Overnight here in the US, the Pokémon TCG Pocket team issued an official statement regarding alleged plagiarism on two immersive art cards for Ho-Oh and Lugia in the newest set.
On July 29th, an artist known as lanjiujiu posted a shot of the new immersive Ho-Oh 3-star card coming with the new set, Wisdom of Sea and Sky, flipped to show it was pretty much identical to their own art from 2021, just giving “？。？？？？？？” as the text. It’s pretty damning, honestly.
But, exactly 24 hours later, Pokémon TCG Pocket issued a statement and plan of action for handling this situation on X/Twitter:
Notice Regarding New Illustrations
Thank you for your continued support and passion for Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket.
We want to share an important update regarding the upcoming expansion, Wisdom of Sea and Sky. It has come to our attention that there was a production issue regarding the illustration of Ho-Oh featured in the immersive card artwork for Ho-Oh EX (3-Star) and Lugia EX (3-Star).
After internal review, we discovered that the card production team provided incorrect reference materials as official documents to the illustrator commissioned to create these cards. 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. We are also conducting a broader investigation to ensure no similar issues exist elsewhere in the game.
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.
Thank you for your understanding, patience, and continued support of Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket. We remain dedicated to delivering an experience that you can enjoy.
The long and short of it seems to be that unofficial images got mixed into the official reference material for the art. As a result, they’re pulling both of the immersive cards that used that image, Ho-Oh EX (3-Star) and Lugia EX (3-Star), and will put in a placeholder art until they can get new art.
In addition, Pokémon TCG Pocket is taking the matter seriously and running a thorough investigation to ensure that no other cards have had the same thing happen. The good news is that they’re doing what they can on the matter and not just trying to fluff it off, even if the bad news is that an artist had their work stolen. I just hope they try to make things right with lanjiujiu more directly as well.
Wisdom of Sea and Sky comes to Pokémon TCG Pocket a little over an hour after this article is published. You can check out Pokémon TCG Pocket on iOS and Android.
Update 7/30/2025: Here is what the placeholder art for the Ho-Oh and Lugia currently looks like until they can replace the aforementioned art. According to their statement, they’re working on it as soon as they can.
