Target’s Gonna’ Start Selling Quees!?

Designer toy culture is somewhat of an underground movement. It’s a collection of all types of people, but mainly artistic hipster types. The ones who don’t like seeing their beloved hobby going the way of the mainstream. The ones who fear that one day they’ll see their favorite designer toy packaged in a McDonald’s Happy Meal (I’m talking to you, Kidrobot) or sold at giant retail stores.

Me, I could care less. Just as long as prices don’t go up, I’m all about being able to buy my favorite toys at more places than just my local indie record shop.

Dark Horse, who own the U.S. rights to Domo, the mascott for Japan’s NHK television, and Toy2R, who make the Quee figures, are part of Target’s “vinyl toy test initiative.”

Yes, Target just incorporated vinyl toys into a catchy corporate buzzword. Begin skepticism.

Apparently, this new initiative is a way to “introduce the ‘mystery box’ genre to a more casual consumer,” aka “un-hip people have no fucking idea what a blindboxed toy is, so we’re gonna’ try something different and hope it works.”

So, instead of being able to buy a blindboxed Domo Quee, you’ll be able to buy one that comes in a blister pack (above pic) or a double pack that comes with one figure that you can see, and one that’s blindboxed. If you buy the single packs, you can pick which color you want. If you buy the double pack, you only have the option of getting the brown Domo, but the included blind box contains one of 4 different “mystery colors” that weren’t included in the original Domo Quee blindboxed series that came out a while ago.

Wait… a blindboxed series of only 4 colorways? WTF? Why wouldn’t Target just stock the regular blindboxed Domo Quee series? Are they that afraid of something that’s such a staple in designer toy culture? And what about all the collectors who hunted down each colorway. They’re probably gonna’ be pissed when they find out that they coulda’ just waited and hand-picked their colors at Target.

All in all, selling urban toys at bigger stores has huge potential, but it seems like Target’s going about it in an odd way.