The Pokemon Company has officially responded to allegations of plagiarism involving two recently revealed cards in Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket, just hours ahead of the launch of the new expansion set Wisdom of Sea and Sky. In a statement released across its official social media platforms, the company acknowledged a production error involving the illustrations for the 3-Star Ho-Oh EX and Lugia EX cards and announced immediate corrective actions.
According to the published notice, internal review revealed that the Ho-Oh illustration had been created using incorrect reference materials, which had been mistakenly supplied as official documentation to the illustrator involved. As a result, both Ho-Oh EX and Lugia EX cards are being temporarily replaced with placeholders while new illustrations are being prepared. The company emphasized that a broader investigation is underway to ensure that no other similar issues exist across the game.
The notice reads, in part, “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… 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.”
The company also issued a formal apology to players and illustrators, stating, “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.” It further committed to strengthening quality control measures in order to avoid such incidents in the future.
Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket—commonly abbreviated as Pokemon TCG Pocket—is a mobile adaptation of the long-running Pokemon Trading Card Game. Developed by Creatures Inc. and DeNA and published by The Pokemon Company, the game launched on October 30, 2024 for both iOS and Android. It allows players to collect cards, build decks, and battle, all while offering features tailored to mobile play, such as daily login rewards and simplified controls that retain the core mechanics of the original game.
Since it came out, the game has been hugely popular. As of February 2025, it hit over 100 million downloads and made more than 500 million dollars.
This recent controversy is one of the first big problems Pokemon TCG Pocket has faced. We’ll have to wait and see how fans react to the two cards being replaced, but the fact that the publisher quickly admitted the issue and took steps to fix it shows they’re serious about protecting the franchise and respecting the artists who work on it.
