Ken Sugimori

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Ken Sugimori (杉森建, Sugimori Ken^?) (born January 27, 1966 in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese illustrator most famous for being the art director of the Pokémon franchise. A friend of Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of the franchise, Sugimori is responsible for the bulk of Pokémon art and almost single-handedly designed the first 251 Pokémon (since Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, others have helped to design the characters). He is also responsible for designing many of the main characters in the Pokémon video games, such as Red, Blue, and the various Gym Leaders.

Ken Sugimori also helped with the design of Pokémon characters on the popular video games Super Smash Bros. and Super Smash Bros. Melee, and was the lead character designer for Pulseman, an earlier game by Game Freak for the Sega Mega Drive. He also participated in the Game Freak event in which he and two others traded their Psyduck for Ponyta. A character in the Pokémon anime, the artist and trainer Tracey, (Known as Kenji in Japanese), is most likely based on him, much like Ash (Satoshi in Japanese) was based on Tajiri.

Also among his work is a majority of early Pokémon cards.

Works

• Pokémon (TV): character design
• Pokémon: The First Movie: Original character design
• Pokémon: The Movie 2000: Original character design
• Pokémon 3: The Movie: Conceptual character artist
• Drill Dozer: Director/Game Design
• Pulseman: Character Design/Artist
• Pokémon Trading Card Game: main card artist

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