Sofubi: The rabbit hole of Japan's designer toy industry

About this episode

Cory discusses his journey in the sofubi toy industry, including production, trends, and challenges.

Meet Cory, a sofubi (soft vinyl toy) producer under his company Science Patrol. Cory sits down to talk to us about getting into sofubi, learning the trade and setting up his company here, creating officially licensed merchandise for Japan's one-day license events, and everything that goes into creating these toys.--0:00 Intro0:44 Meet Cory4:58 What are sofubi?8:44 Why so many kaiju?9:54 What's being produced today14:20 Typical day as a sofubi producer19:33 Learning the sofubi trade23:57 Trends in sofubi28:27 Collecting sofubi30:42 Managing the secondary market33:32 How sofubi molds work37:27 Japan's one day license events41:49 How Chinese sofubi affect the market45:13 Cory's design philosophy48:53 How many sofubi producers are there?52:12 Biggest challenges55:17 Overseas clients59:43 Science Patrol's new workshop/storefront1:02:22 Mass producing vs. collector's items--Follow Cory:https://scipatrol.thebase.in/https://www.instagram.com/science_patrols/https://x.com/Science_PatrolsFollow…

People in this episode

Guest: Cory

Topics covered

• sofubi
• designer toys
• kaiju
• collecting
• toy production
• merchandise licensing

Keywords

• sofubi
• designer toys
• Cory
• Science Patrol
• kaiju
• toy production
• Japan

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Science Patrol, ZenStudio

Places: Japan

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