Yesterday I’ve discovered this Heracross card from 2004 EX Hidden Legends/Undone Seal:
I thought it has an amazing art, and was glad to discover a new Komiya art I wasn’t aware of! Then I looked at the artist and my brain stopped. Hajime Kusajima?!?
Now let’s have a look at this card alongside other cards from the same set illustrated by Kusajima:
I don’t know if it’s just me, but something feels off: no heavy line art, different way of handling lights and shades, color palette…
Now let’s have a look at Heracross, alongside other cards from the same set drawn by, who my guts are telling me is the artist, Tomokazu Komiya:
Does it makes more sense? To me, it does.
Here’s this Heracross next to Komiya’s Heracross from the same year set Ex Team Rocket Returns:
Could it be that Komiya would have drawn two Heracross the same year? Highly unlikely but still, they share some similarities…
I cannot confirm my feeling, but I have the impression that either Kusajima was trying to emulate Komiya’s style really closely just for this card, or that is has been an unspotted credit error all along. An error that would somehow made sense, as Kujima has indeed illustrated the Pinsir card from the set, and I could imagine someone at the company confusing the two beetles.
What do you think?
What are you smoking haha, of course thats not a Komiya. And the artist known for changing style a lot would not be able to make this Heracross? Kusajima produced many ‘one-off’ stylized cards in this era. Heracross fits right in with all the other beautiful misfits. I think metang and beldum from Delta Species are Kusajima’s closest stylistically.
Thanks guys, what’s what I needed to hear!
Still an amazing art by a very talented artist, if he is able to adopt so many styles. Will dive into his work more!
Can’t blame you for attributing this artwork to another artist! A while back I also was sceptical whether a Seadra by Kusajima was actually one of his arts.
Turns out, as already mentioned, he is probably the single most versitile artist in the whole TCG. He never could - or never wanted - settle on one single “Kusajima style” like most other artists did. He has at least 4-5 different “trademark” styles, some existed parallell to each other, some were only there within one specific time period.
Very intersting artist in that regard, not to mention that he mastered each of his different styles and there are almost no bad arts by him!