Following severe online backlash regarding the new immersive Ho-Oh ex and Lugia ex cards, Pokémon TCG Pocket has removed the two three-star artworks and replaced them with placeholder text. This is due to the card's artist tracing fan art of Ho-Oh, which constitutes art theft.
On July 29, just one day before the new Pokémon TCG Pocket packs, Wisdom of Sea and Sky, were due to launch, fan artist lanjiujiu pointed out glaring similarities between their illustration of Ho-Oh from 2021 and the new immersive card for the legendary in Pokémon TCG Pocket. They provided a speed paint video of their process creating the original artwork, which features Ho-Oh and several other flying Pokémon.
It's clear that Pokémon takes this issue very seriously, as today, Pokémon TCG Pocket released a statement addressing the offending artwork and removing it from the game. According to the statement, "after internal review, [Pokémon TCG Pocket] discovered that the card production team provided incorrect reference materials as official documents to the illustrator." Pokémon is famously very protective of its character designs, so card artists referencing or even tracing official artwork to ensure fidelity is to be expected. In this situation, the card artist, Sie Nanahara, used the resources that Pokémon incorrectly gave to her.
Pokémon also stated that it is "conducting a broader investigation to ensure no similar issues exist elsewhere in the game." With more and more companies opting to use AI art instead of commissioning real artists for their work these days, Pokémon's swift action in this situation to protect artists' work warms my heart. Thanks to this online backlash, lanjiujiu has also discovered that the fan art's commissioner used their work to produce a bootleg Pokémon statue, and that the original draft that the commissioner provided to them was already partially traced.
Many fans were looking forward to the new set, which focuses on gen 2 Pokémon like Lugia, Ho-Oh, Espeon, and Umbreon. Hopefully, Pokémon can commission new artwork quickly, so we can see the legendary bird Pokémon in all their glory as immersive cards.