The thrust is this: a friend of a friend has this card, a prized possession in their collection of Pokémon cards. The legitimacy of the card is almost beautiful in its over the top, almost parody of bootlegy-ness. I, however, am getting kind of interested in the story of this thing, since it predates the tcg's current state (I believe the 2011 date on the card bottom. ) It's also just such a gorgeous piece of game design I must know what I can. I was able to track the full original art itself down, but only on the fringe of some 2018 article from a Chinese news site about pokemon that get prettier when they evolve. There is no credited artist.
I'm really hoping someone might know where this thing came from. Both the website and the card itself are in chinese, so I'd imagine the artist could be from there? But the barrier posed by sites like billibilli that might have more information is just too much for me.
by 11254man