Mitsuhiro Arita

About Mitsuhiro Arita

Arita is a freelance illustrator and one of the few who have drawn for the Pokémon Trading Card Game from the very start and still do. In an interview with Pokémon.com he showed his binder of his own cards, which held 537 at the time. Outside Pokémon, his work includes illustrations for Final Fantasy XI.

His name is on some of the most sought-after cards of the early years: Charizard, Venusaur, Gyarados and Pikachu in Base Set, and Moltres, Zapdos and Articuno in Fossil. He also designed six of the first seven Energy symbols – the idea was a three-dimensional sphere that would stand out from the rest of the card.

A card takes him about seven weeks, from a rough sketch through black-and-white line art to the finished colour image, and each stage is approved on its own. He has said that he tries to think about what that particular Pokémon is, not about what he has done with others, and that he wants to portray them as if they were real creatures. His early cards have a watercolour-and-pastel feel with clear outlines; the later ones are softer and more brightly lit.

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