Hello everyone! It has been more than a week since the recent Christmas Toys & Collectibles Fair 2019 and a few surprises came my way during the event. One of which was the arrival of Watari Dreams, a Macau-based designer toy company led by Andy Kuok (who I met in person during the event) and Javier Jiménez. I had the great pleasure of asking a few questions and was just in total awe of everything I learned from them.
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Javier is based in Grenada, Spain and the creator of StickUp Monsters.
“In 2016, I was attending the Taipei Toy Festival for the first time. Andy was there as well, not as a seller but as a fan of toys in general. He saw my work and bought some toys and a month later, he got in touch asking if I would be interested in designing a character and toy for his company. That’s how Watari Kappa was born but at that point it was only one character and not a brand. Last year, we decided to expand the family of characters and design new products, so we created Watari Dreams as a brand to represent all of them.
Andy the Cat
I am based in Spain, took English Studies as a Degree, but Andy is from Macau. Andy is very conscious about Macau and it’s culture and he wanted our brand to represent Macau in different aspects. Whenever we get the chance, we include elements from Macau in our characters, stories and products. Our brand’s main theme is traveling and discovering new things, but Macau’s culture holds a special place in it.“
At this year’s Christmas ToyCon, Watari Dreams collaborated with different local artists to give their take on one of their recent characters which is the highlight of the event. These were auctioned and part of the proceeds went to Pearl S. Buck Charity Foundation.
According to Andy, this cat resembles himself as like him, he’s described as one who loves to eat, travel and share stories. He’s often mistaken as a magician because of how he’s dressed up. I chose this color variant as I prefer the pastels over the original shade which is the green and brown combination. The original variant was launched before August 2019 (online), the pastel one was released alongside the BTS 2019 White version (LE50) and the Christmas version was just November, last month.
“The one with the green hat is the original colorway out of Asia. When I designed the character, the hat was green. But, Andy told me that in China, to wear a green hat has a bad meaning… That your wife is cheating on you. So for China, we changed the green hat for a peach-colored one!” 😂
With the hat installed, the figure stands 6″ and has 3 points of articulation. It comes with a removable hat and a staff that you can only put on his right hand. There’s a lobster on the right and maybe a stick of squid balls on the left of his torso. He also has cape with matching tones to his pointy shoes. Love the details. Love the paint job. I LOVE CATS! 🐱
Thanks again for visiting my blog. ‘Til my next toy review. 😘🦄
From L-R: Andy, Me, Crystald and Damon
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