This year for Worlds 2025, I’m releasing four custom cards to help promote Pokémon Aaah!, and I want to share more info about each card being released. The third promo card is “Kyonin”.

If you don’t already know, some time ago there were two MASSIVE leaks of GameFreak material called the Gigaleak AND the Teraleak, and stored within both leaks were Pokémon that never existed. That is to say, Pokémon that once existed during the development stage, but—for one reason or another—ultimately never made it to any of the final games. MANY of these unknown Pokémon were actually previewed in the the “Pocket Monsters 2” build of Gold/Silver previewed at Space World 1997 and 1999, and were actually known about for some time:


…but it wouldn’t be until the Gigaleak that we would actually get to the full extent of the Pokémon lost to time. Likewise, the Teraleak would reveal lost Pokémon from the Ruby/Sapphire era, and even a few from Gens 4 and 5. If you want to find out more about what Beta Pokémon were originally lost to time but recently rediscovered, check out my pages about them:

So how does this tie to “Kyonin”? Well, that card is a—perhaps the first?—Pokémon TCG card for that Pokémon, which was intended as a Baby Pokémon for Growlithe. Originally called プディ Pudie (reflecting ガーディ Gardie and ウインディ Windie for Growlithe’s and Arcanine’s Japanese name), it was coded to be a Fire-type Pokémon as well. Nothing special, and that’s probably why it didn’t survive to the final game. But it’s still pretty cute, take a look!

The name “Kyonin” itself is something I made up: it’s a mix between the word “Kyon” (Ancient Greek word for dog), and “Kin” (English suffix representing a dimunitive form, like “napkin” or “lambkin”). I think it works!

I made this card because… well, it’s a real shame that we never did get to see a world where Pudie and all of the other Betamon were officially released in a Pokémon game… let alone had a Pokémon TCG card made of it. But I aim to change that! The thing is, I’ve been making custom Pokémon TCG fake cards since 1999, and I had worked on a few… hundred of them over time. Now it’s been a long time since I’ve done anything like this, but I really miss all the experimental cards I would make and different art styles I would use to really make my cards feel like a real set. So what better opportunity than to make cards for Pokémon than never had a chance to live? Or for forms of existing Pokémon that had a unique look to them during the “Pocket Monsters 2” development era? A few people have done one-off cards, but I aim to do as many of them as I can, as well as in different art styles (including the 1990’s 3D-CGI style of Keiji Kinebuchi). That project will be called “Lore Hack”!

Anyways, I hope you find this project idea interesting. If you do, feel free to follow me on social media so you can see new cards when I release them. Enjoy!