Long queues formed early morning in central London as toy enthusiasts waited outside a new pop-up store for the release of Hirono, a collectible featuring a child with a permanent mischievous look, created by Chinese toy maker Pop Mart.
The designer toy brand has turning blind-box collectibles into a global phenomenon, with quirky characters, soaring sales, and star-studded fans.
"I live in Yorkshire, so a long way, but I managed to get exactly what I wanted. So I'm really pleased," said a collector.
"It's a little bit of Joy in a world that can sometimes be tough, right? And when you're got adult money, why not spend adult money on things you want, right?" another fan of Hirono said.
Even Hirono's creator Lang turned up -- meeting fans in London for the first time. According to the artist, the character was a form of self expression, and its sudden popularity caught him by surprise.
"As more and more people started to like them, I began to feel a bit of pressure. At the same time, though, I also felt genuinely happy. It's amazing that so many people like this IP, this character, and that they can see a part of themselves in the things I express through different media," said Lang.
Apart from Hirono, Pop Mart has rolled out quite a few other characters -- including Labubu. This quirky elf-like figure with a toothy grin has gone from niche to global, and even celebrities have been spotted with one.
The trend has translated into eye-popping growth for Pop Mart, with its revenue in the first quarter of this year jumping as much as 170 percent year on year.
"Last year, we were very fortunate to open up in Milan, in Italy, and in Barcelona, in Spain, we opened our first offline stores there, and we will focus across the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, these countries, for sure, you'll see new Pop Mart stores opening in the coming months," said Peter Shipman, managing director of Head of Europe, Pop Mart.
This year, Pop Mart is aiming higher, targeting nearly 3 billion U.S. dollars in revenue -- up a billion from last year.
Yet the company's strategy of using blind boxes -- a type of packaging that keeps its contents hidden -- and creating rarity has fueled tensions among fans, as customers scramble to buy and scalpers drive up prices.
The brand taps into tried-and-tested tactics, scarcity and social media buzz and markets them globally by collaborating with global artists. Now, its blind box model is now testing how far Chinese pop culture can travel.
Long queue forms for release of Chinese designer toy in London
The maiden flight of China's independently developed Zhuque-3 reusable rocket, also the country's first attempt to recover an orbital stage of a carrier rocket, has made important breakthrough despite final-stage failure, said Dai Zheng, commander in chief of the Zhuque-3 mission.
The Zhuque-3 is a large-capacity, low-cost, reusable liquid launch vehicle independently developed by China to deploy large-scale constellations.
The Zhuque-3 rocket blasted off from the Dongfeng commercial space innovation pilot zone, near the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.
After ignition and liftoff, the first and second stages of the rocket separated in about 130 seconds. The second stage continued to complete the orbital insertion mission, while the first stage began its return journey.
The reuse section appeared in people's sight on time. Nevertheless, its first-stage booster suffered anomalous combustion during recovery, failing to achieve a soft touchdown on the landing pad.
The specific causes are under investigation, according to Dai, also the CEO of LandSpace, the rocket's designer, who gave an exclusive interview to the China Central Television (CCTV) in Beijing.
"This launch was actually China's first attempt to recover the first stage of an orbital-deployed launch vehicle. From the very beginning, we didn't expect the maiden flight to be a guaranteed success, it was more of an experimental and exploratory endeavor, and the result is slightly regrettable," said Dai.
Getting a rocket from supersonic speed to a perfectly intact landing on the ground is an extremely difficult task for rocket control, and the retrieved footage from the rocket showed that Zhuque-3 is not far from success, according to Dai.
"After separation, it underwent a high-altitude, high-angle attitude adjustment. After the attitude adjustment, it ignited at an altitude of 80 kilometers. This high-altitude ignition phase is actually very successful. When it entered the lower 40-kilometer range, the engine was shut down. Then it entered the aerodynamic gliding phase, during which the rocket descended at a supersonic speed, which was very fast at this point, and we had to rely on the grid fins on the rocket and the onboard control system to control the rocket," he said.
"From 40 kilometers to the final three kilometers above the ground, the supersonic descent phase, the aerodynamic control during the phase were flawless. At three kilometers above the ground, a landing ignition was required, somewhat like an emergency brake. As the altitude dropped to zero, the speed essentially decreased to zero. Only then could the landing legs extend to absorb the final impact, allowing the rocket to land intact. This is an extremely challenging maneuver for rocket control. Our final attempt to brake failed, so it didn't function as a brake, and ultimately it crashed at the edge of the landing zone, approximately 40 meters from the designated touchdown center," said Dai.
Although the mission was not entirely successful, for Dai and his team, the successful entry into orbit is also very meaningful.
"The primary objective of this mission was to verify the rocket's ability to reach the designated orbit. It shows that our rocket is able to subsequently provide services to satellite customers. Recovery is a very important means for a rocket company to reduce costs, but for our customers, their requirement is you deliver their cargo, their payload, their satellite, to the intended operational orbit. Whether the rocket can be reused is not their concern. In fact, we didn't launch the rocket with a real payload this time, but with a dummy payload instead. For the rocket industry, especially for a private commercial rocket company like ours, a successful flight is essential to demonstrate the rocket's capability before we can sell it. This is actually an industry practice," said Dai.
China's self-developed reusable rocket achieves key breakthrough in maiden flight: mission leader
