Pokémon Trading Card Game Artist Spotlight: Tomokazu Komiya Classic

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 Tomokazu Komiya. Because Komiya has been contributing cards to the hobby since the early days of Wizards of the Coast-era sets, we will feature three chapters of this spotlight: Vintage Komiya last week, Classic Komiya this week, and Modern Komiya next week. Let’s continue.

During the ex era, Tomokazu Komiya took his style in an even more left-field direction, playing with both the shapes of the Pokémon designs as well as his own color schemes. In the above images, he created pieces that pushed at the boundaries of what Pokémon art could look like, creating unique pieces. Sometimes they felt light nightmares, other times like dreams. Above, we see some of Komiya’s art from this era which I felt stood out best, including:

• Houndour from ex Team Rocket Returns
• Sudowoodo from ex Unseen Forces
• Dratini from ex Dragon Frontiers

This continued into the next few eras with terrific illustrations throughout Diamond & Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold SoulSilver, and Black & White. Throughout these eras, Komiya remained and even now remains one of the most distinctive contributors. The cards on display from these eras include:

• Pachirisu from Diamond & Pearl – Majestic Dawn
• Hariyama from HeartGold SoulSilver – Undaunted
• Victini from Black & White – Legendary Treasures

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.