SAMG Entertainment Starts Airing 'Twinkle Catch! Tinyping' in Japan... Local MD Sales

The protagonist ‘Hachuping’ of the film ‘Love’s Hachuping,’ which attracted 1.2 million viewers domestically and made new history for K-animation, has appeared in offline stores in Japan.

SAMG Entertainment (CEO Kim Suhoon, hereafter SAMG Entertainment) announced on the 23rd that the second season of its core IP series ‘Catch! Teenieping,’ titled ‘Sparkling Catch! Teenieping,’ has started airing on Japan’s ‘Kids Station’ channel and has begun selling MD products at local offline stores.

MD products such as dolls and toys from Catch! Teenieping Season 2, produced by SAMG Entertainment, have been on sale since the 17th at over 1,200 offline stores in Japan, including Toys "R" Us and JOSHIN.

A representative from the famous Japanese toy manufacturer Lirik stated, “The Korean representative animation series ‘Catch! Teenieping’ has cute characters and a broad storyline, so we judged it could succeed well in the Japanese market. Since the 17th, sales have started at major offline stores in Japan such as Toys "R" Us, Yodobashi Camera, and Harajuku Kiddy Land, and we plan to expand sales of Teenieping-related MD products to other major Japanese cities.”

This is the second time SAMG Entertainment’s core IP ‘Catch! Teenieping’ series has entered major Japanese channels following Season 1 in 2022. After its pre-release on Japan’s ‘Kids Station’ channel on October 5, it is scheduled to be broadcast and serviced sequentially on major terrestrial broadcasters in Japanese cities such as TOKYO MX and TV Osaka, as well as on YouTube, the global OTT ‘Amazon Prime,’ and native Japanese OTT platforms like U-NEXT and DMM.

SAMG Entertainment expects the entry of Teenieping MD products into Japan to be an important momentum for the company’s advancement as a global IP holder.

Song Miseon, head of SAMG Entertainment’s Japan Planning Team, said, “This entry into the Japanese MD market is part of SAMG Entertainment’s global IP expansion strategy. We were able to confidently enter the market after verifying the success potential through internal data. Currently, we are expanding character business alongside toy sales in Japan, and we are also exploring the possibility of additional MD launches for Season 3.”

Meanwhile, SAMG Entertainment’s global IP expansion strategy is currently achieving great results in China. Since airing the Teenieping series in China in 2021, SAMG Entertainment has launched new seasons annually, recording MD sales of 8.3 billion KRW in 2023 and approximately 10 billion KRW in the first half of this year in the Chinese market.

A SAMG Entertainment official stated, “Since the Teenieping series entered China in 2021, related sales in China have more than doubled every year. Japan is following a similar strategy, confirming local recognition of the Season 1 IP and launching Season 2 IP and MD simultaneously, so we expect it to serve as another cash cow in overseas markets.”