The Picture Book Origins: 'The Monsters' Series
Labubu first appeared in 'The Monsters,' a picture book series Kasing Lung began publishing in 2015. The books depicted a fantastical forest world inhabited by a cast of creatures including Labubu, Tycoco, Zimomo, and others — each with a distinctive design personality. Lung's illustration style drew heavily from the Northern European picture book tradition, particularly the work of Swedish illustrator Elsa Beskow and Finnish artists who depicted forest spirits and folk creatures in richly detailed natural settings.
The Monsters books were not children's books in the conventional sense — they were closer to artist books or illustrated worlds, marketed to adult collectors of art and illustration. This positioning foreshadowed the figure's later audience: the Labubu toy is explicitly marketed to adult collectors (15+), not children, and its aesthetic complexity requires a viewer who can appreciate both the craft and the character history behind the design.
Lung published multiple volumes in The Monsters series and developed detailed character lore for each creature. Labubu specifically was conceived as a forest-dwelling monster whose appearance — sharp teeth, wild ears — masks a more gentle inner nature. This narrative of hidden kindness beneath a frightening exterior is part of what makes the character resonate beyond purely visual appeal.
From Hong Kong Artist to Global Toy: The Pop Mart Partnership
Kasing Lung partnered with Pop Mart — the Beijing-based designer toy company founded in 2010 — to produce physical Labubu figures starting around 2019. Pop Mart had already built a significant platform for designer toy IPs through its Molly character (designed by Kenny Wong) and was actively seeking distinctive IP with global aesthetic appeal. Lung's Monsters universe offered something different from Pop Mart's existing catalog: a creature aesthetic rather than a cute-human-figure aesthetic, with deeper narrative roots.
The first Pop Mart x Kasing Lung series launched in 2019 and quickly sold through. The subsequent 'The Monsters Forest In Wonderland' and 'The Monsters Have a Wish' series expanded Labubu's visual vocabulary while maintaining the core character design. By 2021-2022, Labubu had become one of Pop Mart's highest-demand IPs globally, and international distribution had expanded to Southeast Asia, Europe, and North America.
Pop Mart went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in December 2020, raising HK$5.7 billion in its IPO. The prospectus cited Labubu and Kasing Lung's IP as one of its key artist partnerships. This public listing formalized the commercial infrastructure around Labubu and provided capital for the global retail expansion — Pop Mart stores in London, Tokyo, Singapore, and New York that brought Labubu to street-level retail in major cities.
The Celebrity Moment That Changed Everything
While Labubu had been growing steadily in Asian collector communities from 2019-2022, its global cultural breakthrough came in 2023-2024 when BLACKPINK member Lisa was photographed repeatedly with Labubu plush charms hanging from her designer handbags. Lisa's influence in global fashion and pop culture — particularly in Southeast Asia, Europe, and North America — introduced Labubu to an audience that had no prior exposure to the designer toy market.
The Lisa effect was immediate and documented: Pop Mart reported sellouts within hours of series launches that had previously taken days or weeks, and secondary market prices spiked sharply in the months following the most-shared photographs. The figure's visual identity — recognizable even as a small dangling charm — was perfectly suited to the photography-first context of Instagram and TikTok, where images circulated without requiring followers to already know the brand.
Other celebrities and influencers followed, and Labubu became a recognizable status symbol in certain communities — similar to a limited-edition sneaker or a piece from a sought-after streetwear collaboration. This cultural positioning has sustained demand well beyond the initial Lisa moment and established Labubu as a genuinely global phenomenon rather than a regional Asian toy market success story.
Labubu Today: Global Presence and Cultural Status
As of 2026, Labubu is distributed across more than 30 countries through Pop Mart's own stores, app, and authorized retail network. Major series launches cause queues at physical stores and site traffic spikes on the Pop Mart app that crash checkout at scale. The secondary market — StockX, GOAT, Whatnot, local reseller communities — is a multi-million dollar ecosystem with professional resellers who treat Labubu like sneaker drops.
Kasing Lung has remained actively involved in the character's development, continuing to produce picture books and collaborate on art direction for new series. This ongoing creator involvement is unusual in the designer toy market, where IP is often licensed and developed at arms length from the original artist. Lung's presence ensures that Labubu retains its narrative and aesthetic coherence across an ever-expanding range of formats and collaborations.
The four editions available at Voxelyo.com each represent a distinct interpretation of the Labubu character — Duck Bubu, Snow Wing Bubu, Angel Bubu, and Pink Fang Bubu — each building on the original Kasing Lung character design with edition-specific color stories and thematic identity. Owning any of them is owning a piece of a design history that started in a Hong Kong picture book and ended up on streets worldwide.