The Pokemon Company begs TCG Pocket fans not to blame artist behind plagiarized Ho-Oh, takes full responsibility after removing it

The Pokemon Company has taken responsibility for the Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket plagiarism, and has asked that fans not criticize the artist over the situation.

Pokemon TCG Pocket's Wisdom of Sea and Sky expansion had a bit of a rocky launch as it was uncovered that card art for a new Ho-Oh EX card was plagiarized from a piece of fan art, resulting in a kind of hilarious card design being implemented in the meantime simply showing text saying "New art coming soon." However, in the time since, The Pokemon Company has put out a further statement about the situation, explaining where the issue stemmed from.

In a Tweet posted on the PokemonTCGP_JP account (translated via Automaton and machine translation), The Pokemon Company says, "Regarding the previously announced issue with the Ho-Oh EX (3-star) and Lugia EX (3-star) illustrations – it has come to our attention that there is criticism towards the cards’ illustrator circulating online." It adds, "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."

Effectively, the artist was commissioned by The Pokemon Company to create a reworked version of art supplied to them, meaning the fan-art that the card's design had taken from was given to the artist by The Pokemon Company itself. The tweet also asks fans to "strictly refrain from criticizing or slandering the illustrator in question" and says the company will "strive for more through quality control" in the future to avoid a similar situation.

Nintendo of America suggested giving Pikachu "huge breasts" during localization according to The Pokemon Company's CEO, who "won't show those illustrations to anyone as long as I live."