Hi everyone, how are you? Do you know what a funko is? Today we will talk about these action figures that are adorable and their role in pop culture. We can see many of these little dolls out there, all with different styles. But there is a company called Funko that stands out in the market because of its various patents for producing toys and also for various other items based on pop culture, including animes, mangas, and games.
In this technological age, almost nothing stays isolated in just one place; things spread around the world and often become so widespread and popular that they are hard to forget. Fads, songs, movies, action figures, electronic items, and everything else that can be made in one part of the planet has the potential to spread all over it, like a fire that spreads wherever it can burn.
Throughout the article, we will leave some Funko products for you to look at on Amazon Brazil.
Table of Contents
Funko is a global culture
For those who don’t know, I will try to explain what pop culture is. I don’t know if it will be the best explanation, but it will serve for this article. Basically, pop culture, or popular culture, is the set of practices, beliefs, and objects that are dominant in a society at a given time. It is strongly influenced by mass media and permeates the lives of people in societies.
For example, our beloved action figures are popular both in Brazil and in Japan. They are everywhere in the world, and most people know what they are or have seen one. Pop culture is that, a custom that is dominantly present in a society. In the case of action figures, they are a global pop culture, if that is the correct term.
Getting to know the Funko company
Funko is an American company that produces licensed pop culture collectibles. Funko is renowned for manufacturing licensed vinyl figures and bobbleheads, as well as licensed electronic items and plush toys.
Founded in 1998, the company started as a small project to create various low-tech toys with nostalgic themes. Sold in 2005, the company expanded the catalog of several of its toy lines and also made licensing agreements with companies such as Netflix, Ubisoft, Paramount Pictures, Cartoon Network, Pokémon Company, among others.
Its brand specialized in pop culture has global reach, and consequently, its products are found all over the world. Below, I will list some genres of toys related to the products it produces.
Designer toys
Designer toys are innovative and collectible toys made by independent artists. Usually produced in limited editions, they are made from materials such as vinyl, metal, latex, and resin. The first designer toys emerged in the 1990s.
This type of toy makes a significant contribution to pop culture; after all, what would we do without our cute and lovely action figures? And in the case of animes, they are even more successful, and these artists, however, are not licensed but still part of the industry.
Urban vinyl
Urban vinyl is a type of designer toy, particularly action figures, that are usually made of vinyl. As we know, vinyl is a type of synthetic plastic made from polymer; to put it in simpler terms, it is PVC, the kind of material that the water pipes used in most houses here in Brazil are made of.
To specify this type of toy, these are toys that feature original designs, a small production number, and are marketed to collectors, who are usually adults.
Resin toys
Resin toys are another subcategory of designer toys. And as the name suggests, they are made of resin. They are created by melting the resin and making adjustments to it after it has been melted. For finishing, they are painted using automotive spray paint and occasionally receive a layer of varnish over the paint.
This process is more labor-intensive and time-consuming than with vinyl. Unlike vinyl toys, these are sculpted, molded, and painted by a single artist. This is because vinyl toys are practical for industrial production.
Plush toys
Plush toys, another subcategory of designer toys, are soft, stuffed dolls created in limited quantities by artists and designers. Common designs include animals or human-like shapes; the designers often present entirely unique character designs. These toys usually receive names and personalities, with their distinct personalities described on their tags or in booklets included in their packaging.
Bobblehead
Also known as nodder or wobbler, this is a type of collectible doll. But it is already a different category from designer toys. Its head is often large compared to its body. And instead of its connection being stable, the head is connected to the body only by a spring or hook, so that any shake will make the head wobble.
This, despite being part of pop culture today, is not entirely new in its creation. For this, we will present a bit of the history of this specific type of figure. It is not exactly necessary to know this history, but it may be interesting to learn more about it.
A bit of Funko’s history
Religious figures and Buddha were produced in the 17th century in Asia. It is believed that the oldest reference to these dolls is in the 1842 tale by Nikolai Gogol, “The Overcoat.” During the 19th century, bobbleheads made of bisque were being produced in small quantities for the U.S. market.
During the 1920s and 1930s, many of these dolls consumed in the U.S. were produced in Germany. By the 1950s, there was a substantial increase in popularity with items made of plastic or bisque.
Increase in popularity
Approximately in the 1960s, Major League Baseball, a major baseball league in the U.S., entered this culture and produced a series of paper mache bobblehead dolls, and each team in the league received one. In the next decade, these were made of ceramic, and within a few years, this theme was copied by other sports.
The next increase occurred in the late 1990s. Although they were sought after, these dolls had almost no innovation. What finally motivated their innovation were cheaper manufacturing processes. Thus, instead of ceramic, they began to be made of plastic. This made it possible to produce these items in sufficient numbers to be collectible.
Funko Collectibles
Like other types of dolls and toys, bobbleheads have an impact on pop culture. These objects are targets of admiration and obsessive searches, especially the rarer ones, just like anything else that people like to collect. The difference here is their reach and level of influence, as millions of people collect these items.
Speaking based on my research, I can say that collecting these little dolls or the others already mentioned is not cheap at all. But as I once heard, “it’s not that things are expensive, it’s that your monetary capacity is low for such things.” Sad, but it is the pure reality.
Funko product line
Funko has created over 13,000 different products across dozens of toy lines. The first line was Wacky Wobblers, which is a line of bobbleheads representing various characters, mainly from pop culture.
In March 2018, the company announced its cereal brand, which includes mini-pop characters inside the box. This cereal was set to be launched in June of the same year. Other current production lines include Hikari, Legacy Collection, Fabrikations Mopeez, and Rock Candy.
In 2015, Funko announced a brand called Vinyl Sugar. But there are also other older lines, including Spastik Plastik, Blox, FunkoVision, Funko Force, and others.
Funko Pop!
Funko Pop! is a line of vinyl figures modeled in the super-deformed Japanese style. Typically, this line represents licensed characters from franchises like Marvel, Disney, Star Wars, Harry Potter, DC Comics, and others.
Several other products have been released using the Pop! brand and its style, such as plush toys, t-shirts, keychains (miniature versions of the original versions), and ceramic mugs.
And within this theme, there is Funko Rides, which features the figure in a vehicle. Additionally, Funko produces Pop! Deluxes, where a character is found sitting on external pieces like a throne and less frequently in a vehicle or some type of creature.
Another relevant content is the production of the Movie and Moment lines, which feature Pop! figures interacting with each other and displaying scenes that reproduce moments from movies, comic books, or other genres.
Conclusion
I personally do not own any of these products, which is unfortunate. But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy admiring them. They are lovely and pleasing to the eye; however, they come with prices that match their virtues.
Plush toys, vinyl, resin, or bobbleheads are all collectible items; they are not meant to be sold like water. This is the main reason for their prices, of course, there is the influence of their licenses and manufacturing costs, among others. But I can say that despite these dolls being popular, the hobby of collecting these toys is not for everyone.
This article has come to an end. But if you have any questions, suggestions, criticisms, or anything of the sort, just comment. And just to satisfy my curiosity, if anyone has a collection of these products, comment below. Thank you, dear reader, for reading this article up to here. And until next time.
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