Taiga Kasai

Kasai in 2024^[1]

Taiga Kasai (Japanese: カサイタイガ) is an artist for the Pokémon series. He was a participant in both the 2nd Pokémon Card Game Illustration Grand Prix and the Pokémon Trading Card Game Illustration Contest 2022 illustration contests, being the Japanese First Runner-up for the latter. According to Kasai, he begged his parents to buy him the tools to allow him to enter, as being an artist on the TCG had always been a dream of his.^[1] Kasai's runner-up artwork would be used to create his first Pokémon card, Greninja, one of the SWSH Black Star Promos. When illustrating this artwork of Greninja, he carefully considered the contest's theme of how Pokémon would spend their days in the wild; seeing as Greninja is based on a ninja, he drew it as if it was planning a strategy for battle.^[1]

Kasai also confirmed that he drew many drafts for each individual Pokémon that was eligible for the contest, though he knew his idea for Greninja was the perfect fit from the very start.^[1] That being said, Kasai admitted he struggled with the background of the piece, saying that his leading concern was making the subject stand out from the background itself.^[1] It didn't start to sink in that he had won the award until he had received the physical copy of the Greninja card, and seeing the existing TCG artists that he looked up to congratulate him on Twitter after announcing that he had won the award was a huge moment for him.^[1] He draws digitally, opting to use an iPad Pro.^[1]

He first began drawing after seeing a Pokémon illustration by his father, who was already an artist.^[1] He didn't think of himself as particularly good, though decided to go to art school when taking the entrance exams for university, which was where he began studying how to draw.^[1] Though Kasai first learned about Pokémon when he was in kindergarten through the stickers found on the series' branded Daiichi Pan, the first game he played was Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, which also happen to be his favorites.^[1] He first discovered the Pokémon Trading Card Game when sets were on sale at the theater when Kasai first watched M05, with his long-standing appeal for the game being as a result of its wealth of unique and talented illustrators.^[1]

In 2023, he made his debut as a game artist on Pokémon HOME and Pokémon GO. Kasai's favorite Pokémon is Aggron.^[1]