Title^ I am wondering what you think the weirdest Pokémon Card of all time is. Focusing mainly on the actual card artwork, however bonus points for strange/limited/unknown distributions of the actual card. Promos, common cards, whatever! I just want to hear what you all think is the weirdest card of all time, and why you think that is (and/or what you like about it)!
For Example, I think the weirdest card has to be the 1998 Exchange Please! Trainer Promo:
Look at how weird and creepy these humans(humans?) look. They share a strange nefarious smile that suggests they are up to no good. Weepinbell looks like it is traumatized. The Pokémon also do not look proportional to the humans.
Furthermore this is the only card in the TCG (iirc) to have the holofoil pattern on the backside instead of the frontside… Why??? This card was illustrated by Imakuni? Who is notorious for being one of the strangest beings in the early days of Pokémon. To top it off, this was a Japanese Promo where people could mail in cards to “trade” and they would be mailed back this card as well as a Charizard, Blastoise, or Venasaur depending on which they chose. (Bulbapedia Article for more info). A strange way of obtaining a strange card.
Would love to hear what you guys think is the weirdest card and Why!
To give more detail, this pair of cards has a few different levels for me as being one of the “creepiest” and “strangest” of cards.
Hypno is known to deal with dreams and looking at this, it seems pretty clear that this is some sort of dream state where Hypno is actively pointing in one direction and Clefairy pointing in the other. Allegedly, the broken sign post is meant to indicate “Hell” and “Heaven” but Hypno has broken the sign in order to lead you to the direction it wants. The second card shows that Hypno finally realizes what Clefairy is trying to do and hypnotizes it, sending it down the darker path. The creepier facts? The illustrations are done by Komiya who has perfected his form of “Primitivism” that uses stylistic elements from child’s art. Why is this creepy? Well earlier Pokedex entries state that Hypno infiltrates people’s dreams and is even said to steal children, making it plausible that what we’re seeing is a representation of a child’s dream that Hypno has hypnotized.
The added element? Pokemon is a kid’s game. Hypno is staring directly outward. Hypno is actively trying to hypnotize the children that play this game, being one of the few cards to break the fourth wall.
Also these two random guys here. For sure not as memorable as PokeDude. Just like… wft were they trying to achieve when designing them? Something doesn’t just get this atrocious by pure accident, they really went out of their way for it.
This is a good topic. Just wanted to add that the above Hypno card’s ability is “Goodnight, Babies” as if the art wasn’t unsettling enough. I may edit this post with images of other cards if I think of any, but those cards with the human faces were my first thought too.
@trainerjack it’s from the Gift Box Emerald
Was relatively hard to even find this decent qualiity image of it, so I assume they’re rather rare and/or overlooked.
Would love to buy one some time actually. Its appearance is strikingly repulsive.
@muk I knew about some of those, but I have not seen all of them! you are right whenever there are humans on cards it really does add a layer of “strange-ness”. thanks for sharing!
@azulryu Thank you for sharing the story behind those cards… they are definitely strange and might just be the most unsettling cards in the whole TCG!
