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 have suggested Pokémon TCG Pocket contains another card design that looks similar to unofficial artwork, just days after the game was forced to scrub the illustrations from several cards within its new expansion.

Last week, The Pokémon Company confessed it had used fan art as a close reference for Pokémon TCG Pocket’s new Ho-Oh EX card, found in the hit smartphone game’s new Wisdom of Sea and Sky expansion. The matter came to light after fans alleged that the Ho-Oh card’s design had been traced from unofficial artwork previously published online.

Now, fans have pointed to yet another card that may have been closely inspired by fan art: Buzzwole EX’s Immersive Rare card, which sees the insectoid Ultra Beast flying through space with one arm raised aloft, in a Superman-esque pose.

While not an identical copy, the concept, framing and pose is very similar in appearance to a piece of fan art published online back in 2017, some fans have now said. But others aren’t so sure, and pointed out that Buzzwole holding its arm up, flexing its swole muscles, is at least something the creature is often seen doing.

“I was scrolling through my old camera roll when I thought I saw the immersive Buzzwole but then upon further inspection, it was fanart I saved of him from 2017,” Ricky_chimmerton wrote on reddit. “I know it ain’t an exact copy but this image was definitely referenced for the card we have.”

“Similar pose, but not the same. It could have been an inspiration, but it was clearly not traced,” countered fellow fan Aestrasz. “The issue is not them taking inspiration from a fan art, and doing a similar pose. The problem was tracing the fan art.”

“Similar is an understatement but yeah at least in this case you can see it wasn’t just a complete copy,” wrote Plane_pea5434.

Last week, The Pokémon Company said it would now begin an audit of all Pokémon TCG Pocket cards to ensure it had not provided fan artwork as a reference for any other previous cards. By highlighting the similar design of Buzzwole now, fans hope that The Pokémon Company will take note sooner — and either replace the artwork or credit the original creator.

“After internal review, we discovered that the card production team provided incorrect materials as official documents to the illustrator commissioned to create these cards,” The Pokémon Company wrote in a statement. “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.”

Currently, the game’s immersive Ho-Oh EX card and its sister Lugia EX card (which also features the Ho-Oh design in its animation) simply feature no artwork, and instead include awkward-looking “New Art Coming Soon” placeholder text. It will be interesting to see if Buzzwole EX ends up getting similar treatment, or if The Pokémon Company decides its design can be considered different enough.

Subsequently, The Pokémon Company doubled down on its explanation that its own processes had been fault, rather than the named illustrator on the card, who had been simply following the reference material provided.

“It has come to our attention that there is criticism towards the cards’ illustrator circulating online,” the company stated. “The illustration errors were caused by the production teams of The Pokémon Company and Creatures Inc, who provided incorrect materials as official documents to the illustrator, and we intend to take full responsibility for it.”

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social