The back of Pokémon cards are so familiar to diehard fans of the franchise that they probably don’t even really see them anymore. The design features the Pokémon logo and a Pokéball that’s just about to open up, presumably to reveal the creature on the flip side of the card. But over on Twitter, user @TAHK0 noticed there was something strange with this design, as he spotted that the Pokéball is opening from the wrong side.
You see, in the anime, the movies and the games, Pokéballs split in half to capture new Pokémon, with the red half of the ball being on top and having the lock connected to it. But the one on the card sees it opening from the bottom.
The revelation has caused a mini-history lesson in Pokéballs to appear in the thread on social media, with theories on why this might be. As you may know, the original concept art for them was quite different and obviously, the original GameBoy titles had such pixelated graphics that artists had to take some liberties when bringing them to life. However, at least in Japan, someone noticed this error back in the early 2000s and corrected it. Will the US versions of the cards now follow suit?
Responses on Twitter were pretty shocked as well, with users commenting “Oh no, why did you have to point this out?”, “Welp, my childhood is officially ruined” and “Why did you have to point this out? It’s ruined my life.” Many other users though hadn’t even realized the ball was supposed to be opening at all.
With Pokémon Sword and Shield set to introduce many new and exciting creatures to the franchise, the TCG will no doubt be releasing a brand new line of cards featuring them. I just hope someone at The Pokémon Company is paying attention and they correct this egregious decades-old blunder.
