For two years, Labubu was everywhere.
On bags at Paris Fashion Week. On the wrists of K-pop idols. On TikTok feeds at two in the morning. The mischievous, serrated-toothed character from PopMart became the face of a global blind box explosion — and if you run a shelf, you probably owe at least a little of your collection to her.
But the collector world moves fast. PopMart has opened physical stores across Europe — Amsterdam, London, Paris, Milan, Barcelona — putting Labubu directly in front of mainstream shoppers who can now grab one on the high street. The hype that once made a Labubu feel like a found treasure now feels, to many collectors, a little ordinary.
That doesn't mean the blind box world is cooling. It means it's evolving — and right now, the most exciting collecting is happening off the Labubu shelf.
Here are the seven IPs defining the collector world in 2026. Some you'll know. Some will be completely new. All of them deserve a spot on your radar.
Why Labubu's Hype Has Shifted
To be clear: Labubu is not dead. It's still a global icon with strong resale value, regular new series drops, and a massive community of devoted collectors.
But the conditions that created Labubu's viral moment — scarcity, celebrity endorsement, the feeling that you were part of something underground — have changed. When a character goes from niche collector find to high street fixture in eighteen months, it loses the edge that made it special to early adopters.
Experienced collectors are doing what they always do when a wave peaks: they move to the next thing before everyone else catches up. The IPs on this list are where those collectors are spending their money right now. Some are from PopMart, some from Hi Toy and Letsvan, and some are genuine cult classics that have been beloved for years and are only now reaching a European audience.
Let's get into it.
1. SKULLPANDA — The Dark Side of PopMart
Brand: PopMart | Designer: Xiong Miao (熊喵) of LazyNorth Studio | Aesthetic: Dark, fashion-forward, emotionally layered
If there is one IP that is most obviously positioned to be the next Labubu in terms of mainstream breakthrough, it's SKULLPANDA.
She's a mysterious girl in a skull-shaped astronaut's helmet with panda-styled pigtails, created by Chinese artist Xiong Miao. She travels through time and space but — crucially — doesn't know who she truly is. Each series is a new chapter of her self-discovery, exploring themes of duality, freedom, perception, and emotional depth. The result is blind box figures that feel less like toys and more like wearable philosophy.
What sets SKULLPANDA apart from everything else in the PopMart lineup is her dual nature. She is simultaneously dark and cute, edgy and beautiful, gothic and deeply personal. Her costumes span high fashion, retro futurism, street art culture, and classical art — the L'Impressionnisme series, released in 2025, literally translates Impressionist painting palettes into soft vinyl plush form.
The numbers back up the energy. StockX data shows SKULLPANDA sales surged 132% from Q2 to Q3 2025. Search interest spiked sharply in October 2025 — mirroring exactly the early growth pattern Labubu showed before it went mainstream. And PopMart's own Managing Director of Europe has said explicitly: "For sure, in 2026 you'll see a lot more around Skullpanda and Hirono."
Best series to start with: The Image of Reality (2024) is widely considered the creative peak — surreal, philosophical, and with a hidden figure at 1/144 odds that has hit significant secondary market values. The L'Impressionnisme Plush Doll series (2025) is the best current retail purchase. The You Found Me! pendant series is the perfect entry if you love the bag charm trend.
Who it's for: Collectors who want something with artistic ambition and dark aesthetic energy. Fans of fashion, street culture, and figures that double as display art.
2. Hirono — For Collectors Who Want Meaning
Brand: PopMart | Designer: Lang (co-founder of PopMart) | Aesthetic: Minimalist, introspective, emotionally resonant
Hirono is unlike anything else in the blind box world — and that's precisely why collectors who discover him tend to become completely obsessed.
Created in 2021 by Lang, one of PopMart's co-founders and art directors, Hirono is a small, introspective boy with oversized eyes, red cheeks, and slightly dishevelled hair. He doesn't smile. He doesn't pose heroically. Instead, he exists in quiet, emotionally charged moments: gazing out a window, sitting alone, exploring an unfamiliar world. Lang designed him to embody the full spectrum of human emotion — joy, sadness, fear, kindness, cowardice — and to capture the feeling of being an outsider in the adult world.
That emotional depth is what creates the Hirono phenomenon. Collectors don't just buy him because he's cute. They buy him because they feel something. His first series launched in kraft paper packaging tied with string, like opening a letter from a friend. That detail tells you everything about the intention behind the character.
Hirono generated 52.2 million yuan in his debut year alone. His community is one of the most emotionally invested in the entire collector world. On TikTok and Instagram, Hirono content consistently goes viral — his face is so expressive that it becomes a canvas for collectors' own emotional stories.
And crucially for European collectors: PopMart has explicitly named Hirono alongside SKULLPANDA as a major 2026 focus. New series are coming. Now is the time to get familiar.
Best series to start with: The Little Mischief Series for an accessible entry point. The Road Journal Series for beautiful travel-themed storytelling. Any collaboration series for immediate collector buzz.
Who it's for: Collectors who want emotional connection over aesthetic edge. People who collect with their heart. Anyone who felt seen by a toy and wants more of that feeling.
3. Nommi (Hi Toy) — The Healing Aesthetic for 2026
Brand: Hi Toy / Top Toy | Designer: Hi Toy studio | Aesthetic: Soft, cosy, comfort-first, interactive
The biggest trend in blind box collecting in 2025 and 2026 has nothing to do with rarity or resale values. It's called the healing aesthetic — and Nommi is its undisputed queen.
Nommi is a round, soft, impossibly cosy character produced by Hi Toy. Each series features her in gentle, comforting scenarios: wrapped in blankets, holding hot drinks, surrounded by soft animals, nestled in flowers, drifting through dreamy landscapes. The colour palette is soft pastels and warm neutrals. The vibe is a long Sunday morning in bed when you have nowhere to be.
But Nommi's real genius is a piece of engineering. She features a world-first three-panel movable eye structure — a mechanical system inside the figure that lets you manually rotate her eyes between three different expressions. One moment she's looking up dreamily. Next, she's side-eyeing. Then she's gazing straight at you. It's a small detail with enormous impact: every time you interact with Nommi, she feels alive.
This interactive quality has made her a favourite among celebrities and influencers worldwide. She appears constantly in flat-lay photos, desk setups, and bag accessory shots. For collectors who've been burned by the anxiety of chasing rare pulls, Nommi offers something different: a figure you buy to feel good, not to feel competitive.
Her series list is growing fast — from the debut Loveliness Never Ends through Fantasy World, Interesting Fruits, and the colossal 400% supersized edition — and each one introduces new themes without ever abandoning the core healing identity.
Best series to start with: Loveliness Never Ends for the original Nommi experience. Fantasy World for dreamy visual variety. The 400% supersized edition if you want a statement piece.
Who it's for: Collectors drawn to cosy and comfort aesthetics. Anyone who treats their collection as a mood-regulation tool. Perfect gift for someone going through a stressful period.
4. Maymei — Dark But Cute, With a Twist
Brand: Hi Toy / Sure Fun | Aesthetic: Spooky-cute, dark fantasy, heavily embroidered vinyl face plush
If Nommi is sunshine and blankets, Maymei is the Halloween sleepover you didn't want to leave.
Maymei is a vinyl face plush character produced by Hi Toy's Sure Fun label. Her design philosophy is built around a "spooky-cute" aesthetic — a deliberate collision of slightly eerie dark fantasy elements with soft, heavily embroidered plush bodies that you instinctively want to hug. She's described as a curious traveller who explores different fantastical realms, adapting her appearance to match each world she visits. Sometimes that world is a dark forest full of vampire bunnies and ghostly bears. Sometimes it's a mysterious circus. Sometimes it's a moonlit garden.
The craftsmanship is what sets Maymei apart from the crowd of dark-aesthetic imitators. Each figure combines a detailed vinyl face with a soft polyester body featuring intricate hand-level embroidery — stitched details that give each figure genuine artisan quality at blind box price points. At approximately 7 inches tall, they're substantial enough to feel premium without dominating a shelf.
Her breakout series, Dark Forest, introduced the vampire bunnies and ghostly bears that went viral on TikTok — with one unboxing video from a major creator generating over 51,000 likes. The V2 Dark Forest followed with expanded characters and refinements. Other series including Crazy Circus, Symbiote Neverland, and Poem of Spring have each built on her reputation for dark-cute world-building.
The hidden figure in the Dark Forest series — Blood Rose — has a 1:72 pull rate and has become one of the most desirable pulls in the non-PopMart segment.
Best series to start with: Dark Forest V2 for the most refined version of Maymei's signature aesthetic. Crazy Circus if you want something more playful with your darkness.
Who it's for: Collectors who love the dark aesthetic but want softness alongside the edge. Fans of the Cursed Cutie / yami kawaii vibe. Anyone who found SKULLPANDA slightly too fashion-forward and wants something more creature-like.
5. Mofusand — The Cat IP That Never Stops Selling
Brand: Mofusand (independent JP) / various licensees | Designer: Mofusand studio | Aesthetic: Pure cat chaos, costume play, universally adorable
Some IPs chase trends. Mofusand simply is the trend — every year, reliably, without fail.
Mofusand started as an independent Japanese character brand built around one irresistible premise: soft, round cats dressed in elaborate non-cat costumes. A cat dressed as a shark. A cat dressed as a strawberry. A cat dressed as a full-body bunny suit, looking deeply unimpressed about the situation. The character's signature expression is a kind of blissful, slightly-too-relaxed contentment that makes every figure feel like the visual equivalent of a deep breath.
What makes Mofusand remarkable as a collecting proposition is its cross-demographic appeal. Children love it. University students love it. Thirty-five-year-old professionals with full Detolf displays love it. Pet owners love it. People who have never collected anything in their life see a Mofusand figure and immediately want it. This universality makes it the safest recommendation for anyone buying a blind box as a gift for someone whose taste they don't know.
The brand's licensing partnerships have expanded steadily — MINISO Mofusand series, the Kiramekko accessory line, and collaborations with Chiikawa's universe have all kept the IP fresh and visible across multiple retail channels. The #mofusand hashtag on TikTok has accumulated hundreds of millions of views.
Mofusand also has strong secondary market presence, with rare colourways and collaboration-exclusive figures commanding meaningful premiums. But even the standard series sell consistently at retail, which is rarer than it sounds in the current market.
Best series to start with: Any MINISO Mofusand series for accessibility and price. The Kiramekko collaboration for something premium and gift-ready.
Who it's for: Literally everyone. The perfect blind box for someone who "doesn't really collect." Animal lovers, cat obsessives, collectors who want universal shelf appeal.
6. Sonny Angel — The OG Blind Box That Refuses to Age
Brand: Dreams Inc. (Japan) | Designer: Toru Soeya | Aesthetic: Tiny cherub angels, themed headwear, endlessly giftable
Before Labubu. Before PopMart had a European store. Before blind box culture had a name in the West — there was Sonny Angel.
Created by Japanese designer Toru Soeya for Dreams Inc. and launched in 2004, Sonny Angel is the original blind box collectible. A tiny, chubby-cheeked miniature angel with tiny wings, no shirt, and the most charming variety of themed headwear you'll ever see — animals, fruits, vegetables, seasonal motifs, fantasy creatures, and collaboration series that span decades.
What's remarkable about Sonny Angel in 2026 is not that it's survived. It's that it's thriving. Desk decor and shelf styling content on TikTok and Instagram has introduced the IP to an entirely new generation of collectors who weren't even born when the first series launched. The format — small, affordable, endlessly varied, with a tiny pull rate for a hidden variant — is so perfectly calibrated for the blind box format that it feels like it was designed by committee after studying everything that came after.
Sonny Angel consistently ranks among the most popular blind box gifts on major gift guides, and for good reason. The size (approximately 7cm) makes it portable and displayable anywhere. The price point is among the lowest in the premium blind box segment. And the emotional warmth of the design — there is genuinely nothing threatening or edgy about Sonny Angel — makes it appropriate for every age, every taste, every occasion.
For collectors, the collaboration series and limited holiday drops are where the real excitement lives. The Gifts of Love series has become one of the most popular recurring gift purchases in the community. Older series in original packaging have genuine collector value.
Best series to start with: Any seasonal or animal series for a first-time buyer. Gifts of Love as a present. The Strawberry Love vinyl plush for something slightly more premium and current.
Who it's for: New collectors building their first shelf. Gift buyers who want something universally appealing. Collectors who want a long-standing IP with reliable quality and abundant variety.
7. WAKUKU — The Wild Child With the Unforgettable Eyebrow
Brand: Letsvan | Aesthetic: Tribal-meets-modern, wild child energy, back-to-childhood nostalgia
Every generation has that one IP that makes you stop scrolling and go: what is that?
In 2025 and 2026, that IP is WAKUKU.
Created by the Chinese toy brand Letsvan, WAKUKU is built around one of the most distinctive character designs in the current blind box market. She is an "adorable wild child" with round cheeks, big expressive eyes, gloriously messy hair, small fangs — and her signature feature: a pair of bold, straight, dramatic eyebrows that give her a simultaneously serious and hilarious expression. She looks like the kid who refused to sit still for the school photo and is extremely proud of it.
The design draws from primitive and modern elements simultaneously — a "tribal-meets-modern" aesthetic that is completely unlike anything from PopMart or Hi Toy. She embodies, in Letsvan's own words, "the spirit of freedom and joy" and a return to the uninhibited energy of childhood before the world told you to be sensible.
WAKUKU went viral in China in 2024, amassing massive social media followings and sold-out series drops that attracted international attention. The overseas expansion arrived through MINISO collaborations and international retailer partnerships, with search volume showing a significant upward trend and a 14.66% month-on-month peak in mid-2025. Series including Fuzzy Trendy Fun Party, Fox & Bunny Trick or Treat, and the Hipster Party Series have generated strong TikTok unboxing content.
Each WAKUKU blind box includes an ID card and a keychain ring, and the plush format — approximately 16-17cm — sits perfectly alongside other vinyl face plush IPs on a shelf. Hidden figure pull rate is 1/72, consistent with the market standard. Limited edition series sell out fast.
Best series to start with: Fuzzy Trendy Fun Party for a colourful, energetic introduction. Fox & Bunny Trick or Treat for darker seasonal energy. The MINISO-exclusive series for EU availability.
Who it's for: Collectors who want something genuinely different and conversation-starting. Fans of the playful-chaotic aesthetic who find softer IPs too safe. Anyone who wants to be ahead of the curve before WAKUKU fully breaks in Europe.
Where to Find All of These in Europe
This is where European collectors have historically struggled. Most of these IPs originate in China or Japan, and until recently, finding authentic versions without paying sky-high import fees or risking counterfeits from marketplace sellers was genuinely difficult.
The counterfeit problem is real and growing. For plush blind boxes especially — where the vinyl face detail, embroidery quality, and eye mechanisms are what you're paying for — a fake will look noticeably wrong and feel disappointingly cheap. Always buy from retailers who guarantee authenticity and can show the QR verification.
At Fifilandtoys, we stock a curated selection across all the IPs mentioned in this guide, ship next day from the Netherlands, and guarantee 100% authenticity on every product. Every PopMart IP can be verified via the QR code on the packaging. We ship flat-rate across the EU, with free shipping on orders over €99 within the Netherlands, €120 to Belgium and Germany, and €150 for the rest of Europe.
[Browse our full collection here →]
If a specific series or IP you've read about here isn't currently in stock, join our Discord community or sign up for our back-in-stock alerts — we get new drops weekly, and our community members get early access before anything goes public.
The Bottom Line
The blind box world doesn't have a single centre anymore. That's actually a good thing.
Labubu opened a door for millions of new collectors in Europe who had never thought about designer toys before. The IPs on this list are what's waiting for them on the other side. Whether you're drawn to the dark artistic ambition of SKULLPANDA, the emotional depth of Hirono, the healing comfort of Nommi, the spooky-cute craftsmanship of Maymei, the universal warmth of Mofusand and Sonny Angel, or the untamed wild-child energy of WAKUKU — there has never been a better, more varied moment to be a blind box collector.
The best shelves in 2026 aren't the ones with the most Labubu. They're the ones that tell a story.
[Shop all 7 IPs at Fifilandtoys — 100% authentic, ships from Netherlands →]
Fifilandtoys is an authorised blind box retailer based in the Netherlands, shipping across the EU. All products are 100% authentic with QR code verification. Next-day shipping on in-stock items for NL orders.
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