#extended artwork

Multiplying Kuriboh!

Woah, watch out! It's a whole explosion of Kuribohs! They're really coming off the page card this time in a way they never have before! In all earnestness, I love and appreciate that they made the effort to make every single Kuriboh on this card different from one another. Some may look similar, but they all possess small detail differences that show these guys weren't simply copied and resized. The end effect of this decision is something so insanely adorable, despite this card being a massive reference to two pretty serious duels from Duelist Kingdom (both involving the use of Multiply on Kuriboh, as is illustrated here). But why think about life and death situations when you can simulate the experience of being bombarded with little fiendish fluff balls with this card? The border overlap on this specific version feels almost necessary to me; they feel so much more free and the implied movement is much stronger. Plus, you get to see lots of additional little itty bitty Kuriboh faces at the edges of the card (not visible in the normal art) AND a handful of completely new Kuribohs at the bottom left underneath the text box.

Gagaga Girl - Cell Phone Subtraction

This card specifically illustrates something I really love about the new artworks being released with extended art treatment (vs older art being given extended art): the movement of certain elements to enhance the 3D effect. The regular version of this special Gagaga Girl card has the extra abstract Gagaga symbol under her/through her legs (it almost looks like she’s sitting on it), but this one rotates it to place it behind her instead. This gives its own extra pop to the artwork, but also it allows for it to look like Gagaga Girl is sitting on the normal artwork border. Pretty clever decision if you ask me. And of course, Gagaga Girl looks ultra cute as always, with a little added dramatic flair from the pink ribbons flowing around her and the vaguely swordlike snowflakes coming out of frame. It’s kind of funny how unwieldy the gigantic chain links and skull charms attached to her normal sized phone are, but I suppose she has to have something reminiscent of Gagaga Magician’s chains somewhere on her. I will say, I think her expression and pose are more fitting for the original Japanese name of the card “Zero Zero Call,” but when has Yugioh card art always been consistent with the card names?

Revolution Cyber Dragon

Coming right at ya in a big, bold way is yet another Cyber Dragon! This one is huge, supercharged, and ready to head into the fray! I really appreciate that all of the (new) cards releasing with extended artworks all have fun little references associated with them. A lot seem to be based on signature moves (Multiplying Kuriboh! is a good example), but this one in particular gets its name from the structure deck "Cyber Dragon Revolution," the deck that introduced Cyber Dragon Nova to the game (the Japanese version’s name reflects this as well!). Its pose is a pleasant mirror to that of Nova’s as well (idk if it’s intentional or not, but it’s a nice detail). The part that really gets me about this extended art in particular is that they took advantage of something that a lot of those video game artworks I’ve showcased before do: interaction with the card border to create a fun 3D effect. This is most easily seen by comparing the end of Revolution’s tail between the normal art and this one; Revolution’s tail end is mostly hidden behind the frame in this version (while its front half is in front of the frame), creating the illusion that it’s slithering right out of the typical artwork border. This one doesn’t deviate much from the typical Cyber Dragon pose, but that’s not to its detriment honestly. They did get a cool angle on its head charging up Evolution Burst/Strident blast after all. Really fun stark lighting contrasts on this one too, with not as much black shading as regular old Cyber Dragon, But the purple is a really nice shading touch that adds a lot of depth.

Breloom (Ex Emerald 22/106) Original Artwork: Mitsuhiro Arita

Wobbuffet (XY Phantom Forces 36/119) Original Artwork: Sui

Houndoom (Aquapolis 15/147) Original Artwork: Hajime Kusajima

Politoed Neo Discovery 8/75 Original Artwork: Tomokazu Komiya