Sonny Angels are the new trendy item to have. These little (half-) naked plastic babies were inspired by the Kewpie comics for the design. They come in different series with hats resembling fruits, animals, flowers, or half-clothed with special series like the Chinese New Year, Seoul Café, or Winter edition. Some Sonny Angels are also made as accessories, such as Hippers, which you can attach to your phone or computer (Muniz, 2024).
Commercialization and Overconsumption
From the start, Toru Soeya, the man behind the Sonny Angels, knew whom to target: stressed young Japanese women during the country's mild recession of 2004 (Surbano, 2024). The intention behind the creation and the commercialization opposes the notion that “money can’t buy happiness”. Indeed, these cute, slightly chubby babies were supposed to give joy, relief, and comfort to the purchaser just by standing there and being adorable.
This cute item finally became a trend after spending twenty years building a stable consumer pool. However, overnight, Sonny Angels began to be everywhere. Social media was flooded with videos of users unboxing their new purchases. Celebrities began to be seen with a Sonny Angel on their phone or in their rooms. Young people were tearing down the stores to purchase their tenth, twentieth, or first Sonny Angels. In addition to the cuteness and the promises behind this trinket, the craze behind Sonny Angels was the gambling aspect of the purchase, where all Sony Angels are sealed, and their look is to be discovered when only opening the bag. The dopamine rush, the randomness, and the trend were tailor-made for a generation that constantly consumes social media like TikTok or Instagram (Abad-Santos, 2024)
An international shortage of these Sonny Angels coincidentally followed this overall turmoil. Unlike the Penny Babies dolls, these new trinket dolls highlight the targeted marketing and the overconsumption that mark our era.