The Pokémon TCG just revealed one of its sweetest cards yet for 30th Celebration, a Pikachu by the franchise’s original art director, and GameFreak co-founder, Ken Sugimori.
Like Celebrations five years before it, the 30th Anniversary set is filled with different versions of the Pokémon mascot, Pikachu. We’ve previously seen the electric rodent trying to squeeze its face between bannisters, plus shiny metallic versions of two Pikachu ex cards.
But this card, labelled as the first out of 30 Pikachus in the set, is a new Sugimori drawing. Ken Sugimori’s role in the mainline Pokémon games seems to have diminished of late – from Scarlet & Violet onwards he’s typically credited as a supervisor, rather than a designer.
But back in the day he was incredibly pivotal to how Pokémon were perceived. Not only did he design many of them, he created the original art for all 151, plus the iconic watercolor illustrations that brought the monsters to life. For many years, Sugimori was responsible for all of the official artwork which I’ve always taken to be the definitive final word on what a Pokémon looks like.
This new card is a version of the original Pikachu from Base Set (also by Sugimori) – with the text simplified to fit modern norms. As such, it contains a much chubbier, rounder Pikachu than his modern design, with little distinguishable neck. The card is a dead ringer for the Base set Pikachu, in fact. With the same pose and a similar background, it’s clearly an intentional reference.
Alongside this card, Pokémon also showed off the day/night versions of Pikachu ex, two Pikachu cards with different, powerful effects. Previously, we saw the colorful, metallic versions appearing as ‘Future Rares’. I don’t know about you, but I like them a lot better this way.
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Source: Wargamer
