Hitoshi Ariga (born 23 August 1972) is a manga artist, picture-book author and graphic designer best known outside Pokémon for his long-running Mega Man work, which he has been producing since the mid-1990s. Ken Sugimori brought him into Pokémon for X and Y, where he co-designed creatures including Pangoro, Honedge and Aegislash; further generations added Alolan forms, the Rookidee line and several Scarlet and Violet species. Ariga has explained that he paired Amaura and Aurorus with Tyrunt and Tyrantrum on the logic that a sauropod would balance a tyrannosaur, basing the line on Amargasaurus and giving it the neck fins. He began illustrating for the TCG in 2011 and later served as lead character designer on Pokémon UNITE.
First card
Manaphy
Oct 12, 2013
Latest card
Frogadier
May 24, 2024
Master Set
574 cards across English, Japanese and Simplified Chinese sets