KPop Demon Hunters is far and away Netflix’s most popular movie of all time. It’s still #5 in Netflix’s top 10 movie list when it came out in early June. There hasn’t been anything quite like this in recent memory, Netflix-based or otherwise, and so, no doubt, you may have some kids asking for KPop Demon Hunters toys for Christmas.
Have you looked for them? Did you try to hunt some down on Black Friday? Well, then you may have discovered that you can’t find them anywhere. They’re not sold out, they quite literally do not exist for the most part. What’s going on?
It seems like a no-brainer that Netflix would license a bunch of KPop Demon Hunters merchandise and crank it out before this Christmas while the iron is blazing hot. But this is not how things work in the toy-making industry. There needs to be way, way more lead time for something like this, and the simple explanation is that no one saw KPop Demon Hunters coming.
This isn’t a Disney movie like say, Frozen, where Disney spooled up merch way ahead of time, as is tradition for a release like that, which will no doubt gather some measure of a large audience. The assumption was always that KPop Demon Hunters would come and go like almost every other Netflix original movie, and the service certainly did not expect to create global icons with the movie. So, midway through the summer, when you realize just how big this is going to get, getting the manufacturing process for all manner of toys moving is going to be slow, which is why you will see almost nothing hitting homes until next year.
Netflix did announce in October that it is partnering with both Mattel and Hasbro to bring a huge variety of KPop Demon Hunters products to market. The problem is, almost none of these ship until 2026, some quite late in 2026, and the only thing you’ll be able to give anyone is a printed-out piece of paper showing that you preordered them something.
Netflix has an official “KPop Demon Hunters holiday gift guide that, hilariously, shows you can buy almost nothing for the holiday:
- Funko Pops, which include Rumi, Mira, Zoey, Jinu and Derpy. You can pre-order, but they don’t ship until February 20, 2026, which is just an estimate.
- Mattel Dolls, which got the most press and had a pre-order countdown, but again, it was just a pre-order. The $150 three-pack is both sold out, but also does not ship until October 2026 anyway, which I suppose would be in time for next Christmas.
- Crochet Kit, and now we’re getting into weirder territory, where you can spend $90 on a kit that lets you make Derpy and Sussie from the movie. But this too does not ship until 2/28/26.
- Monopoly – I am going to consider this really the only “true” toy that’s being sold that might get here before Christmas. This is a KPop Demon Hunters edition of Monopoly Deal, the card game version of the board game. It’s supposed to ship in mid-December, meaning it may actually get here before Christmas. Good luck, but this one may not exactly make your children light up with excitement, however.
- Books? Well, there is an official Poster Book coming, but it’s not being released until December 30, so that’s no help.
- Clothes are not toys, but this is a bit of a split. There are a limited number of KPop Demon Hunters shirts available across a number of retailers like Amazon, Gap and Target. Some are sold out, some have specific sizes sold out, but at least these are not shipping next year, and some can, in fact, be here by Christmas. But again, these are not toys.
- Etsy – You may Google KPop Demon Hunters toys and get a lot of results, but those are all going to be third-party, unlicensed products from Etsy or other similar sites. Not to say they can’t be good, but they’re far from official, and you can’t bank on their quality.
So, explain the perils of manufacturing chains to your kids, I suppose. Next year will be a different story.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.