Pokémon Trading Card Game Artist Spotlight: Naoyo Kimura

Posted in: Card Games, Games, Pokémon TCG, Tabletop | Tagged: Naoyo Kimura, pokemon, pokemon cards, tpci

Our weekly Pokémon Trading Card Game Artist Spotlight series continues with Naoyo Kimura's work during the post-WOTC classic era.

Throughout the years, the Pokémon Trading Card Game has featured a variety of incredible art styles. Now that the hobby has been around for more than a quarter of a century, we have seen the artwork of Pokémon TCG cards elevated by daring new artist choices as well as illustrators who have been veteran contributors since the very first releases. Let's take a journey through the eye-popping, mind-expanding history of Pokémon TCG artwork by exploring some of the hobby's most interesting and unique artists. Today, we will spotlight Naoyo Kimura. This will be a four-part series showing Naoyo Kimura's work over the years, including their vintage, classic, and modern work. First, we begin with Kimura's iconic debut during the vintage era, which you can read here. Today, we focus on Kimura's work from the classic era.

After an all-time great debut in the first-ever "special" expansion, Southern Islands, Naoyo Kimura continued to deliver memorable illustrations all through the vintage Wizards of the Coast era and into what I refer to as the classic era. Above, you can see how Kimura's depiction of Pokémon in realistic environments created a unique vibe with their cards.

To the left, we have Pichu from ex Sandstorm, where we see the young Baby Pokémon observing a thunderstorm. Is Pichu afraid? Or does Pichu look at the lightning striking and aspire to that level of electrical power? I love how the card brings up these questions with this captivating image.

Then, we have a Kimura-illustrated Shiny Bagon from Platinum – Arceus. The Shiny cards from the Platinum era were Secret Rares that featured Shinies on reverse holo cards. These were numbered outside of even the set's Secret Rare numbering and instead continued a special SH-designated numbering from other sets that featured this type of card.

Kimura's strong use of emotion makes the Azelf from Black & White – Plasma Blast such a stunner, due to Azelf's alien, removed expression, which speaks to its hidden power.

One more thing about Kimura's work during the classic era, when holographic cards reigned supreme, is how well their poses worked to create simple and iconic holo-rares. This Delcatty from ex Legend Maker, which stands regally over that swirling galaxy foil, is the perfect example.

Be sure to check Bleeding Cool every day to follow our in-depth Pokémon TCG coverage as we explore the hobby's past, present, and even future with upcoming set reveals.

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