The Blastoise full art is AMAZING. It's so weird how they went hard in this illustration that is mostly covered but for the V, which shows a lot more, we got that disappointing artwork.
If someone had shown me that artwork before I had seen the card, I would have assumed it was meant to be pack artwork. That is one impressive illustration, with or without the frame.
I'm honestly thrilled every time we get to peek beneath the borders of these
ex's. They look wonderful with or without the "background texture" overlay. Heads, you get nostalgia, a narrower focus, and fun details like parts of the body overlapping with the illustration frame; tails, you get to see all that wonderful detail in its full glory, use it as a phone lock screen, print it and hang it on your wall, etc.
The Charizard is also very dynamic looking. It almost seems to be lunging on all fours like a Salamence! PLANETA Mochizuki did an excellent job fitting a long-shot of Charizard into a small card frame! Come to think of it, Blastoise ex was illustrated by PLANETA Yamashita! An excellent showing from PLANETA all-around!
I was a little underwhelmed by Venusaur ex, but I'm still happy with Radiant Venusaur and Venusaur's Celebrations Classical Collection reprint. Venusaur from Shining Legends will probably remain my favorite 3D Venusaur illustration for many years to come. I still remember how excited I was when I realized it was an Uncommon instead of a Rare, since I had figured out pretty quickly in my collecting that stage 2's are
rare, not
uncommon. Needless to say I didn't know about Japanese uncommons at the time.
Pokemon is already taking over the city of Yokohama during this year’s Worlds. But now The Pokemon Company has announced there will be special Pokemon TCG art exhibitions throughout Yokohama all summer-long!
