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My Top 10 Prettiest Pokemon Cards

20 Dec. 2024 19:55

Throughout my years on this earth, there hasn't been a Youtube video topic that's interested me more than Pokemon card ranking videos. Now, I don't know anything about the TCG, nor do I care, nor do I want to. I'm just into the artwork. And the Pokemon.

Now, there was a type of video I'd always watch: Top 10 Ugliest Pokemon Cards. I was a stupid and easily manipulated child, so I would watch these videos, see the artwork I thought was pretty cool looking, hear the grown man talking about how ugly it is, and decide that now it was ugly. But now I'm a free thinker... A lone wolf... I'm NOT a sheep anymore. I'll never follow the herd again.

Anyways. That's why I'm making my own spin on this: Top 10 Prettiest Pokemon Cards! Please note that, as I said, I don't know anything about Pokemon cards, so I don't care what set they're in. I'll put the date and artist, and the Pokemon's name of course, but not the set because I couldn't care less. Sorry, TCG nerds. Well, you can probably tell what set it's from just by looking at it.

Number 10.

Porygon-Z - Tomoaki Imakuni, 2016 (or... sometime in the 1990s? I dunno.)

There's nothing I love more than shitty low poly 3d models. Porygon is one of my favourite Pokemon for this reason.

Obviously the artwork is playing into that charming shittiness and the low poly-ness. That's why I love it. It's a funny card.

This card is very charming… What else can I say?

Also, I wanted to mention: I only just noticed that the illustrator of this card is... Imakuni?!? I had no idea the guy made art for the TCG. That's interesting. I thought he was just a weird dude in a weird suit.


Number 9.

Glaceon - Naoyo Kimura, 2009

I love cards that feature the Pokemon in some kind of scene or action.. I remember I had a few cards as a kid that I'd look at and imagine the stories behind them in the artwork.

This one reminds me somewhat of a fairy tale or children's book. I think it's the snowy forest setting.

It isn't the focal point of the card, but I also really like the pure blue sky background. It gives it a kind of closed off feeling, if that makes any sense.

Number 8.

Pichu - Nakaoka, 2005

I love cards that feature the Pokemon in some kind of scene or action.. I remember I had a few cards as a kid that I'd look at and imagine the stories behind them in the artwork.

This one reminds me somewhat of a fairy tale or children's book. I think it's the snowy forest setting.

It isn't the focal point of the card, but I also really like the pure blue sky background. It gives it a kind of closed off feeling, if that makes any sense.


Number 7.

Eevee - Atsuko Nishida, 2005

I really like this art style. It has a very mid-to-late 2000s/early 2010s DeviantArt Warrior Cats fanart feel to it - which, of course, is a compliment.

The pose, the expression, the soft colours, and even the slight angle give this card kind of a whimsical, innocent, and childish feeling to it. It's very cute. Cute is a word I'm going to use a lot. It's cute. It's soo cute.


Number 6.

Barboach - Tomokazu Komiya, 2003

I love this one cuz he looks so peaceful and sweet. The colour scheme is very serene and I really love the wonkiness of the Barboach's body, it gives it a weird cuteness to it. The asymmetrical-ness (????) of it is very niceeee…

You'll find that I'm going to put a lot of cards by this artist because I'm a huge fan of his work. I love the colours he uses… And how he does the outlines… Aaah…

This one just has so much charm to it. Wow..


Number 5.

Lampent - Sachiko Adachi, 2019

I love the clay model styled cards like Sachiko Adachi or Yuka Morii's cards, though I will say I prefer Adachi's style. The clay models are, in my opinion, just nicer to look at here. They feel a bit more polished and 'official'. (Though I love Morii's models!!! Dont get me wrong!)

I love this card because it feels like you caught Lampent in the middle of some incriminating act. Or like it's getting on stage for some stand up comedy show. Very fun.


Number 4.

Porygon-Z - Tomokazu Komiya, 2021

My favourite artist again. There's so much to look at here. The glitchy square patterns in the background, the colours and lines behind those squares, the shading on Porygon-Z, how it has a slight purple to it, everything is really interesting here. I've looked at this card so much and hadn't ever noticed that there's a man in the background between all those squares. I wonder what his deal is.

I also really like Porygon-Z's pose here. It has a really nice silhouette. It looks like it's about to attack, or jump out, or something of the like.

This card captures very well the just… weird chaotic mess that is Porygon-Z.


Number 3.

Magnemite - Sachiko Adachi, 2019

Another Adachi card I love. The collage style is really nice and fun. The backgrounds are bright and detailed and it's just a joy to look at.

This one reminds me of a children's show, maybe it's because my parents put me on a lot of stop motion when I was a kid.

I'd love to see a stop motion Pokemon animation with this kind of collage style some day. Hell, I'd love to try out this kind of style for myself one day! It seems like fun.

I feel like I'm in an Art class writing this, but my teacher isn't here to get mad at me for saying that I like something and not explaining why. So I can say this. I like the eye a lot. No explanation. I just like it. Please don't get mad at me, Miss...


Number 2.

Smeargle - Tomokazu Komiya, 2001?

Maybe next time I should try and limit myself to one artist per list, cuz 4 Komiya cards in one list is, maybe, a bit excessive.

The scenery in the background is beautiful, yes, but what immediately caught my eye was the expression and the pose of the Smeargle. The closed eyes, the crossed legs, the head resting on the hand, it's a very pensive pose. Like it's reflecting on something.

Also, this is a little detail that isn't really all that important, but I love when people draw the closed eyes like that - characters that have big stylised eyes and little pupils, and when they close their eyes, it's the pupils that close, not the whole eyeball. Like Doraemon.


Number 1.

Clefairy - Tomokazu Komiya, 2016

This is a card I always saw in the 'Top 10 Ugliest Pokemon Cards' lists and it always made me a bit mad. I love all of the cards on this list equally but this one is really notable because… I don't even care about Clefairy! But this card makes me love it! So much!

The expression on Clefairy's face is quite funny. I love those spiral eyes. I love how it's running aimlessly down that spooky path. And how the artist captures this spooky path - wow!!! The shadows are really nice, and making them that dark blue adds to that kind of psychedelic style common throughout Komiya's art, as does the weird perspective going on in the background with the stones and the trees.

I'm also a big fan of this card because it tells a story with the Hypno card. I love those kinds of cards. It makes collecting Pokemon cards a much more interesting experience. I think. I dunno. I haven't bought a pack of Pokemon cards in, like, 6 years. But, anyways. It's things like this that make me love Pokemon so much.

Also, I love that Hypno card a lot too. The way he's drawn is just, so… soooo so interesting.


Update on me, update on the site

7 Dec. 2024 23:12

Dreamwidth doesn't let me add my blog posts onto here automatically anymore, so I'm going to have to go oldschool and just write these manually onto here. No biggie. I'll add a few of my old blog posts below - but I didn't even write that many, to be honest.

But that's why I haven't updated in a while - None of my blog posts have been shared on here! I have so much to say. Lately, for the website, I've been working on, mainly, the stamps sections and my OCs' profiles. I've been thinking of making duplicate pages in Portuguese just an exercise so I don't lose my Portuguese... I'm quite bad at it. We'll see if I ever get to doing that.

My arm hurts a lot, the time I'm writing this. I have always had a problem of hitting or biting myself if I get really stressed out. But it's never been this bad. It's been a few hours and my face is full of red spots and my arm has 3 big, swollen purpley bruises on them... Oops. It hurts a lot. But please don't worry. I'm okay now. It's just a bit distressing feeling and seeing those lumps, haha... But, please, again - don't worry about me. Like I've always had this hitting problem I've also always had a problem of being very positive. I'm already laughing the whole thing off. It's quite silly. Let's hope I have long sleeved shirts on Monday!

I'd love to talk more about my mental state but I worry about oversharing on the Internet. I do it too often. There's no reasons you internet strangers should know about any aspect of my life, really. I should only let you in on the nice, fluffy parts. Not the... hard, purple, and swollen bits, hehe.

Children's TV series

29 May. 2024 15:23

I was reminiscing on some old children's cartoons I used to watch back when I was very small... Things like Maisy, Postman Pat (or Carteiro Paulo as I know him), Chapi Chapo, Backyardigans, Pocoyo, Blues Clues, Bob the Builder (...Bob o Construtor), even to some extent Petit Ours Brun, but that was more my brother... Of course I also watched more recent shows like Phineas and Ferb or those Disney Channel sitcoms, but I was mainly thinking about the littler ones. The ones I'd watch when I was a younger child. It was such a lovely time...

I don't have a child or any younger family members I spend lots of time with but from what I see when I switch through the TV channels, I see that children's shows nowadays are much brighter and louder than what I used to watch... A lot of parents don't even watch TV with their kids anymore, instead opting for Youtube shorts and Tiktok and stuff like that. I don't know if it's just cuz it's new to me but I really don't think that's healthy. My mom told me that around the time she had my brother she was shocked, just like I was, at little kids watching TV, so maybe it's like that. But... I don't know. I don't think kids should be watching such bright, loud, short, overstimulating videos like those seen on social media. I don't think it's good for their brains. The childrens show I used to watch were all quite calm and quiet... Well, Backyardigans and Phineas and Ferb less so but that was also later on in my childhood. I'm thinking of Maisy and Postman Pat, those really young kids' shows. I was born too late for Mr Rogers but from what I've seen he was also a very great man... It's all slow-paced, gentle, educational...

One time my Youtube account got hacked by some very religious Christian Spanish-speaking father. I knew he was a father because when I saw my history I'd see a bunch of videos about Christian music in Spanish and then, maybe a bit hyperbolically, hundreds of Shorts about some very scary characters from that one video game that all the kids like now. And I remember once at a Benfica game, a football game, the kid in front of me was just the whole time glued to his phone watching those 'Skibidi Toilet' videos. I saw him click on a video, watch about 20 seconds of it, switch to another app, play a game for about 10 seconds, go click on another video, 5 seconds, another video, game... I almost couldn't focus on the match cuz I was so concerned for this kid. Maybe my parents thought the same thing when I'd play on my 3DS all the time. Or play Angry Birds all the time. But I dunno... It's the thing about attention spans. That's what's scaring me most... It's a topic that interests me a lot. I've seen, so many times, such young children, sometimes even babies, sitting in their strollers and glued to their mom or dad's phone (who knows... maybe it's THEIR phone! I've seen it!) and scrolling endlessly, blank stare, the phone's just about a centimeter away from their poor little eyes. It's not the kid's fault at all.

I'm fine with the use of IPads as long as they've only got educational games installed on it; for a short period of time I even had my own little IPad type thing, I believe it was a different brand, but the tablet only had a few apps on it. All about drawing and colouring. If I ever used my dad's phone it was either something like Angry Birds, or I was drawing... There were times where I'd venture out into the wild of the Internet on my mom's computer and I found things I found disgusting. 3D animations of Rainbow Dash and Applejack making out... Rainbow Dash getting her wings chainsawed off... I remember, actually, when I ran to my mom about the Appledash kissing video thing, she recently told me that she actually felt a lot of relief when I reacted so terribly to it. I was crying and in so much fear. She said that it's good I was so scared of it, because that meant that the worst I'd seen on the Internet was 3D kissing animations... I guess she was right. I did see some horrible things but that was later on.

I know there's shows like Bluey that a lot of kids really like and that makes me very happy. I actually watched some Bluey episodes myself and they were very good. I hope more shows like this come out, and I hope that the kids watch them instead of their Youtube Kids videos... That platform is very unsafe. There's a whole Elsagate 2.0 going on... Anyways. Bluey is a very good show and I actually did cry while watching it once because it was so reminiscent of something I would've watched as a kid. Peppa Pig but better. If I was born in the 2020s I'd probably be the biggest Bluey fan ever. I don't know what my family members do with their kids but I hope they all put them on Bluey. There's even a Portuguese dub now. Come on, guys!!