Pokémon Trading Card Game Artist Spotlight: Akira Komayama – Classic

Posted in: Card Games, Games, Pokémon TCG, Tabletop | Tagged: Akira Komayama, pokemon, pokemon cards, TCG

Akira Komayama has been contributing to the Pokémon TCG since Call of Legends. This week’s Artist Spotlight focuses on their early cards.

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 Akira Komayama. This will be a two-part series that begins today with Komayama’s classic cards and will continue next month with their modern cards.

Akira Komayama debuted in the Pokémon TCG with two cards from the special set, Call of Legends, which came out between the HeartGold SoulSilver and Black & White eras. Eevee and Magby featured on these cards, which established this artist’s style as cartoony with strong, confident linework. Komayama’s coloring is also notable in its brightness and use of intense lighting.

The Black & White era saw Komayama illustrate many interesting species. We saw Liepard in Black & White – Emerging Powers, Purrloin in Black & White – Boundaries Crossed, and the franchise mascot Pikachu in Black & White – Next Destinies.

We saw Komayama get more experimental and expressive with two cards in the Black & White era that showed what they could do with more freedom. First, they contributed a card to the iconic set Black & White – Legendary Treasures, with featured a Radiant Collection subset featuring sparkly cards with heart-themed and flower-themed symbols. Komayama’s Radiant Collection contribution was the unlikely choice of Stunfisk. Then, we see a card pictured above that was sadly never adapted to English: the Eevee BW Promo card featuring Eevee and Pikachu playing together.

Next time, we continue with Komayama’s more modern cards. 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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