Pokémon TCG Pocket will change card art after plagiarism accusations

While you can now start collecting Pokémon TCG Pocket‘s Johto-themed Wisdom of Sea and Sky expansion, two of the set’s rarest cards are being changed in response to concerns about art theft.

Soon after dataminers began posting images of Wisdom of Sea and Sky’s cards on Tuesday, Chinese artist lanjiujiu took to their X account with questions about Pokémon TCG Pocket using illustrations that seemed to have been traced from their own work. In particular, lanjiujiu pointed to Wisdom of Sea and Sky’s immersive Ho-Oh card drawn by Sie Nanahara, a Japanese illustrator who has previously produced a number of art pieces for The Pokémon Company. 

Pokémon TCG Pocket‘s original immersive Ho-Oh card bore a number of visual similarities to a piece of art lanjiujiu was commissioned to illustrate in 2021. lanjiujiu did not specify who originally commissioned them, but their art clearly served as the reference for a resin statue sold by PC House Studio, a company that makes unlicensed collectibles. 

As Polygon notes, The Pokémon Company has made clear that, when fans distribute art featuring any of the company’s copyrighted intellectual property, they are agreeing to “a royalty-free, non-exclusive, irrevocable, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license” that gives it the right to “use, transmit, copy, modify, and display Fan Art (and its derivatives) for any purpose.” Legally speaking, that means TPC would have been in the clear to keep the immersive Ho-Oh as is. But last night, the company announced that it now plans to update the card as well as Wisdom of Sea and Sky’s immersive Lugia, which also featured the Ho-Oh art as part of a short animation.

“We are also conducting a broader investigation to ensure no similar issues exist elsewhere in the game,” TPC said in a statement posted to X. “To all our players who have been looking forward to this expansion, and to the talented illustrators who bring the Pokémon world to life, we deeply apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. We take this matter very seriously and are committed to strengthening our quality control processes to prevent this from happening again.”

The Pokémon TCG Pocket situation is the latest instance of a popular mobile card game getting in hot water for using fan art without contacting the original artist. Earlier this year, Marvel Snap faced similar accusations on two separate occasions — once regarding a pixel variant M’Baku card that resembled an illustration by fan artist Jason Kiantoro, and another involving a card of the Ancient One that borrowed visual elements from Kamen Rider Wizard.

In the latter instance, Marvel Snap simply changed a few details rather than releasing an entirely new card. It’s not clear when Pokémon TCG Pocket will update Wisdom of Sea and Sky’s immersive cards, but if you happen to pull them now, you’ll be greeted with a box that says “new art coming soon.”