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The story
The official Palworld account published a manga drawn in a style resembling manga artist Nagano (creator of Chiikawa), sparking a stir on 5ch’s Hardware/Industry (Geha) board. Thread posters were split on whether Nagano himself actually drew it or whether it was staff (or even AI) imitating his style, and plenty piled on with sarcasm given Palworld’s long history of being accused of ripping off Pokémon. Since Nintendo and Palworld developer Pocketpair are also locked in a patent lawsuit, several reactions referenced that ongoing legal context too.
What people said
What's even supposed to be funny about this…
Even the manga itself reeks of that cheap-knockoff vibe.
That's a whole new level.
Well, it was basically a bug-eyed creature with antennae to begin with.
Fits "Pakuworld" perfectly.
Isn't this just an AI "artist"?
Wild — really proving that old habits (and "the child's soul stays the same at a hundred") never change.
Hard to believe a Japanese company would actually do this.
and even there — a board stuffed with Palworld defenders — it still got dragged, so that tells you something.
he's got a similar sensibility to their player base.
Manga artists really ought to crack down when other IPs pull parodies like this that mimic their art style closely enough to look official.
People end up mistaking it for a real collab and it spirals out of control.
It can end up damaging the original artist's own reputation.
Even assuming Nagano himself drew it, I don't think it's very good.
Now their PR is a cut-rate Chiikawa knockoff too.
Ah man, he really went and did it.
Just copies the surface look (and not even convincingly).
If style alone were protected, 90% of the world's shoujo manga would vanish overnight.
If this were a genuine collab, they'd clearly credit it or label it as an official collaboration manga — but there's nothing here.
First Pokémon, now Nagano too — lol.
He's a Pokémon fan too.
Which makes "Ripoff World" doing this even more gross.
No real fan would look at this and mistake it for the genuine article.
Nagano already works with Pokémon, so he'd have zero interest in taking a job from something like Palworld.
It's not like he's hard up for money.
Had a Rhythm Heaven bit not long ago, I think.
I mean, he's literally done official Pokémon work too —
Pokémon Card illustrations, LINE stickers, that sort of thing.
IT'S TIGER BAZOOKA! IT'S TIGER BAZOOKA! (a stock comedic catchphrase being dropped in as a joke)
MIZOGUCHIIII WINSU~ (stylized garbled katakana mimicking a broken-English arcade announcer shouting "Mizoguchi wins!")
Background and Key Points of This Topic
Ever since Palworld’s 2024 launch, its monster designs have drawn comparisons to Pokémon, and that September Nintendo actually sued Palworld developer Pocketpair for patent infringement — so there is a real, ongoing legal conflict between the two companies. This manga was largely received through that lens of “ripoff” criticism. The thread was split mainly over whether the manga was genuinely drawn by Nagano himself or was an imitation made to resemble his style, and no official confirmation either way turned up within the thread. Readers might easily mistake this for a real collaboration with Chiikawa or something Nintendo-sanctioned, but nothing in the thread’s discussion confirms it was a formal collaboration.
*This article was excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, “Geha”) thread “[Image] Turns out Sensei Nagano has been drawing Palworld manga this whole time without anyone noticing lolololololol.”
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