Bulbapedia, PSA and this 2012 E4 post by stirfries all categorise the 042/DPt-P Pichu card, illustrated by Gosho Aoyama, as being part of the 2009 Design Contest. Like the cards from the design contest, they were distributed on July 18th 2009 to coincide with the release of the twelfth Pokémon movie. Furthermore it was released by Shogakukan, the company which orchestrated the 2009 contest to begin with.
Up until recently I took it as gospel that this was just another winning card that just had a mainstream release, but then @vehicularmenace made me aware that Gosho Aoyama is the name of the manga artist who created the Detective Conan series. It could just be a coincidence that they share the same name, sure, but it feels a bit too coincidental that the magazine which hosts Detective Conan, Weekly Shōnen Sunday, is the same magazine which included the 042/DPt-P Pichu as an insert.
Before anyone goes to Bulbapedia and sees mention of this, I’ve added the following snippet to the Bulbapedia article today:
Does anyone know exactly why this card was included as an insert? Whilst it could be a big coincidence with the name, or it could even be that the actual Gosho Aoyama legitimately entered the competition and won, I’m inclined to believe it’s a lot more likely that the 042/DPt-P Pichu was more of a commissioned release.
Certainly not a public design contest card, more of collaboration between company and professional artist. Here are a few pages I have bookmarked on the subject that I find interesting.
“The reason why it was adopted is unknown, but it can be guessed that it was being serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday at that time and that it was campaigning for Shogakukan related.”
That card is without a doubt Gosho Aoyama’s (Case Closed) art and the case closed fandom has accepted it as so. The Pichu is even styled similar to his Case Closed Detective character. Around that time shonen did a throw back issue which featured classic manga to ever debut and one of them selected was Case Closed #1. Not sure if that had to do with it but I suspected it was a promo I relation to the throwback special issue.
Thanks guys. I’ve modified the Bulbapedia article to give mention to it but not directly include it in the 2009 Design Contest article. It’s had been documented in several places on Bulbapedia as being illustrated by the Weekly Shōnen Sunday “winner”, which I knew didn’t feel right.