The PopCult Toybox

Dream BIG Friends 02The toy industry is changing. The major toy manufacturers seem hamstrung by the thought of innovation. Their idea of “bold new thinking” is coming up with concepts like Mattel’s new toy car, controlled by a live cricket. It’s always been up to smaller companies and independent designers to come up with simple, yet fresh ideas to entertain and capture the imaginations of children.

Now, with Kickstarter and other crowd-funding platforms, creative toy designers can reach out directly to the public and bypass the congested pipeline that they used to have to follow to get products into the hands of customers. In the coming year, The PopCult Toybox will bring you news of all kinds of great new fundraising campaigns for toys and games alongside our regular coverage of cool playthings for people of all ages in The PopCult Toybox.

And to get things started early, we’re going to tell you about Yuna. Yuna is the first Asian-American at the center of an original doll line. She dreams of the science it will take to one day get her to Mars, the art that makes her life more beautiful every day…and on occasion…all the tacos she can eat. Yuna has a cat named Kamata, a love of robot model kits and a desire to explore that is infectious. It’s clear that Yuna could never have been born in the “pink aisle.” A Kickstarter campaign hopes to bring her to the world.

Dream BIG Friends 04David Horvath and Sun Min of Uglydoll and Klim Kozinevich of Bigshot Toyworks have pooled their considerable expertise …and love…into Yuna, the first doll in a line called Dream BIG Friends. Over nearly a decade, these three friends worked to make Yuna a reality…and now they are offering a pre-order to help bring Yuna into your home and take the first steps in showing the world that there can be alternatives for a more positive imaginative play experience.

Yuna is a ten-inch tall plastic figure with cloth clothing and a pet cat. She has a rich, realistic backstory and offers little girls a real alternative to traditional fashion dolls.

This is a very cool project. In order to actually get a Yuna doll, you have to kick in at the $40 level, but there are cool rewards at lower levels if you only want to show your support.

However, there are only four days left in the campaign, and they are about a hundred thousand dollars short of their goal. If you’d like to see this project come to fruition, you’d better act fast. Check out the video above and follow the Widget Below.