That doll you call a Labubu is not named Labubu on the box

I sat it on the window bench of a hotel room and took one photo. Post that and everyone calls it a Labubu — but the word “Labubu” does not appear in this doll’s official product name at all. Looking into it, the naming turns out to be far more tangled than I expected.

The official name is “THE MONSTERS – ANGEL IN CLOUDS”

On POP MART’s own product page it is listed as “THE MONSTERS – ANGEL IN CLOUDS Vinyl Face Doll.” No character name. Only the series name, THE MONSTERS.

• Official size: 33 × 25 × 58 cm
• Materials: polyester / PVC / ABS shell, mostly polyester stuffing
• Age rating: 15 and over

In the wild, though, the same item gets sold as “Labubu” by some sellers and “Zimomo” by others — resale listings sometimes carry both names at once. Buyers being confused is the expected outcome when the manufacturer names no character to begin with.

Tell them apart by the teeth and the tail

The identifying marks across THE MONSTERS characters are actually quite clear.

• Labubu — defined by nine sharp teeth in a mischievous grin. Female
• Zimomo — the leader of The Monsters, with a spiked tail. Labubu has no tail

Apply that to the photo. Under the rabbit-eared hood are large round eyes and a small, all but closed mouth. Not a single tooth is visible. Whatever else it is, this is not the face of the nine-toothed, grinning Labubu.

Which means that when someone says “I bought a Labubu,” strictly speaking they often have not — least of all with a product like ANGEL IN CLOUDS that names no character. Fine to ignore if you do not care. It matters on the resale market, where the tooth count and the presence of a tail are among the few things you can actually verify from a listing photo.

“A Chinese character” gets the order wrong

The origin of THE MONSTERS is routinely misstated. The accurate sequence:

• The creator is Kasing Lung, an illustrator born in 1972 in Hong Kong
• The character debuted in 2015; the early figures were produced by Hong Kong’s How2Work
• His picture-book series THE MONSTERS draws on the Nordic folklore and mythology he grew up with
• China’s POP MART began collaborating in 2019. The global craze came after that

A Hong Kong artist built the character out of Nordic folklore, and POP MART has been distributing it since 2019 — that is the correct order. Compressing it to “a Chinese character” erases four years and the Nordic source entirely.

On travelling with 58 centimetres

The official height is 58 cm. Carryable, but it will take a serious bite out of a suitcase. Worth knowing before you commit to bringing one.

In exchange, a hotel window bench is an unusually good place to photograph it. Three reasons:

• Daylight comes in from the side, so the face is not shadowed the way it is under ceiling lights alone
• The bench works as a plinth. On the floor you shoot down at it; at window height its eyeline sits naturally
• The city lands in the background — Tokyo Tower here, which says where the photo was taken at a glance

The bench is deep enough that the doll stays upright once placed. Somewhere that gives you height, light and a background all at once is rarer on a trip than it sounds.

In short

• The official name is “THE MONSTERS – ANGEL IN CLOUDS.” No character is named by the maker
• The tells: Labubu = nine sharp teeth; Zimomo = a spiked tail
• The doll in this photo shows no teeth. It is not a Labubu face
• Origins: Kasing Lung of Hong Kong plus Nordic folklore, debut 2015; POP MART from 2019
• Official height 58 cm — and a window bench is one of the few spots offering height, light and background together

Honestly, the name and the provenance turned out to be more interesting than the doll. Check the teeth and the tail before you buy and you will at least avoid the “this is not what I thought it was” moment.