The Internet is full of recommendations for tyro collectors in all fields. You begin with graphic art by young authors, then you get fed up with having this art framed, then you find your way to paintings that are in the style of some very vague kind of abstraction. When you have no walls left on which to hang paintings, your interest fluctuates between minimalistic sculptures that verge on interior décor and strange objects which it is not at all obvious how you exhibit in a home (if your house is not a white cube). So now you start building special spaces for rare designer objects and you adjust the lighting in your storage to protect the pigments from burning out – and you’re just a hair’s breadth from building a separate garage with display cases.

But what do you if you already have almost everything? At the end of the day, people develop resistance to retail therapy, and then the itch to fill their spaces with rare things inevitably strikes again whenever they examine their dominions. This is a problem that’s being worked upon daily by hypebeast culture and the anthropomorphic bears from Medicom Toy. Keep reading to throw a little light on the matter.

It all began when a certain Japanese, bored at his well-paid work for a company that made and supported computers, decided to go for a walk. The man’s name was Tatsuhiko Akashi. It was a non-working day, and thoughts about ordinary groundhog days in the office took Akashi to the neon-strident district of Shibuya. Swept along with the crowds of people, Akashi found his attention caught by the window of ZAAP!, which was packed with American toys – figures of Batman, Superman, Terminator, and characters from other Hollywood franchises were at this time extremely popular with Japanese teenagers. The next moment, Akashi was already standing outside the shop with bags stuffed with toys, an empty wallet, and an awareness that life without toys was just not life at all. Etymologically speaking, we can call his animated state after visiting this shop ‘enthusiasm’. Immediately after this, Akashi made the acquaintance of the founder of ZAAP! and offered him the position of CEO in his new start-up, which we now know as Medicom Toy.

Medicom Toy Co.’s first shop opened in 1996 next to Ebisu Station in Tokyo. Ironically, one of the trendiest souvenir hypebeasts found himself sharing the space occupied by his first shop with a typical fast-food joint selling tonkatsu – traditional Japanese fried meatballs made from pork. The story of this glamour icon, which began with the smell of boiling sesame-seed oil coming from next door, is not a bad motivational subject for the kind of life-affirming documentary found on streaming sites.

Despite never having been passionate about the universe of toys before encountering ZAAP!, Akashi had obviously had an innate interest in them maturing inside him. His considerable experience of production processes at his full-time job had made him well-versed in design; even before founding his own brand, he had tried teaching himself to create toy figures. One of his first experiments was the 30-centimetre-high figures Lupin the Third and Tetsujin 28, which were dedicated to his favourite anime series. Akashi was no crazy otaku, but that didn’t stop him collecting certain types of comics. One of them was the manga Tokyo Tribes, written and drawn by the artist Santa Inoue and published in the fashion magazine Boon from 1997 to 2005. Its subject was fictive events five years after a mutiny in the district of Shibuya. Captivated by Tokyo Tribes, Akashi got in touch with the author to suggest they do something together. Akashi’s initial idea was to create a series of figures of characters from the comic, but in the end the partnership developed into designing clothes for the character Nagashi. Given that this manga was popular and was even turned into a film in 2014, the unsold merch that Akashi cleverly proposed could have become a hit with geeks.

However, creativity reached its peak with the first figure officially released under the Medicom Toy brand. This toy’s body resembled the miniature human figures made by LEGO and Playmobil and consisted of nine parts (head, trunk, hips, two legs, two arms, and two palms) fastened to one another with hinge joints. ‘Nine’ also figured in the toy’s name, alluding to the root kyu – the Japanese hieroglyph that signifies this number. The second half of the name depicts the toy’s overall shape: angular, box-like, like a brick. Putting these elements together in our minds, we get the unexpected result ‘Kubrick’ – an allusion to the American director Stanley Kubrick. Now, what on earth is he doing here? As a gesture of respect for Kubrick’s works, Akashi developed a design alluding to the sci-fi thriller The Clockwork Orange. The body is made of semi-transparent dark plastic; the forehead has a red-orange eye referring to the terrible conditioning scene undergone by Alex, the main character; and the outline of the font used for the logo comes from the poster for the film.

From the moment of its first release in 2000 Medicom Toy used the Kubrick as a basis for creating new toys alluding to motifs from Japanese and American films, comics, and video games, including Berserk, Amelie, Nightmare Before Christmas, The Big Run, and, of course, Star Wars and works by the Marvel and DC franchises. As the collection of Kubricks grew, Akashi began adding references to popular phenomena or even ordinary everyday things: this is the origin of the figures based on characters from the Grand Theft Auto computer games and cartoon characters from breakfast-cereal packets. If only Tik Tok had existed then, there would have been a Kubrick for each new hashtag trending. The instruments for growing the target audience are identical; what is different is the media and the fields in which these media are put to use. What unites them is not just mass culture: Akashi has approved the development of Kubricks aimed at a more niche market – for instance, paying tribute to works by Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, as well as research by the Pantone Institute, and other contemporary artists. The threshold for inclusion in the Kubricks collection is, overall, unpretentious:

This is a management model that’s hardly typical of Japanese corporations, but it has served Medicom Toy well. The diverse interests of its employees and the trust placed in their competence is one of the reasons why Medicom Toy has managed to find an approach to the most diverse cultural phenomena: from gamer releases to abstract works of art by Pollock and from collaborations with mass brands to figures from the world of haute couture – another manifestation of the erosion of boundaries between mass and elite culture. This enables Medicom Toy to both communicate with fans and introduce something new to those who are not on trend, making this ‘something’ even more popular.

The wide range of Kubricks is not the only reason why people have queued for these plastic figures. Akashi had the idea of selling the toys using the Kinder Surprise effect: each full-size figure is placed carefully concealed in an unmarked blind box. Although Slavoj Žižek has described Kinder Surprises as a metaphor for emptiness wrapped in a foil wrapper, the impatience with which children unwrap the chocolate eggs is comparable to the mature joy generated by Medicom Toy’s ‘blind’ boxes. Given Akashi’s origins, however, a comparison with the mechanisms of the gacha-gacha toy-vending machine is more apt.

Vending machines like this first appeared in the US, but they sold chewing gum and small stationeries. As more and more kids crowded round these cupboards containing gum, their owners began filling them with toys. During World War II the president of an American retail company visited Japan to buy celluloid toys for his machines. And then in 1965 vending machines with gashapons were installed in every Japanese town. To get a toy in a plastic capsule, you had to feed the machine with a coin, turn a lever (it was the sound accompanying the pressing of the lever that made Japanese children call the machine a ‘gacha-gacha’), and put your hand out in time to catch the transparent sphere. Playing a single machine, you could put together an entire collection of figures: but, just like when you collect figures from Medicom Toy, many ‘turns of the lever’ would be required before you had the whole series; you would need to buy, sell, swap, and repeat the cycle many times before your shelves filled up with the collection of your dreams.

The blind deal is another instance of how smart marketing has no intention of solving your problems but can get you emotionally drugged for a time, using neurobiology and the psychology of human behaviour. To be in a state of indeterminacy is not the most enjoyable experience. The exception is when you’re spending time waiting for that bricky box. How did Kubricks manage to turn entertainment for children into an entirely legal way for adults to endlessly prolong the dopamine rush?

The turning point in the evolution of Medicom Toy was participation in the World Character Convention exhibition. The convention’s organizers placed an order with the brand for toys to be given to participants as souvenirs. The new figure was named BE@RBRICK and based on the body of the Kubrick, but with the Lego piece for the head replaced with the head of a bear. Everything was (too) simple: the figure was invented in 2000, when another iconic toy, the Teddy Bear, was celebrating its 100th anniversary. The batch of anthropomorphic bears was coloured white and had a blue-red @ sign on its belly.

Minimalist object design is often accompanied at a subconscious level by a feeling that a great deal of effort has gone (think of things by Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, or Carl Andre) into cutting out superfluous visual noise – but without any loss of what is essential, by finding a balance between understatement and meagreness. The design of the ‘Bearbrick’, however, was a solution forced upon Akashi by lack of time. Tens of thousands of toys needed to contain a uniqueness and novelty that would not be too radical or expensive to produce:

On 27 May 2001 BE@RBRICK took on flesh in the canonical form in which it is produced to this day. Bearbrick’s shape preserves its own distinctive design DNA while being modifiable to suit the print printed on the figure’s body. The construction of the basic ‘bear’ is a new variation of a basis for creative experiments, a kind of plastic blank canvas on which anyone at all can draw anything at all.

The adult grizzly bear can develop a speed of up to 60 kmh. After their debut at the exhibition, the ‘bearbricks’ accelerated fast. The first series of BE@RBRICKs was released that August, and the very first batch of collaborative figures came out just a month later in collaboration with HMV’s Tokyo chain of audiophile shops. In May 2002 the street-fashion brand Stussy gave its customers BE@RBRICKs of a dark blue colour with a logo elegantly written on the figure’s chest. Next to develop a passion for the vinyl canvas were artists: KAWS and Futura presented their own versions of ‘bears’ decorated with parts of recognizable works and patterns from their portfolios.

The negotiations regarding the design of BE@RBRICKs carrying prints by Banksy – another variant in Medicom Toy’s range – must have been interesting. This ‘drop’ involved extremely rare sculptures made from artificial stone and referring to familiar characters from Banksy’s works, such as The Flower Thrower and Elephant with Bomb.

BE@RBRICK’s roots in street fashion go back to the time when a Bearbrick figure was released in collaboration with Nike. After this, brands started using the plastic bears as the basis for souvenir merch to mark important dates in the histories of fashion houses, limited editions, and other newsworthy events. Sarah Andelman, the former owner of the now defunct multi-brand boutique Colette, was one of the first to integrate BE@RBRICK into the world of high fashion. In 2007 Colette celebrated its tenth anniversary, marking the occasion by displaying in its windows a white ‘bear’ – extremely rare today – covered with drawings by popular artists and designers, including KAWS, Devilrobots, Futura, Andre Tout Va Bien, Will Sweeney, and Michael Lau.

That same year, 2007, Medicom Toy cemented its place in the luxury segment. The Hong Kong branch of the auction house Bonhams teamed up with a cancer charity to hold a special event. Naturally, they needed trophies. And, naturally, it was decided to create BE@RBRICKs. Together with ten world fashion houses (Cartier, Chanel, Coach, Hogan, Hermes, Missoni, Moschino, Paul Smith, Salvatore Ferragamo, and Tod’s), the charity offered for auction 1000%-scale figures decorated with familiar prints, patterns, and brand logos. The event’s slogan ‘LOVE IS BIG, LOVE IS BEARBRICK’ was no exaggeration: over the three days on which the auction was held, feverish demand for the high-fashion toys grew to a record price of $10,000.

Medicom Toy let haute-couture houses into the playground of the streetwear community several years before the sensational collaboration between Louis Vuitton and Supreme. Now, alongside the phone covers, bracelets, key fobs, items of stationery, and other small accessories which designers add to their collaborations to make their limited-edition objects more accessible, the young target audience was offered another enticing option: BE@RBRICKs with the logos of their favourite but not always affordable brands. Admittedly, it seems hardly appropriate to talk about affordability in connection with some of these figures: on resale sites Chanel’s ‘bear’ is available for a lowest price of $30,000. This has the unimaginable effect that the price for Chanel’s cult 2.55 no longer seems a crime against humanity.

The atmosphere of deficit and limited-edition exclusivity has become a breeding ground for programmes for re-selling ‘Bearbricks’. For passionate collectors this is an instrument by which to add to their collections; for resellers it’s a profitable business. Active users of Avito (Russia’s equivalent of eBay) know that if you dive deep down among the trashy listings, there are complete collections of figures to be found – from chocolate eggs, happy miles, Funko Pop!, etc. There are bound to be Bearbricks there too – and probably, fake ones. The best place to catch the rarest examples of these bears is StockX, where a separate section for BE@RBRICKs opened in the 2010s.  Josh Luber, StockX ‘s founder, says the plastic bears are steady as the site’s third most asked-for category.

Especially sought-after are specimens created in collaboration with street artists: very few people can afford an original painting by, say, KAWS, but acquiring one of his vinyl figures is an entirely attainable objective. Brian Donnelly’s tendency to replicate his BFFs and Companions in all possible sizes and materials is rooted in the early BE@RBRICKs. Takashi Murakami, who filled his BE@RBRICKs with patterns featuring Mr Dob; Daniel Arsham and his ‘eroded’ version of the bear; Billionaire Boys Club, who placed an astronaut in the ‘bear’ – have all continued to have success creating their own art toys following collaborations with Medicom Toy.

BE@RBRICK now offers everything all at once:  it’s a stamp, a brand mark, a relay baton, an instrument, a stage, a mark of excellence, (insert your own metaphor here). For artists and brands, it’s a way of establishing themselves on the scene and announcing their presence a little louder; for collectors, a means of turning a nostalgic passion into a quest for the rarest and most luxurious trophies. At the same time, BE@RBRICK always remains a cult symbol in itself, regardless of the enormous landscape of culture through which it moves, capturing and bringing to light very different representatives of that culture.

In this connection, there could no better moment to answer the question asked at the beginning of this piece.