Major League Baseball and its teams, whose 2025 season began late last month, have been increasingly teaming with a variety of Japanese pop-culture properties for products and promotions. Japanese-origin IPs from the worlds of anime, kawaii, videogames, and VTubers are a good fit with the sport in many ways. The league and its teams, especially […]
Tag Archives | Pokémon
Building a Foundation in Construction Toys
Building kits, led by Lego, have been one of the bright spots in the toy industry over the past several years. In the U.S., construction toy sales were up 16% in 2024 compared to 2023, according to Circana figures, representing a significantly higher rate of growth than any other supercategory tracked. The same was true […]
Wearing Your Fandom at Your Wedding
By Karen Raugust on September 26, 2024 in Character/Entertainment, Demographic groups, Fashion, Licensing
Earlier this year, a deal between wedding gown maker Lulu Felice and manga artist Ai Yazawa produced a collection of wedding dresses and other wedding-appropriate formal wear tied to two of the artist’s properties, Nana and Neighborhood Story. Some of the pieces—each line features nine dresses and two tuxes—replicate gowns worn by the lead characters […]
Pairing Anime and E-sports
By Karen Raugust on March 25, 2024 in Character/Entertainment, Interactive gaming, Licensing, Sports
A popular sub-segment within the e-sports licensing sector consists of cross-licensed apparel collections that bring together e-sports teams and anime properties. The audiences for the two types of IP dovetail nicely, and the anime characters help drive interest and purchase intent for the e-sports brands. This trend has been ongoing since at least 2019 and […]
Entertainment Studios Strategize Over TCGs
Classic trading card games (TCGs), especially the “Big 3” of Magic: The Gathering (MTG), Pokémon, and Yu-Gi-Oh!—all introduced in the 1990s—are going strong. They continue to rank at the top of the TCG sales charts, are expanding into new media and licensed product categories, and are making cameos in productions not connected to their brands, […]
Top Toys for Tots
With the holiday season quickly approaching, major retailers and key consumer publications have released their predictions for the top toy gifts of the year. Together, these lists offer a snapshot of licensing in the toy industry, which typically reflects trends in the broader character/entertainment licensing sector as well. Here are some takeaways from an analysis […]
Trading Card Transformations
The trading card industry has been experiencing a number of changes this year, from skyrocketing interest in collecting, to decades-long licensing agreements changing hands, to the emergence of new opportunities including non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and collegiate name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights. Some of the key trends to watch: A pandemic-fueled rise in popularity. Interest […]
The Numbers Are In
The toy industry is having a good year in 2021, as measured by the major public toy companies’ quarterly results to date. Some observers had thought industry growth would slow in 2021 after a significant bump in dollar sales in 2020, fueled by the need to keep families occupied during the COVID lockdowns. In addition, […]