Plush toys

When a character leaves the screen and becomes a plush toy

A plush toy does something very different with a familiar design than a poster or a T-shirt. The character gains shape, volume and a softer personality, and the design has to work from several angles instead of as a print on a flat surface. That’s why game characters with distinctive silhouettes often make such great plush toys.

Pokémon and Super Mario in soft form

Pokémon and Super Mario have characters with very different shapes and colours, from Pikachu and Squirtle to Mario, Yoshi and Bowser. Animal Crossing brings a calmer island feel, with characters that take on their own look as plush toys.

If you want to explore these worlds beyond plushies, both Pokémon and Super Mario have clothes, posters, kitchen products and other merch alongside the plush toys.

Animal Crossing and other soft game characters

Animal Crossing gives plush toys a calmer feel, with characters from island life. Nintendo, anime and film characters bring other looks, from rounded shapes to bright colours. The soft format makes the characters recognisable in a new way.

That’s what makes plush toys interesting: very different worlds are interpreted in the same physical format, but the characters keep enough of their shapes and colours to remain easy to recognise.

One favourite character or several from the same world

Worlds with large casts make it possible to make your character choices part of the collection. Pokémon and Super Mario have several characters that look very different, even though they come from the same world. Minecraft does something similar with creatures and blocky characters, while Pusheen more often varies the theme around one very recognisable cat.

That gives you two quite different ways to choose plush toys: find one particular favourite, or have several characters from the same world stand together.

Plush toy or collectible figure?

It comes down to how you want to have the character around you. A plush toy is soft and tactile. Collectible figures put more emphasis on poses, details and how the figure looks on a shelf or desk. Both make the character tangible, but the experience is very different.

The rest of toys and collectibles takes things further with puzzles, games, cards and other products where the activity or the collection takes centre stage.