Ooooh spicy.
I guess it’s not their fault they were hired to make the art, you’re right.
But each time they get revealed, it’s just another wasted opportunity. Maybe if we only had 151 Pokemon it wouldn’t feel as bad since another card is right around the corner, but with 1,000+ and no more guarantees of a card in a generation, it’s massively disappointing.
At least we’re back to evolution RR cards so that at least the pre-evos can get some nice art.
Thats a tough one. I definitely respect their invested time and process but, unless it’s deliciously outdated WOTC era CG, I will just skip past it every time. It’s not a respect thing - it just does absolutely nothing for me and doesn’t press any buttons on a deeper level. Also, I associate it with all the stacks of bulk GC/EX/V half art cards which are 95% ghastly imo.
This is a hot take!
For ones like 5ban - I’m going to criticize it more because it’s a group of folks and not just one artist. And the art tends to look cheap versus traditional art. There are exceptions to that and I would give that credit to folks like Yoshinob or Ueda who have made it into an intentional art form and have been more successful in imbuing their work with a sense of personality.
I don’t think the CGI artists are doing art a lot of the time as much as they are just doing graphic design. 5ban is basically the role that Ken Sugimori illustrations used to have as a kind of stock image placeholder. It’s a the official Pokemon model in a cool pose with effects. The fact that 5ban artists are a team of people and that it’s not obvious shows you how any distinctive style is stripped from the design.
In contrast, if you look at some of the art contest entries that use CGI art, they are actually good. I don’t think the problem is the medium as much as the problem is that the medium is used primarily for generic-looking cards and items.
I think of CGI artists have more in common with “directors” vs traditional artists. Especially if a CGI artist didn’t literally model every aspect of a scene/character. (And usually they don’t, or it is a team process.)
Questions like
“Is this card good”
Idk do you like it? Then yes it is
Phrases like “Zardy” or “Chonkachu” make me uncomfortable.
I think it’s weird that almost every card is immediately graded these days. I feel like seeing someone with a slab these days is lackluster compared to when we were younger.
Edit: Im sorry if the shoe fits i genuinely mean no disrespect to anyone.
I see blasty far more often
That one too lol. Pretty much all the abbreviations. Im not sure why i just like calling things by what they are actually called.
I don’t mind zard but the rest do give me the skeeves I’ll admit
Gary is the worst offender
It’s the hypebeast language and I agree, it leaves a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.
Especially when it comes from anyone who looks like they ditched flipping sneakers to ride this wave, whether they be from my gen (Z) or someone who looks like they need to focus more on their family than their whatnot stream.
With some exceptions, silver lining is that it lets you pick out who genuinely enjoyed this series and who sees it as dollar signs more than anything.
That’s the thing about CGArt - it ages differently than other art. If someone produced the Imakuni Porygon (Base porygon) today, it’d be ridiculous crap! BUT, at that time, it was not ridiculous. We all thought it was funny and dopey, but it was not dated THEN… Especially since porygon is a digital-polygon-mon shown in a computer world. Fast forward just 2 years, and the CG work in Neo blows it away…
Yet Base Porygon is still somehow so quintessential that they had it re-made for 151.
If you require the nostalgia lens to appreciate it, that doesn’t say much though.
I know E4 loves CGI ex cards but most look pretty awful to me.
The Team Aqua vs Team Magma set is filled with 90s or early 2000s video game graphics and it looks terrible.
Not liking the TMTA ex cards? Damn, those are some of my favorite 
Good point about nostalgia. I think there’s an element of historic significance to it as well. History isn’t important because of nostalgia for a different time.
And then, we ARE talking about something here that is nigh 30 years old… 
Not sure if this is unpopular or not but I agree with this sentiment, I pretty much dislike all of the CGI ex cards artwork. Just my preference I suppose.
I have been leaning more towards calling them “half art cards”. A lot of C/UC/R cards have too good artwork to just be considered “bulk”.
Neo Discovery is the best set of the Neo era 
It has the strongest identity and is qualitatively on par with Aquapolis and Skyridge with its clear theme direction of pyramid ruins and ancient cultures. The main reason this set consistently ranks last in polls is probably due to the duplicated non-holo rare artworks.
While Neo Genesis serves as the introductory set for the new generation, Neo Revelation is full of colours and introduces the first shinings, and Neo Destiny features light Pokémon, the first triple star rarity, and the 1st edition stamp for the last time, none of these sets possess a distinct theme quite like Neo Discovery which makes it the finest set of this era.
This one may ruffle some feathers I think…
TRR is the ONLY ex set that has a strong selection of holos reverse ex and gold stars. The rest are all missing one or more category.
And strong is meant to be as unbiased as possible going off what I think the general public would define as strong (be it a selection of fan favorite mons, Holo pattern, etc etc)
thats why trr is forever the greatest ex era set
