Every Pokémon is drawn mid-attack, giving them an aggressive and monster-like feel instead of the cuter designs we know today. What’s even cooler is that a lot of the art feels like early concept art to me because some Pokémon’s designs are different from how we know them nowadays.
Take Charmander, for example: in this set, it’s actually illustrated with small spikes running down its back! It wasn’t just a one-off mistake either, as it appears on a different artwork in the set with the same spikes, before they officially removed the spikes for the games, anime, and TCG that came later.
I’m not sure if Ditto counts as a “different design” as well, or if it’s just the creative freedom of showcasing the attack “transform”, but either way this is one of the coolest Ditto cards I’ve seen.
I’ve always believed these artworks were illustrated by Ken Sugimore. But it turns out there’s still debate online over whether Ken Sugimori designed all of these (or any) himself though, but either way, the artwork is still amazing imo.
These are a few quick reasons why I love this set so much. Might even be my favorite Pokémon set at the moment! I’m currently trying to masterset this series as well because of these weird quirks.
Warm welcome to the forum. It is super lovely to have you join here and also a great first post. Lovely to know your thoughts and also it is a pretty cool series to have as a favorite.
As you already stated, there is still a debate about the origins of these. There was an insightful discussion here as well, if you have not checked it out.
Other than that, I wish you success in mastering the set. I hope you can post your pickups and share your favorites as you pick them up. Looking forward.
It’s a really fun set to collect, I unfortunately missed the boat when these were ultra cheap, I also remember people passing up my offer when I was selling my Carddass binder full of cards for the staggering price of $20, so I kept it.
