New Labubu blind boxes available tonight, Aug. 19. Here's what to know.
The popular toy will launch on Tuesday, Aug. 19, at 10 p.m. ET, according to Pop Mart's website. The purchases can be made only on Pop Mart's app, which can be downloaded on your phone through the Google Play Store or the App Store.
Before attempting to purchase a Labubu, make sure the app is updated and functions properly.
One Labubu blind box, "Have a Seat," will be available to order, and two other blind boxes, the "Big into Energy Series" and "Exciting Macaron," will be available for pre-order. A blind box hides the exact content of the package until the customer opens it, sometimes revealing an especially rare item in a series.
Is your Labubu real? We spot differences between Pop Mart dolls and 'Lafufus'
How much will the Labubus cost?
A single box of the Have a Seat, Big into Energy Series or Exciting Macaron will cost $27.99, not including taxes or shipping and handling, according to the website.
However, folks who would like to purchase a whole set, which includes six different blind boxes, will have to pay $167.94.
Purchases over $29 made on the Pop Mart app and website will receive free shipping.
Which Labubu/The Monster blind boxes will be available for order?
The following blind boxes will be available for purchase Tuesday night, Aug. 19:
Available Tuesday afternoon, Aug. 19 is the "THE MONSTERS Let's Checkmate Series-Pendant Blind Box," which is a chain with a small pendant that can be hung from purses and other accessories. The item retails for $18.99.
What is a Labubu?
Labubu is a doll that resembles a monster, featuring a large head, sharp teeth and prominent eyes. The Labubu keychains everyone is obsessed with are furry and come in different colors, shapes and sizes.
Pop Mart has sold small Labubus, some shaped like shrimp tempura, carrying Coke products, dressed as pumpkins and more.
Some people might say the doll looks a bit scary, while others think it's downright adorable.
The doll was designed by Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung roughly a decade ago.
But today, Labubus are sold worldwide by the Beijing-based toy maker Pop Mart, as part of their 'The Monsters' line.
What are blind boxes?
Blind boxes can contain toys or figurines from different properties, from well-known characters like Hello Kitty and Winnie the Pooh and their friends, to popular manga characters like Monkey D. Luffy from "One Piece."
Some of the blind boxes' contents may be rarer than others, which can increase their value and the amount collectors are willing to pay for them if they're resold online.
Labubu blind boxes are currently being sold worldwide by Pop Mart as a part of "The Monsters" line.
Be wary of knockoffs
Labubu dolls have become so popular that they've attracted the attention of resellers.
To ensure you are purchasing authentic Labubu or "The Monsters" merchandise, purchase the dolls directly from Pop Mart, its TikTok account, Amazon store or other major retailers.
The launch, scheduled for the night of Aug. 19, will be available only on the official Pop Mart app.
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Los Angeles Times
36 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
His immigrant mother named him after a sun god. Now Tonatiuh is a breakout star
Amid brightly colored stands selling spices, candies and imitation Labubus in all shades, the mono-monikered actor Tonatiuh sips on a hibiscus agua fresca at El Mercadito in Boyle Heights. The indoor market has been a staple of Latino life and commerce since it opened in the late 1960s. Not far from here, his aunt still runs the business that she and Tonatiuh's mother, an immigrant from the Mexican state of Guanajuato, opened decades ago. 'My mom cut hair for a long time, so I grew up in a beauty salon,' he says, casually dressed in a light blue button-up shirt. 'That's why I talk so much.' The school Tonatiuh attended as a kid, Our Lady of Lourdes, is also in the vicinity, as is the place where he learned to ride a bicycle, Hollenbeck Park. To say that the streets of Boyle Heights, where he was born, nurtured his worldview would be an understatement. 'These last few months have been really difficult,' Tonatiuh tells me, referencing the recent ICE raids that have ravaged the fabric of the city. He calls them vicious: a 'PR cycle against people with dignity, taxpaying individuals who are feeding their families and running businesses, quite literally living the American dream, as cliché as that may sound. ' Even as his own dreams are beginning to materialize, Tonatiuh, 30, remains tethered to these places and people. His career is about to launch into Hollywood's firmament with a dual role in director Bill Condon's screen adaptation of the stage musical version of 'Kiss of the Spider Woman' (in theaters Oct. 10). The rising Mexican American actor shares dramatic space with superstars Jennifer Lopez and Diego Luna. Reviews out of the Sundance Film Festival, where the movie debuted in January, praised Tonatiuh's performance as a breakthrough. His electrifying turn is equal parts heart-wrenching, deliciously irreverent and technically impressive. For the bulk of the film, Tonatiuh plays Luis Molina, a passionate gay prisoner in jail during Argentina's 1970s-era Dirty War who is infatuated with the dazzling escapism of the movies — especially with the allure of fictional screen diva Ingrid Luna (a standout Lopez). Molina indulges in fantasies to stay sane, a dreamscape we experience as scenes from a 1940s classic Hollywood musical. In them, Tonatiuh sings and dances as the dashing Kendall Nesbitt dressed to the nines in elegant tuxes. The musical portion of the film was shot in New York, while for the prison sequences only involving Tonatiuh and Diego Luna as Valentin, a rugged revolutionary, the production relocated to Uruguay. The effect, Tonaituh says, was like making two separate movies. To perform alongside Lopez, he rehearsed with Broadway dancers for a month leading up to the shooting. 'When I first met Jennifer, I was like, 'Oh my God, that's Jennifer Lopez, what the hell?'' he recalls with contagious energy. 'I must have turned left on the wrong street because now I'm standing in front of her. How did this happen? What life am I living?' One would think Tonatiuh's mother knew he was destined to become a star when naming him after the brightest heavenly body. 'She had a dream when she was pregnant with me where she was in a field surrounded by golden orbs and they turned into the sun,' he explains. 'And because of the Aztec mythology of Tonatiuh being the sun god, she woke up from the dream and was like, 'My kid's name is going to be Tonatiuh.'' Growing up around Latinos, his Indigenous name didn't raise eyebrows. But that changed once Tonatiuh got a taste of the demands of assimilation. 'As we moved to West Covina, everyone tried to impose their anglicized identity onto me, and I went with it for many years,' he says. 'Then I started realizing, 'Why am I denying even my own name to fit in?' It's so stupid.' The entertainment industry proved just as unwilling to accept all of him. Those advising him warned him to play ball. 'It's already hard enough given the way you look,' Tonatiuh recalls hearing from them. 'I was just like, 'Are we going to change my name to Albert?'' As for his last name, Elizarraraz, he conceded it might be a bridge too far for English-only speakers. 'My first name's already difficult enough,' Tonatiuh says. 'They are not ready for that.' Increasingly, he found the concept of a mononym enticing. 'I was like, 'How many other Tonatiuhs are in the industry?' I looked it up on SAG, and it was just me,' he says. Enamored with drama from a young age, Tonatiuh remembers watching James Cameron's 'Titanic' on VHS as a formative experience. But it wasn't until a friend's mother invited him to see a live performance of 'Wicked' when he was a teenager that acting grabbed him. 'I like stories with a hook and a bite to it,' he says. ''Wicked' is about segregation and the rise of it in America. But it's in metaphor. 'Animal Farm' is the same way. There are beautiful, entertaining works that are also poignant, with messaging. That messaging is what's most interesting to me.' Despite his love of performing and storytelling, a more conventional path seemed likely. At the end of high school, Tonatiuh had been accepted to multiple universities to study political science. 'I have a very strong intolerance to injustice,' he says, a past victim of bullying and, like many children of immigrants, his mother's de facto translator and legal avatar. 'In my mind, I was like, I can help and be of most use if I became a lawyer or a politician.' But thanks to an English teacher who suggested he should instead pursue his true passion, Tonatiuh doubled down on acting. His mother would drive him in traffic from West Covina to the South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa every morning before work so that he could have a chance at a proper acting education. 'I must have done something to earn her, because she's such a loving person and her biggest thing was that she just wanted me to be happy,' he says of his devoted parent. Formal training at USC followed, though Tonatiuh still felt uncertain on how to carve out space for himself, joining local L.A. theater companies while auditioning for TV and film roles. 'The hardest part of acting is the auditions, because it's awkward,' he says. 'Once you put the pieces in place, submitting to the story and using the words as your weapons to guide you through it, acting is just so fun.' Showrunner Tanya Saracho became aware of Tonatiuh after seeing him in a play. She invited him to join the ensemble of 'Vida,' a series filmed in his native Boyle Heights, in the role of Marcos, an academically accomplished queer man. Sociopolitically outspoken material has shaped Tonatiuh's resume so far: 'Vida' dealt with gentrification, while the 2022 ABC series 'Promised Land' followed undocumented characters who amassed power by way of wealth. Now, 'Kiss of the Spider Woman' examines authoritarianism through a queer lens. 'My body is being used for a purpose much greater than just entertainment,' he says. 'I didn't have any nepotism. I was very fortunate that people believed in me, and they gave me opportunities.' 'Spider Woman' director Condon credits producer Ben Affleck with the liberty to cast someone talented but not yet a household name. 'He said, 'I know how important this is,'' Condon, an Oscar winner for 1998's 'Gods and Monsters,' recalls. 'He took that off the table right away.' The search for Condon's Molina/Kendall was as extensive as the one he did for Effie in his film version of 'Dreamgirls' 20 years earlier, the role that famously went to singer Jennifer Hudson. 'Hundreds of actors in South America, Central America, Mexico, Spain, New York, Los Angeles, London and other cities,' remembers Condon. 'But it wasn't like with all those hundreds there were dozens of credible choices. There were really just a handful.' Among them, Tonatiuh grabbed attention on a self-taped audition. Condon sought someone who could be persuasive within the gritty realism of a prison movie, while also credibly being a larger-than-life Hollywood musical star. Tonatiuh inhabited both modes seamlessly. 'Tona has the most extraordinary, open, beautiful face,' Condon says. 'And his eyes just invite you in. There's a lot of camp humor and that's not something that comes naturally to someone of Tona's generation, but he just has it in his bones. But it's the depth of feeling that he can convey that mattered most.' Tonatiuh seized the chance to play two distinctly complex characters within one movie. His task, he says, was injecting contemporary ideas about queerness into a period piece. 'When I got this one, it felt super special because I don't think Hollywood always gives people like me an opportunity to play a character this dynamic,' Tonatiuh says. 'There is such a return when Hollywood invests in Latin talent and treats us like normal people. Give us a good story. We're not a genre.' And though he and Condon discussed Molina's mindset as well as the historical context and circumstances, Tonatiuh reveled in creative freedom because he wasn't the focus of intense supervision. 'There was a certain level of mischief and magic that was happening because I was the least-known person on set,' he says. 'And a lot of the eyes were on everyone else.' (That cover of anonymity might not last long.) Throughout the production, Tonatiuh felt that 'Kiss of the Spider Woman' spoke to his aspirations directly, not only to those of his characters. 'There was this moment where Jennifer looked at me in the song 'Where You Are,' and sang, 'Close your eyes and you'll become a movie star. Why must you stay where you are?' And in a weird way, it's happening.' Tonatiuh flew his mother and stepfather out to New York to witness 'Where You Are,' an imposing musical number involving close to 70 people in front of the camera. When Lopez and Tonatiuh performed their dance duet, his mother was in awe. 'Now she wants to be Kris Jenner — she wants to be the momager,' Tonatiuh says, only half-joking. 'In this time where Latinos are getting a lot of s—, it makes me really happy that I can bring her some pride.' Yet, his mother hasn't seen the finished film. He wants her to experience it at the upcoming premiere. 'I want her to get the full experience of getting to walk the carpet,' he says. His eyes wet, Tonatiuh recalls an emotional scene with Luna's Valentin, Molina's improbable love interest, that once again seemed to him as if film and his reality were in direct conversation. 'When I'm telling Valentin, 'The film's almost over and I don't want it to end,' it broke my heart because I realized that the film was actually almost over and I didn't want it to end,' he says. 'I bawled my eyes out as if I'd lost the love of my life, and that, for me as a person — what a gift, because it's fake but it was real for me.' Since wrapping 'Kiss of the Spider Woman,' Tonatiuh has acted in Jeremy O. Harris' play 'Spirit of the People' and Ryan Murphy's upcoming series 'American Love Story.' For his next act, he wants to start from scratch. 'I want to do something completely different than Molina because I love being a shape-shifter,' he says. 'I want to be unrecognizable every time I come on screen.'
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Hint of Mini Labubu Launch Sends Pop Mart Stock Soaring 12%
The Chinese retailer Pop Mart's stock surged more than 12 percent on Wednesday, to the highest level since the company went public in 2020, after its chief executive, Wang Ning, said a mini version of its wildly popular Labubu dolls would be released as soon as this week. The toothy elves have become coveted accessories around the world, spotted dangling off designer handbags worth thousands of dollars and collected by the likes of Rihanna, Dua Lipa and Lisa, a member of the K-pop group Blackpink. The mini version will be able to be hung on mobile phones, Mr. Wang told investors on an earnings call. Previous new releases have sold out within minutes, crashed the company's website and app, and sparked hourslong lines outside of stores. Most of Pop Mart's revenue comes from China. But during the first six months of this year, revenue from the Americas jumped 1,142 percent from the previous year as Labubu enthusiasm took off around the world, the company reported on Tuesday. Sales in Asia outside of China were up 258 percent and from Europe and other regions, 729 percent. Source: FactSet By The New York Times The global craze for Labubus drove record revenue for Pop Mart during the first six months of the year, up more than 200 percent when measured in Chinese renminbi. Labubus accounted for more than a third of Pop Mart's total revenue over this period. Pop Mart's stock, which is traded in Hong Kong, has risen more than 650 percent over the past year. In China, the dolls have been praised as an example of how a local product can go viral worldwide. People's Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, described the phenomenon as 'a benchmark for China's pop culture making inroads overseas.' Onstage in London over the weekend, Lisa, who told Vanity Fair that Pop Mart toys were her 'secret obsession,' wore a custom hot pink Labubu during Blackpink's Deadline Tour. The doll's popularity has spawned a thriving resale market and a universe of knock offs, known as 'Lafufus,' that are almost as sought after as the real things. Consumer protection agencies in the United States and Britain recently issued urgent safety warnings that said the fakes could break into pieces and presented choking hazards to children. Pop Mart has also popularized another Chinese trend by releasing some Labubus in 'blind boxes,' so that buyers don't know which doll is inside. The company said it plans to open about three new stores per week for the rest of the year, and expects to top 60 stores in the United States.
Forbes
7 hours ago
- Forbes
China's Pop Mart Targets $4 Billion In Sales This Year Amid Labubu Lunacy
Seven Labubu monsters are seen during a street style fashion photo session in June in Ning, billionaire founder of Chinese toy maker Pop Mart International Group, said the company could 'easily' reach 30 billion yuan ($4.2 billion) in sales this year, after it reported sizzling first half results that included a nearly 400% rise in profit thanks to a global frenzy over its Labubu character. The 38-year-old chairman and CEO made the projection during a live-streamed conference discussing the interim results announced late Tuesday. The Hong Kong-listed company reported 13.9 billion yuan in sales for the first six months of this year, up 204.4% year-on-year, according to a stock exchange filing. Profit attributable to shareholders zoomed 397% to 4.6 billion yuan from a year earlier. Kenny Ng, a Hong Kong-based securities strategist at Everbright Securities International, says by WeChat that the results support Pop Mart's surging valuation. Shares of the company jumped over 6% as of 11:30 am Wednesday, bringing year-to-date gains to a whooping 227%. Wang, who derives his wealth from a company stake, is now China's 9th richest billionaire with a net worth of $24.9 billion, according to the Real-Time Billionaires List. Previously he was China's 10th richest person. The robust results, which easily beat the company's own projections in July, came as Pop Mart's Labubu dolls attract a rapidly growing number of fans. Featuring pointed ears, jagged teeth and a mischievous grin, the rabbit-ish toy is flying off store shelves around the world and being collected by celebrities including Rihanna, Kim Kardashian and Lisa from the K-pop group Blackpink. Led by Labubu, Pop Mart's Monsters series was the top sales contributor, accounting for more than one third of the company's total revenues in the first half, according to the stock exchange filing. Labubu 'ascended to global IP [intellectual property] prominence,' and is 'one of the world's most sought-after IPs in the first half of 2025,' the company wrote. In a July interview with the official Xinhua News Agency, Wang predicted faster growth abroad. He said sales from overseas markets would probably overtake those from China this year. In the first half, China accounted for 60% of the company's total revenue, according to the interim results. The Americas, including the U.S., was the fastest growing region with sales surging over 1,000% year-on-year to 2.3 billion yuan in the first half. Company executives said during the conference call that Pop Mart planned to open stores in the Middle East and central Europe this year, bringing its total number of overseas stores to 200 from a current 140.
