Mirumi robotic bag charm raises $500k, challenges Labubu craze

Mirumi did what most collector gadgets only dream about: it turned a ¥765,000 Kickstarter goal into ¥79,419,523 in pledges, drawing 2,053 backers in 50 days. For Labubu fans watching the accessory market heat up, that kind of overperformance is the real signal. A bag charm that reacts to sound, touch, and even head pats is no longer a novelty side project. It is a serious challenger to the plush toy formula that made Labubu a status piece.

The robot comes from Tokyo-based Yukai Engineering, the company that says its mission is to “make the world a fun place to live.” Mirumi first surfaced at CES 2025 in Las Vegas as a clip-on mascot robot that would turn its head to “steal a glance” at nearby people. Yukai said the idea came out of its 2024 internal hackathon, Makathon, and the design leans hard into behavior, not utility. Mirumi is meant to feel curious, shy, and alive, the kind of accessory that responds when you tap it or when a bag shifts, which is exactly the sort of emotional trick that gets people to treat a charm like a companion.

That is where the Labubu comparison gets interesting. Labubu, created by Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung and sold by Pop Mart, became a global status symbol through blind-box packaging and celebrity-driven demand. Pop Mart’s 2024 global revenue was about 13.04 billion yuan, or about $1.8 billion, and Labubu alone accounted for about $423 million of that total. Labubu wins on collectability and chase. Mirumi wins on interaction. One is the thrill of not knowing which figure you’ll pull; the other is the thrill of having something on your bag that seems to notice you back.

Mirumi launched in Japan on April 23, 2026 at ¥19,800, tax included, in Pink, Ivory, and Gray. It went on sale through 12 Tsutaya Books and Tsutaya Electrics locations, with international plans that include Lane Crawford, Australia, China, the United States, Thailand, Germany, and a Harrods pop-up planned for July. The price puts Mirumi in a giftable zone for a premium novelty, but the Kickstarter numbers suggest something bigger: collectors are ready to pay for charms that do more than sit there.