Hitoshi Ariga's Contribution to Pokemon X/Y

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Garren

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Pocket Monsters XY by HitoshiAriga on deviantART

Art Director Sugimori gave me the all clear to tell everyone, so I finally get to make a few announcements about work that I have been doing recently.

I had a hand in the new 3DS game "Pocket Monsters XY". Specifically, I designed some new Pokemon! (listed below)
- Pangoro
- Inkay
- Malamar
- Honedge
- Doublade
- Aegislash
- Tyrunt
- Tyrantrum
- Amaura
- Aurorus

I've actually been doing video game work for quite a while now (over two decades), including projects for things like PCE, MD, and SFC. Apparently the Pokemon art director, Sugimori, had taken notice of some of my past work and that's why he asked me if I'd be interested in doing some design work for Pokemon XY.

So in some ways, designing Pokemon for XY was like an extension of my days of drawing monsters for "ActRaiser 2" and "Beyond Oasis". I am a Pokemon Trainer as well as an illustrator, so needless to say I was incredibly honored and pleased to have this opportunity.

I just thought the Pokemon XY players following me might find this information interesting!
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I love finding out what designers did what.
 
Three of my main Y Team members (Pangoro, Aegislash, and Aourorus) were designed by him? Hehe how neat!

Nyx said:
Soooo much better than James Turner.
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Golurk, Mandibuzz, and Vanilluxe are awesome though. D:
 
So he designed my favorite Gen VI Pokemon (Pangoro) and my most hated Gen VI Pokemon (Doublade.) Ouch?!
 
Hey man, James Turner is awesome. Golett is great and I'm 90% sure he designed Bunnelby and Diggersby aka the funniest Pokemon line of the sixth gen.

All the Pokemon Ariga-san made are amazing. Inkay is probably one of my favorite new Pokemon because it's a cepholopod with Poliwag's face. That is perfection.
 
Turns out this guy designed 2 of my favourites from this Gen, Aurorus & Aegislash.

Hopefully he'll be around in the future, too.
 
I guess it's a good thing that Sugimori scouted Ariga out. Otherwise, we wouldn't have great pokemon like Aegislash and Malamar in this gen.
 
I hope this becomes a "thing" in future gens, where a guest artist designs some Pokemon like with this guy and James Turner. They did some really neat Pokemon!

I just hope by Gen 15 or whatever the guest artist isn't some narcissistic overly popular DA artist.... (or for some more realism, replace "DA" with "pixiv".)
 
I don't really get why everyone is going "replace Turner!" with this guy in the first place, Turner isn't a guest artist, he's been helping out since the Colloseum days when he was with Genius Sonority and is a main player at GameFreak now it seems.
 
I don't much like those weird ice cream cone things that Turner designed, but I do feel like all of his pokemon "work" or look like authentic mons (and I really like Golette)

It's always neat for me to run across professional artists on deviant art, none of them update that often, but it's still really cool to get to see that. So thanks for the link to his (Ariga's) DA :D
 
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PKMN Trainer Faye said:
Three of my main Y Team members (Pangoro, Aegislash, and Aourorus) were designed by him? Hehe how neat!

Nyx said:
Soooo much better than James Turner.
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Golurk, Mandibuzz, and Vanilluxe are awesome though. D:
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You forgot the cuteness that is Golett. Seriously, how can you look at that sweet little featureless face and not melt at its adorableness? It just begs to be hugged, loved and cuddled.
Azure Butterfly said:
Hey man, James Turner is awesome. Golett is great and I'm 90% sure he designed Bunnelby and Diggersby aka the funniest Pokemon line of the sixth gen.
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If that's true, I'm gonna have to re-add Bunnelby to my team. SHUT. IT!

And yes, Golett is great. I could go on for pages on just how much I adore that little guy. Never mind me, Golett happens to be one of my babies. (The other is Golurk, of course.)

So what's with all the Turner hate? Is it because he's a white guy and white guys just so can't design Pokemon? If that's the case, I guess that he and I both missed the memo because I thought if you had the talent, you could do anything you wanted in this life.

Anywho~

Got to admit I like Ariga's designs. Honedge, Doublade and Aegislash are wicked cool, as are the fossils. I can't give an opinion on Pangoro as I haven't used one yet. But I do hope this guy sticks around.
 
Ahh, he designed my favourite Pokémon line this generation; Malamar/Inkay. I really love cephalopods, they're a broad type of sea creature which hasn't been seen too much in Pokémon, and he picked some lovely colours for them. Inkay is absolutely adorable. Also the fossil Pokémon of this generation are pretty awesome. He has some good ideas, I hope he gets to design a few more Pokémon in future generations.
 
He mannaged to make a concept such as a sword pokemon wich sounded ridiculous when i first saw Honedge awesome, Aegislash is now one of my favourite pokemon of all time.
 
Do we actually have proof of this, because I'm not buying it. Anyone could say they created Pokémon. I think he's lying.
 
Meowstic said:
Do we actually have proof of this, because I'm not buying it. Anyone could say they created Pokémon. I think he's lying.
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Why would a professional artist that has been involved with Pokemon before lie about that?
 
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