Digimon TCG - The Art of Sasasi

The Digimon TCG is home to a diverse range of art styles. This is down to the number of talented freelance artists that contribute their work to the game. In our previous article, we took a look at Digimon legend Watanabe Kenji. Now, we will take a closer look at the art of Sasasi.

Sasasi is incredibly talented at creating depth in his Digmon TCG artwork. Some of the best examples of this can be seen with Omnimon and Gallantmon from the Special Booster 1.0, BaoHuckmon, appearing in the English version of the Double Diamond booster releasing on October 8th, and the alternate art version of EmperorGreymon that will come with the Next Adventure booster releasing in Japan on August 27th.

In fact, it is Sasasi’s background work that really excels his designs, weaving a story within the card. There is often other Digimon or a battle scene going on, which adds a narrative many other cards do not. In fact, a number of Sasasi’s cards include an entire cast of other Digimon, relating to the main focus of the card.

Before working on the Digimon TCG, Sasasi worked on the Digimon Battle Spirits game. Battle Spirits was created in 2008 by Carddass, Bandai and Sunrise Inc and mixed several anime series, manga and even toys and video games to create one huge collection. Despite some of the cards belonging to different franchises, they all followed the same rules and could be played together. The game arrived in the US around 2009, but due to the poor translations of the game and lack of marketing, the game was cancelled after just five sets. The game is still played in Asia, but the cards are only printed in Japanese. Some of the work Sasasi did on this game is among some of the best seen in that previous game, and arguably, some of the best illustrations completed by the artist in general.