The moon on non-Japanese Neo Discovery Umbreons is egg shaped.
WOTC shaped a perfectly orbital full moon into a fucking egg and didn’t give two shits about it. They managed to deteriorate one of the greatest artworks in all of Pokemon because they couldn’t even be bothered to keep the original aspect ratio. All due respect to y’alls nostalgia for English cards, but all WOTC ever did was taking an already great product and reproduce it in a slightly worse way. Maybe we should really stop to kiss WOTC’s ass for doing basically nothing positive for the TCG.
In all seriousness, I know there’s a crowd which will say that Japanese automatically = better, but I actually like how they made the moon brighter for the English version. While oftentimes I favor subtle effects, in this case I find the stark contrast between the dark Pokemon and the bright moon striking - it’s actually something that defines the card.
It’s great that you still like it! I prefer my full moon round, but to each their own
I’d love to see the flawed artwork you mentioned tho!
A+ comment my dude!
They could have brightened it up without turning it into a egg tho, right?
I love how this thread turned out so far. First I just wanted to show the difference in the artworks, then I my post turned into a bit of a rant.
Just want to reiterate I don’t want to shit on English cards for being English or criticize your choice of preferred cards, that would obviously a fruitless effort. I used this extreme example to promote the idea that WOTC could/should face more critizism for their role in the early days. Other than 1st Editon stamps, translated text and fat yellow borders, they just didn’t add much to the TCG. The ‘WOTC era’ was great because we were children and experienced the Pokemon craze firsthand, not because WOTC did an outstanding job at producing high quality cards. If Media Factory would have produced the original Western cards, we would have had the same amazing childhood experience, only with higher quality cards that aren’t distorted and don’t have printlines fresh out of the pack.
‘WOTC era’ wasn’t good because of WOTC, but despite WOTC.
@muk , Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t ever recall hearing anyone collect WOTC cards because WOTC itself is such an amazing company. The WOTC cards just happen to capture the cards from the first and second generations of Pokemon, which are the most nostalgic eras for many people. And people who collect English over Japanese aren’t doing so due to a preference for WOTC over Media Factory but because they grew up with English cards and like being able to read the text on the cards in a language they understand.
Personally, I would say there’s no doubt Media Factory (who actually created the cards!) > Wizards of the Coast, but that’s besides the point.
I still enjoy collecting vintage English cards for the reasons I mentioned. (I also love collecting Japanese exclusive cards but when the cards are printed in multiple languages my preference is generally English)
