{"id":50546,"date":"2025-07-30T17:35:49","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T08:35:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=50546"},"modified":"2025-07-31T11:50:26","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T02:50:26","slug":"pokemon-tcg-pocket-replaces-card-designs-amidst-plagiarism-accusations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/pokemon-tcg-pocket-replaces-card-designs-amidst-plagiarism-accusations\/","title":{"rendered":"Pok\u00e9mon TCG Pocket replaces card designs amidst plagiarism accusations\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Ahead of the official launch of <strong>Pok\u00e9mon TCG Pocket<\/strong>\u2019s latest Wisdom of Sea and Sky expansion, suspicions arose that artwork used in two new high-rarity cards plagiarized fanart posted by a Chinese illustrator three and a half years ago. The Pok\u00e9mon Company has recently issued an announcement addressing the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pokemon.com\/us\/pokemon-news\/notice-regarding-new-illustrations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">announcement<\/a>, The Pok\u00e9mon Company says&nbsp;that an issue occurred during the production of the illustration of legendary Pok\u00e9mon Ho-Oh. An internal investigation found that the card design team had mistakenly provided incorrect reference materials to the illustrator hired to produce the artwork. As a result, both cards that featured the image &#8211; Ho-Oh EX (3-Star) and&nbsp;Lugia EX (3-Star) &#8211; will temporarily be swapped with placeholders, and official replacements will be implemented once ready. In addition, The Pok\u00e9mon Company is conducting a broader investigation to make sure there are no similar issues elsewhere in the game.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"und\" dir=\"ltr\">\uff1f\u3002\uff1f\uff1f\uff1f\uff1f\uff1f\uff1f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/RpaBHRfW1h\">https:\/\/t.co\/RpaBHRfW1h<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/e5ggVtnD7Q\">pic.twitter.com\/e5ggVtnD7Q<\/a><\/p>&mdash; \u663c\u65f6\u6b4c (@lanjiujiu) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lanjiujiu\/status\/1950044196842459644?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 29, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>While the statement didn\u2019t provide details about the &#8220;incorrect reference materials,&#8221; an X post by artist\u00a0Lanjiujiu from July 29 is what brought attention to the suspected plagiarism.\u00a0They compared the new Ho-Oh immersive card artwork to a piece of fanart they published back in 2021, overlapping the two images. The post quickly gained traction as Pok\u00e9mon fans found the resemblance too close to be coincidental.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As mentioned earlier, The Pok\u00e9mon Company\u2019s official explanation attributes the issue to the card production team mistakenly providing the commissioned illustrator with incorrect visual reference, which suggests Lanjiujiu&#8217;s fan art had been improperly treated as official reference. The statement includes apologies both to fans and to the illustrator involved in the card\u2019s production. Lanjijujiu <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/lanjiujiu\/status\/1950436692789514610\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">expressed gratitude<\/a> for the swift response and removal of the image.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Currently, the Ho-Oh EX (3-Star) and&nbsp;Lugia EX (3-Star) cards are displayed in game as solid-color cards with the text &#8220;New Art Coming Soon.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following suspicions that new immersive card designs plagiarized fanart from 2021, Pok\u00e9mon TCG Pocket urgently swapped out the cards with placeholders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":50548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17,70],"class_list":["post-50546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news","tag-pokemon-series"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - 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