The Pokémon Company was accused of tracing fan art for two cards. 

The Pokémon Company has officially responded to accusations of tracing artwork for two of its upcoming cards in Pokémon TCG Pocket. Fans had previously accused the mobile game’s developers of plagiarising fanart for two cards in its upcoming expansion Wisdom of Sea and Sky. 

In a statement released online today (30 July), the developer confirmed that a “production issue” had led to two cards featuring traced artwork of Ho-Oh. Both cards have now been replaced with temporary placeholder artwork, which the developer looks to replace with new artwork “as soon as it’s ready.”

The Pokémon Company issues statement on recent plagiarism allegations

The Pokémon Company has been facing allegations of plagiarism this week, ever since datamining for its upcoming expansion Wisdom of Sea and Sky turned up two cards with seemingly stolen artwork of Ho-Oh. An artist with the Twitter/X handle lanjiujiu noted that one card looked strikingly similar to their own fanart of Ho-Oh, from all the way back in 2021. 

The official artwork, which is credited to an artist named Sie Nanahara, is featured on an Immersive Card. Immersive Cards allow players to view expanded versions of a card’s illustrations when tapped on. The allegedly traced artwork of Ho-Oh was not featured on one card in the expansion, but two: Ho-Oh EX (3-Star) and Lugia EX (3-Star). 

Ahead of the Wisdom of Sea and Sky expansion’s release today, The Pokémon Company released a statement to explain the origin of both cards’ artwork, and confirmed that it would be replacing them with new art. 

In the statement, the company acknowledged that there had been “a production issue” concerning the Ho-Oh illustration included in both cards. It explained:

“After internal review, we discovered that the card production team provided incorrect materials as official documents to the illustrator commissioned to create these cards. 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.”

Going by the company’s statement, it looks like the cards’ artist, Sie Nanahara, is not to blame here, as The Pokémon Company simply provided the wrong artwork for them to reference. The company noted that it is “also conducting a broader investigation to ensure no similar issues exist elsewhere in the game.”

The company closed its statement by apologising for “any inconvenience this has caused.” Pokémon TCG Pocket players will also find a similar notification in-game that confirms both cards are being given new artwork at a later date.