As a given franchise begins to become popular, the company that owns the rights to it will often decide to create a variety of goods based on the series in an attempt to generate even more profit. Although these goods can be manufactured by the company that owns the rights to a series, merchandising rights can also be sold to other manufacturers, creating even more products for fans to choose from. These items are often referred to as merchandise and can take a wide range of different forms to help appeal to a bigger audience. Oftentimes, merchandise is based on specific characters or other unique aspects of a series. While there is nearly a limitless variety of merchandise available for fans to choose from, some types of merchandise are easier to find than others. A few of the most common types of merchandise include apparel, plushies, keychains, and plastic models.
Apparel
Although the term “apparel” can simply refer to clothing, in the world of merchandise, it is often used to describe wearable items with designs based on a given series. These accessories and articles of clothing can range wildly in design and style. T-shirts are one of the most popular and widely available kinds of apparel, likely due to how easily they can be manufactured. Some manufacturers will opt to make a printed graphic tee while others have the design for a shirt woven into the fabric itself. Their lighter fabric and lower production cost also often make prices lower on the customer’s end as well, making them great for fans on a budget.
Hoodies are another common form of apparel, but are often more expensive, as they require much more material to produce. While hoodies with graphic designs like t-shirts can still be found, hoodies inspired by the outfits of popular characters from a given series are also quite popular. These types of hoodies are enjoyed by cosplayers, as they can be used in cosplays of that specific character. That said, some apparel is also made specifically for cosplay and includes items like completely pre-made costumes and unique accessories that would be difficult to make by hand. No matter what a fan looks for, they can rest assured that they can find a stylish piece of apparel that fits their personal tastes and budget.
“Attack on Titan Season 2 Titans Adult T-Shirt” by Ripple Junction
Plushies
Plushies are an incredibly popular form of merchandise that often recreates popular characters as cute, huggable dolls, pillows, or charms. Depending on the manufacturer, plushies can have a variety of different uses as well. Like apparel, plushies come in many different shapes and sizes, ranging from those small enough to fit onto a keychain to those well over a foot tall. Smaller plushies can act as charms that can be attached to one’s phone or bag, while larger plushies are better used as pillows or cuddle toys. Plushies that are medium-sized could be used decorations as well, but make for wonderful dolls as well. Either way, the main characteristic that all plushies share is that they are filled with soft materials (often polyester) that give them a soft, squishy feel. Some manufacturers also make groups of plushies based on characters from the same series and release them as collections. This allows fans to pick individual plushies of their favorite characters while true collectors can simply purchase the whole set at once.
“Mega Jumbo Lying Down Plush Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Inosuke Hashibira” by Sega
Keychains
Keychains are an incredibly common form of merchandise that are perfect for fans on a budget, as they are often small, affordable, and come in an incredible variety to choose from. Most keychain merchandise is made with either clear acrylic or rubber, though some metal keychains are produced as well. When keychains are made, they often portray characters of a series in a variety of different styles, outfits, and themes. Like some plushies, keychains are also produced in collections (and sometimes box sets) that allow fans to collect a variety of keychains of a group of popular characters from a series. Some keychain collections simply use official designs straight from the series they are based on, though some collections use themes that show unique artwork, like the example shown above. Seasonal themes are used quite often, as they show characters in new, previously unseen outfits that can also match the current season.
“My Hero Academia Curry Acrylic Keychain Collection” by Movic
Plastic Models
Plastic Models are incredibly popular items among the more devoid fans of mecha series. These kits usually come completely unassembled, requiring the customer to build their favorite mechs piece by piece. Although some may find plastic models to be a bit too difficult to deal with, those that collect these models thoroughly enjoy the sense of accomplishment they feel once it is finished. Once completed, these models can act like fully articulated figures, allowing its owner to pose them however they see fit. These kits also often include a variety of accessories based on whatever mech is included in the kit, which also may require assembly of their own.
Gunpla (Gundam plastic models) are a popular brand of plastic models that are almost entirely exclusive to the Gundam series. These kits make up a significant portion of the plastic models available for fans to choose from and even have their own ranking system. Today, Gunpla are usually offered as either High Grade, High Grade Universal Century, Real Grade, Master Grade, Perfect Grade. High Grade models are generally easier to build and cheaper to buy, though as a model gets closer to Perfect Grade, the more difficult and expensive they are.
“Moderoid Hades Project Zeorymer Great Zeorymer” by Good Smile Company
Table of Contents
Konosuba is a popular comedy isekai (other world) light novel series that received an anime adaptation in the Winter 2016 anime season and a second season a year later. Since the airing of the anime series, a wide range of merchandise has been released. These products include fig...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Love Live! is a super popular school idol anime which first aired in Winter 2013 and has continued to release more seasons due to its huge popularity. As the main characters that appear in the series are beautiful young girls a wide range of character-based merchandise such as fi...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
During the Winter 2013 anime season, Love Live! aired and gained massive popularity, leading to even more seasons being produced. The Love Live! franchise is very large, with many of the fans enjoying the loveable and cute female characters that appear within the series. Due to t...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
The Monster Hunter series is an incredibly popular video game franchise that fans love for its intricate customization systems, multiple playstyles, and engaging fights with a variety of interesting and diverse monsters. Due to the popularity of the series, an impressive amount o...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Monster Hunter is an iconic Japanese RPG series that has players control an incredibly skilled hunter that can take down giant monsters that are many times larger and stronger than they are. Many fans of the series love it for its incredible amount of different playstyles and cus...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Monster Hunter is an incredibly popular Japanese RPG series that has players fight intense battles with huge monsters that dwarf them in both size and strength. The various different types of weapons and armor available to the player allows for an incredible amount of customizati...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
My Hero Academia is in an incredibly popular superhero series that began as a manga created by Kohei Horikoshi that was first published in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2014. Two years later, the first season of the anime adaptation was announced, which brought in a whole new wave of fan...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
My Hero Academia is a popular manga and anime series that first began as a manga written and illustrated by Kohei Horikoshi that was published in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2014. The manga series is still being published today and has spawned an anime adaptation spanning several seaso...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
My Hero Academia is a popular manga series written by Kohei Horikoshi published in Weekly Shonen Jump and has found a great amount of success among many shonen fans around the world. The anime production by studio Bones has found a similar amount of success, with a current total ...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
My Hero Academia is currently one of the most spectacular and popular shonen series released in recent years. Released in 2014 and adapted for anime in 2016, the success of this series was virtually instantaneous. Its impressive graphic designs, music, and action scenes have capt...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
The thrilling superhero manga My Hero Academia written by Kohei Horikoshi has captivated many fans of both manga and anime all over the world in recent years. The manga began as a publication in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2014 and quickly gained fans over the following years. The anim...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
The hit manga and anime series My Hero Academia began as a humble manga written by Kohei Horikoshi that was published in Weekly Shonen Jump, but has exploded in popularity in recent years. Many of its lovable characters and emotional moments have touched the hearts of many fans a...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
My Hero Academia is an ongoing manga series that is written and illustrated by Kohei Horikoshi and published in Weekly Shonen Jump. Since its debut in 2014, it has skyrocketed in popularity all over the globe with its appealing characters and its interesting story. After the succ...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
The popular manga series My Hero Academia has swept the anime and manga community around the world due to its diverse and lovable cast of characters, interesting take on a superhero society, and engaging action scenes. Many fans today continue to enjoy the ongoing series to this ...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
The popular manga and anime series My Hero Academia began as a manga series written and illustrated by Kohei Horikoshi and published in Weekly Shonen Jump. In the spring of 2016, the first season of the anime adaptation of the series was aired to incredible reception, causing the...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
My Hero Academia is an incredibly popular manga and anime series that was originally written and illustrated by Kohei Horikoshi. After the manga had found a great amount of success amongst its readers, an anime adaptation produced by studio Bones was announced and began airing in...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
The incredibly popular manga and anime series My Hero Academia began as a manga series that was originally written and illustrated by Kohei Horikoshi and published in Weekly Shonen Jump. After the manga gained a significant amount of popularity, an anime adaptation led by studio ...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
One Piece, a superstar in the manga world, is a Japanese manga series created by illustrious manga author Eiichiro Oda. First appearing in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in 1997, One Piece has shown no signs of slowing down. With 95 tankobon volumes released as of March 2...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Starting out as a superhero story webcomic, One Punch Man was first published by the manga artist One in 2009. After going viral and quickly amassing an incredible 7.9 million views, One Punch Man was re-illustrated by Yusuke Murata — of Eyeshield 21 fame — and digitally publishe...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
One Punch Man is a highly successful webcomic turned manga phenomenon that was started by an artist only known by their pen name, ‘One’, in 2009. By 2012, the viral webcomic had seen up to 8 million views and was remade into a digital manga for Shueisha’s Tonari no Young Jump web...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
One Punch Man, a Japanese webcomic created by the author ONE, began in 2009 as a somewhat crude parody of the famous Shonen Jump style manga. The name and main character are also parodies of the extremely popular Japanese children's animation, Anpanman. Saitama is the protago...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Overwatch is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game that was first released in May 2016. The game gained an incredible amount of popularity, leading to a large number of players and fans. The series is particularly known for its interesting characters, which led to many di...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Overwatch is a popular multiplayer first-person shooter game that was originally released in May 2016. In the wake of its release, Overwatch generated a great number of players and fans around the world. Due to the incredible popularity of the series, a wide range of merchandise ...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Overwatch is a popular multiplayer first-person shooter that was first released in May 2016 by Blizzard Entertainment. Since its original release, it has generated a large fan base around the world and an equally large amount of merchandise that comes in a variety of forms. Thing...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Persona 5 is the sixth installment in the Persona video game series, which is developed by P-Studio (a team from Atlus) and features a combination of RPG gameplay with elements of a social simulator mixed into it, which makes it unique among other popular RPGs. It has received a ...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Persona 5 is the sixth installment of the Persona video game series, itself a part of the Megami Tensei franchise. It is often described as a social-stimulation, role-playing game. Widely considered to be among the greatest role-playing games of all time, it has been praised inte...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Pokemon, a worldwide phenomenon, was founded in 1995 by Satoshi Tajiri and has had a lot of different merchandise released ever since the television series first aired in 1997. Most of the merchandise features the Pokémon and characters in plushies, Amiibo toys, illustrations on ...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
The Pokemon franchise has one of the most expansive and successful lines of merchandise in all of anime, manga, and video games. The hundreds of different Pokémon from the video games have led to fans scrambling for all kinds of t-shirts, figures, amiibo, and, of course, plushies...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Pokemon is one of the most recognizable and popular franchises around, so it should be no surprise that several amiibo recreating some of the more iconic creatures have been created. Amiibo is Nintendo’s line of figures that have an NFC chip that allows them to communicate with v...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Pokemon is one of the most popular and successful video game and anime franchises in both Japan and around the world. To match its incredible popularity, an equally extensive amount of merchandise based on the hundreds of unique Pokémon from the games is made, the most common of ...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Sailor Moon is one of the most popular anime series of the 1990s and took the world by storm by spawning a global craze for the Maho Shojo (Magical Girl) genre. The anime has captured the hearts of young girls and women around the world even 20 years after the series was released...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Sailor Moon, is a Magical Girl shoujo manga and anime series that was popular in the 90’s. Created by Nakao Takeuchi herself, the series follows a middle school student named Usagi Tsukino and her adventures as Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon, along with the other Sailor Scouts, Mercury...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Sailor Moon is a popular anime and manga series from the 90s that became a staple in the Magical Girl genre. The popularity of the series has extended far beyond Japan, creating a thriving community around the world that is still alive today. Though the manga series ended in the ...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
The selection of Seven Deadly Sins merchandise is reasonably wide, ranging across all basic categories such as clothing, posters, accessories, keychains, pillows, blankets and even special edition sets. Although there may not be as much selection when compared to more mainstream ...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
The amiibo line of Nintendo figures was first launched with the fourth entry in the Super Smash Bros series. A special feature of the amiibo is the NFC chip found in each figure, which allows it to communicate with various Nintendo games to unlock a number of different features d...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Soul Eater is a manga series that is published by Square Enix and created by Atsushi Ohkubo. It was serialized in 2004 and ran until 2013. An anime adaptation consisting of 51 episodes ran between 2008 and 2009 and had an original story that diverged from the original manga at a ...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Studio Ghibli, a worldwide popular animation film studio, was founded in June 1985 by Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki, Isao Takahata, and Yasuyoshi Tokuma. The studio has had many different kinds of merchandise related to its feature films released. Many of them feature the films’ ...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Totoro merchandise is very popular among fans of Studio Ghibli and all of their hit films. The merchandise features Totoro designed on everyday used items such as bags, towels, and even mugs. The designs are unique and are inspired by key moments from the film, making them highly...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Totoro plushies are highly sought after by fans of the Studio Ghibli film My Neighbor Totoro, which has garnered worldwide popularity ever since it was originally released in 1988. The plushies feature the mascot character in various kinds of materials, some of which are furry an...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Super Mario is one of the most popular, successful, and recognizable video game and media franchises in the entire world. Ever since the release of Super Mario Bros. in 1985, the series has exploded in terms of popularity, revitalizing the home video game market and creating an i...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
The Super Mario franchise is one of the most popular and widespread video game franchises in the world, as such, there are a countless number of fans of the games and its characters, as well as a tremendous amount of merchandise based on the series. There are hundreds of differen...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Super Mario is a video game franchise that is easily recognized all around the world because of how popular each of its games is. Since there are so many fans of the Super Mario games, an equally large amount of merchandise based on its iconic characters are made by many differen...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Sword Art Online began as a web light novel released by the creator, Reki Kawahara, on his website in 2002. Since the anime series adaptation was released in 2012, the demand for Sword Art Online merchandise has grown greatly. In 2018, Sword Art Online: Alicization premiered, and...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Sword Art Online is an anime series that has grown hugely in popularity since it was first aired in 2012. Spin-offs, movies, and even games have also been created based on the original web light novel series published in 2002. The main series centers around characters trapped in ...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
The success of the manga series Tokyo Ghoul was nearly instantaneous ever since its release in 2011. Later in 2014, the anime adaptation only highlighted the popularity of the series around the world. As the number of Tokyo Ghoul fans grew, a sequel manga series by the original a...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Yu-Gi-Oh is one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time and has sparked numerous spin-off shows since the initial manga series by Kazuki Takahashi that ran in 1996 and anime series that aired in both 1998 and 2000 respectively. Because of this, a wealth of merchandis...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Collectible figure manufacturer Funko Pop has a long history of transforming iconic characters from film, TV, books, games, and anime into their classic chibi, black button-eyed figures. Funko Pops are so popular because they offer fans the chance to decorate their spaces with an...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
Yuri!!! on Ice instantly conquered the hearts of thousands of fans since its first release in 2016. Its elaborate and smooth choreographies and its beautiful music made a huge impact and received many positive comments. Having these choreographies being coordinated by a professio...
Last updated at, 12 Jan 2021
