation for Pokémon TCG Pocket's caller Ho-Oh EX card, recovered successful the deed smartphone game's caller Wisdom of Sea and Sky expansion. The substance came to airy aft fans alleged that the Ho-Oh card's plan had been traced from unofficial artwork antecedently published online.

Now, fans person pointed to yet different paper that whitethorn person been intimately inspired by instrumentality art: Buzzwole EX's Immersive Rare card, which sees the insectoid Ultra Beast flying done abstraction with 1 limb raised aloft, successful a Superman-esque pose.

While not an identical copy, the concept, framing and airs is precise akin successful quality to a portion of instrumentality creation published online backmost successful 2017, immoderate fans person present said. But others aren't truthful sure, and pointed retired that Buzzwole holding its limb up, flexing its swole muscles, is astatine slightest thing the carnal is often seen doing.

"I was scrolling done my aged camera rotation erstwhile I thought I saw the immersive Buzzwole but past upon further inspection, it was fanart I saved of him from 2017," Ricky_chimmerton wrote connected reddit. "I cognize it ain’t an nonstop transcript but this representation was decidedly referenced for the paper we have."

"Similar pose, but not the same. It could person been an inspiration, but it was intelligibly not traced," countered chap instrumentality Aestrasz. "The contented is not them taking inspiration from a instrumentality art, and doing a akin pose. The occupation was tracing the instrumentality art."

"Similar is an understatement but yea astatine slightest successful this lawsuit you tin spot it wasn’t conscionable a implicit copy," wrote Plane_pea5434.

Last week, The Pokémon Company said it would present statesman an audit of each Pokémon TCG Pocket cards to guarantee it had not provided instrumentality artwork arsenic a notation for immoderate different erstwhile cards. By highlighting the akin plan of Buzzwole now, fans anticipation that The Pokémon Company volition instrumentality enactment sooner — and either regenerate the artwork oregon recognition the archetypal creator.

"After interior review, we discovered that the paper accumulation squad provided incorrect materials arsenic authoritative documents to the illustrator commissioned to make these cards," The Pokémon Company wrote successful a statement. "As a result, some cards person been replaced with a impermanent placeholder that the squad is actively moving to regenerate with caller artwork arsenic soon arsenic it's ready."

Currently, the game's immersive Ho-Oh EX paper and its sister Lugia EX paper (which besides features the Ho-Oh plan successful its animation) simply diagnostic nary artwork, and alternatively see awkward-looking "New Art Coming Soon" placeholder text. It volition beryllium absorbing to spot if Buzzwole EX ends up getting akin treatment, oregon if The Pokémon Company decides its plan tin beryllium considered antithetic enough.

Subsequently, The Pokémon Company doubled down connected its mentation that its ain processes had been fault, alternatively than the named illustrator connected the card, who had been simply pursuing the notation worldly provided.

"It has travel to our attraction that determination is disapproval towards the cards' illustrator circulating online," the institution stated. "The illustration errors were caused by the accumulation teams of The Pokémon Company and Creatures Inc, who provided incorrect materials arsenic authoritative documents to the illustrator, and we mean to instrumentality afloat work for it."

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You tin scope Tom astatine [email protected] oregon find him connected Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social