Pokémon Cards Are Designed With an Unexpected Philosophy

3:15 pm – We’re joined by the Illustration Director of the Illustration Team at Creatures, Haru Saito; clay artist, character designer, and writer Yuka Morii; and the illustrators known as GIDORA and Teeziro, who answer our questions about the card game’s artwork. This type of interview format proves to be a bit challenging because, after our question is asked, the translator conveys it in Japanese, hears the answer, and then repeats it back to us in English. It’s particularly tough to ask more abstract questions about the art because a lot can get lost in translation. Still, we get some interesting answers when they’re asked about the most challenging cards they’ve had to work on.

Teeziro said her Orbeetle VMAX design was especially complex because she had to convey the scale of the massive Orbeetle UFO abducting a little boy and show numerous objects being beamed up into the air. The lead shares that she knows Teeziro loves drawing giant monsters so they intentionally give her assignments involving those kinds of Pokémon. The gargantuan Orbeetle VMAX definitely checks that box.

Morii is the artist who creates the clay statues photographed for Pokémon card art, and I have a small freak out that I hope no one notices. Her clay art cards are my absolute favorite. She says it’s her job to make the Pokémon look cute and, yup, it’s impossible to look at one of her clay figures and not make this face . She explains that she molds the Pokémon in malleable clay that lets her adjust their pose. If the Pokémon has a transparent element, like Snom’s icy back nubs, then it’s difficult to adjust because the translucent material rapidly dries and stiffens, so those Pokémon can be particularly challenging.

The group is asked about how they bring new Pokémon from the latest generation into the TCG for the first time. They say that when it’s the first card for a new Pokémon then they want to ensure it captures the uniqueness of the character and be more sincere about showcasing the core attributes of the Pokémon correctly, whereas with Pokémon that have been around for a long time they have more license to use more inventive and unexpected art styles. Which may explain this new Eiscue card:

4:00 pm – The interview ends and we thank the art team for their time. We’re given a choice of snacks in the lobby while we wait for the next activity. I pick a yummy “rich milk donut,” which tastes like a donut.

4:20 pm – We return to the meeting room for a hands-on activity prepared by Morii. I experience a mix of joy at the amazing opportunity and fear because my idol is about to see how bad of an artist I am. She gives everyone a small kit to make their own clay Magnemite, like the one she made for the Pokémon TCG: Scarlet and Violet—151 expansion.

The kit contains a chunk of white clay, three small colored clays, and some magnets and screws. I have a flashback to elementary school art class and I feel like a kid again.

The first step has us remove a peanut-sized blob of white clay and set it aside to be used as the eyeball later. Next, we put the two tiny blobs of green and blue clay into the big blob of white clay and mush it together until it creates that nice gray-blue Magnemite color. Kneading the clay reminds me of the times I’d make pizza dough with my dad when I was young. She tells us to roll it into a ball and keep going until all of the creases disappear. The clay is very malleable and I’m able to create a perfectly smooth sphere, but I get a little too into it and roll it around too much, to the point where I dry out the clay and cracks start to appear. Uh oh.

We’re instructed to take the small white blob and press it into a circle to make the eyeball and apply it to the center. Then, the little black blob is used for the pupil. She encourages us to make our Magnemites unique and give them personalities. I decide to play into the fact that my Magnemite is cracked and misshapen and mold the black clay to give it a seriously depressed look. Like father, like son.

Finally, we add the various screws and magnets to complete the model, making sure the blue and red ends match the picture.

I ask Morii to grade my Magnemite. She says I did a wonderful job but my Magnemite could stand to be more evenly round, and I tell her the cracks and dents give him character and help tell the story of his depression. I ask if she thinks I have a future as a professional clay modeler and she says I can only go up from here. Internally, I’m screaming. My favorite Pokémon card artist made a completely honest assessment of my work and totally wasn’t just being polite, and it turns out I do have a gift for the arts, after all. I make a note to apply to art school when I get back to the states. Julliard, here I come.

We wrap our clay creations in crinkled up wax paper to help it settle and harden, then we package them up in little boxes. I make extra sure it’s safe, because I am confident one day people will call this my Mona Lisa.

5:00 pm – Next up, lead game designer Atsushi Nagashima sits down for a group interview with us. He’s asked what card surprised him the most when a player used it in a creative, unexpected way. He chuckles and says the success of Mega Audino-EX was completely unexpected. I know exactly what he’s referring to. I remember being there in the crowd at the 2016 Pokémon TCG World Championships when Japanese player Shintaro Ito took first place with the card. Many people considered it to be binder trash, but he realized the card’s snipe attack just happened to be the perfect counter for the meta flooded with Greninja BREAK decks, allowing him to pick apart evolution lines and take easy Prizes.

Listening to his thoughtful answers, I start to have a new appreciation for the game. He talked a lot about how his job isn’t necessarily to design cards that make the player win but to make cards that are fun to play. He always has the fantasy of Pokémon battling in a stadium in mind when creating cards. As a TCG tryhard, I’m always laser-focused on the best meta cards, whereas he always keeps the larger picture in mind to make sure the entire catalog of cards expresses his vision for the game. It’s a philosophy I didn’t expect to hear, but I certainly have an appreciation for it because it’s what has made the game so fun even after all these years.

5:30 pm – Next, we head into a new room and sit down with the Pokémon TCG playtesters, which is a job I’ve long dreamed about having. We’re guided through a playtesting demo by Creatures Game Director Kohei Kobayashi and Creatures Manager Satoru Inoue, who explain that it’s their job to ensure cards are balanced and don’t break the game. As an example, they lay out three Venusaur EX and explain that, because it has a healing ability, they had to test how much it should heal. They wanted to ensure it would heal an adequate amount to be useful yet not heal too much, otherwise a player could make a board full of indestructible Venusaurs.

They’re asked if many competitive players make the transition to the playtesting team, and they explain that the skills that make a good competitive player don’t always line up with what makes a good playtester, because a playtester isn’t always trying to win, they’re trying to combine all sorts of cards in weird ways to really test the limits of what they can do. That’s when I realize I would never be good at this job.

6:00 pm – And just like that, our visit to Creatures is over. I take one last look around the mesmerizing lobby and have a wistful moment, like a kid being told it’s time to leave Disney World, and then we head down to the bus.

8:00 pm – I’m so exhausted that dinner and the rest of the night is a blur. On the bright side, I finally get to bed early for the first time on this trip.

That’s all for now, but be sure to come back tomorrow for my full acount of Day 4, which is the last day before the World Championships where I make an even possibly bigger nightmare artistic decision.

In the meantime, check out our other coverage on Pokémon Worlds: