Tsunekazu Ishihara remains in charge of The Pokémon Company but he no longer runs Creatures, which he helped found in 1995 (pic: The Pokémon Company)



Fans are left speculating if big changes are coming to the Pokémon franchise as one of its main studios receives new leadership.



Tsunekazu Ishihara may be best known for his role as president of The Pokémon Company , but he’s also the founder and CEO of Creatures, Inc. , the company responsible for creating the 3D character models for the Pokémon games .



Or at least he was the CEO. With no explanation, he’s stepped down from his position at Creatures and the company has also replaced its president – Hirokazu ‘Hip’ Tanaka, who used to work at Nintendo as a composer.



Yuji Kitano is said to have taken over as both CEO and president, with Tomotaka Komura appointed executive vice president.



Both Kitano and Komura have been involved with the Pokémon franchise for years, so they’re hardly new faces, although they’re not as well known as Ishihara, who has found notoriety by hosting the Pokémon Presents showcases .



Kitano is primarily credited as a producer on the Pokémon Trading Card Game (which Creatures also manages), while the only credits we could find for Komura were a producer role on 2009’s PokéPark Wii: Pikachu’s Adventure and a coordinator role on Pokémon Box Ruby & Sapphire (an old storage system for transferring pokémon between games).



Besides that, he has multiple special thanks credits in Pokémon games stretching as far back as 2002, according to MobyGames .



Joe Merrick , owner of Pokémon fan site Serebii, was the first to break the news, and Creatures’ website has been updated accordingly to reflect the change in leadership.



However, no formal explanation has been given for why Ishihara and Tanaka have been replaced, leading fans to run rampant with speculation about what sort of effect this could have on the Pokémon franchise.




This is actually big news, more changing of the old guard. New ideas & directions will be implemented as this trend continues.I’m both excited & scared going forward.Of course this isn’t the Pokémon company directly but creatures is involved in many things. Crazy to think what… https://t.co/idOeLCst7n — SoulSilverArt (@soulsilverart) April 5, 2023





Well, it seems like with Ishihara stepping down as CEO of Creatures Inc. Pokemon is now starting to be managed by younger people. I wonder if we’ll see more people stepping down from Gamefreak or just generally from TPCI. And if so, I wonder how it’ll affect the games. pic.twitter.com/CkcaLkaUGL — PearlEnthusiast (@PearlEnthu2) April 5, 2023




I really hope this doesn’t wildly swing the development of the SV TCG sets. So far what we’ve seen of Paldea Evolved looks amazing and it’d be a shame to revert to formats that are less desirable
— Backpacker Raden (@backpackerraden) April 5, 2023




Doubt it’ll affect it at all. Question is if Ishihara is staying at TPC. He does seem to be shifting more to Utsunomiya for things. We’ll see. However remember CEO doesn’t mean they make every single decision. That’s not how it works — Joe Merrick (@JoeMerrick) April 5, 2023




Creatures isn’t just any Nintendo subsidiary; it’s one of the core owners of the franchise, so a change in leadership could bring about major change.



However, Ishihara isn’t really going anywhere since he remains in charge of The Pokémon Company itself. Plus, this doesn’t necessarily mean Game Freak, the core developer behind the games, will be impacted.



That’s a tad ironic considering Game Freak is the Pokémon studio in most need of a shake-up. It has less than 200 employees (a shockingly small amount given its responsibilities) and churns out new games too quickly for its own good. There’s a reason why modern entries are lambasted for how dated they are at a technical and visual level.



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As for Tanaka, it is unclear whether he’ll still be involved with Creatures going forward, if he’s moving to another Pokémon related position, or if he’s leaving the franchise altogether.



We have approached Creatures for a statement on the matter and will update the article should we get a response.



The Teal Mask – the next major Pokémon project is the Scarlet & Violet DLC coming later this year (pic: The Pokémon Company)



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