What Is tokidoki? The Brand, the Characters and What Collectors Actually Buy

You keep seeing the little unicorns with the heart-and-crossbones logo. On a lunchbox, on a blind box at a toy shop, on a Hello Kitty collab, and now on a foil card from KAYOU. So what is tokidoki, actually, and why does the same cute-but-edgy style turn up in so many places?

This guide is the plain answer: who started tokidoki, what the art style is, who the characters are, which collaborations mattered, and what collectors in Australia are really buying. For figure-by-figure or card-by-card detail, we link to the deeper guides along the way.

Quick Answer

tokidoki is a Los Angeles-based art and lifestyle brand founded in 2005 by Italian artist Simone Legno, with business partners Pooneh Mohajer and Ivan Arnold, whose name is the Japanese word for "sometimes". It is best known for a cast of more than 1,000 original characters, led by the Unicorno unicorns, which appear on vinyl blind-box figures, plush, apparel, collaborations with brands like Hello Kitty and Marvel, and since 2025 on the KAYOU Wonder Voyage collectible card series.

Where tokidoki Came From

Simone Legno is an Italian artist, born in Rome, whose characters mix the Japanese pop culture he loves with Italian and American influences. The name he picked for them, 時々 (tokidoki), is the Japanese word for "sometimes".

In 2005 tokidoki became a company. Legno co-founded it in Los Angeles with Pooneh Mohajer and Ivan Arnold. The company is still based in Los Angeles today, with Arnold as CEO, Legno as chief creative officer, and Mohajer as chief operating officer. The brand marked its 20th anniversary at New York Comic Con in October 2025, with Legno signing anniversary posters.

So the short version for anyone who asks "is tokidoki Japanese?": no. It is an American company with an Italian founder and a Japanese name, and the art borrows freely from all three.

The tokidoki Art Style

If you have seen one tokidoki character you can usually spot the rest. The style blends Japanese kawaii with Italian and American street and pop influences, and the brand describes it as having both sides at once: "there is dark and light, there is the edgy, there is the cute". That is why the logo is a heart sitting over crossbones rather than a plain heart.

One small tell that collectors love: Legno draws his female characters with a single eyelash, and his male characters with none. That consistency is what lets a skeleton, a cactus-wearing kid, a mafia cow and a unicorn sit on the same shelf and still look like one family.

The tokidoki Characters

tokidoki claims more than 1,000 characters, grouped into families with a small piece of lore each. These are the ones you will actually run into.

Unicorno

The Unicornos are the face of the brand. In the tokidoki story, they were ordinary ponies who wandered through a magic waterfall and became unicorns, now living between a hidden magical kingdom and our world. Stellina was the first, and she led Unicorno Series 1 when it launched on 10 April 2011 as a set of ten figures with two chasers, Prima Donna and Fumo.

The numbered series have since reached Series 12 (31 October 2023), with dozens of themed sets alongside them. For the full series list and how chasers and cases work, read our tokidoki Unicorno blind box guide for Australia.

Mermicorno

Mermicornos are Unicornos that rode a shooting star into a magical sea and came out half unicorn, half fish. Sirena was the first Mermicorno, debuting alongside Unicorno Series 4 at San Diego Comic-Con in 2015, and the line has had its own series since. Think of it as the ocean branch of the same family.

Moofia

The Moofia is a dairy-themed gang led by Mozzarella. The joke in the lore is that they were "assembled to extort milk from the lunchboxes of schoolyard bullies". First unveiled on 15 April 2007, the Moofia are among the oldest characters still in rotation, and Mozzarella and Strawberry Milk both show up on the KAYOU cards.

Cactus Friends and SANDy

The Cactus Friends are children who wear cactus suits as armour against a cold world. SANDy is the lead Cactus Friend and one of the earliest tokidoki characters of all, first unveiled on 22 August 2005 and featured in the Spring 2006 "Original Print". A SANDy plush followed in July 2008.

The idea has spread into Cactus Pups, Cactus Kitties, Cactus Pets (a ten-design blind box from November 2016 with a fish-in-a-bowl chaser called Bubbles) and Cactus Bunnies. If you see a tokidoki figure with spikes, it is one of these.

Donutella

Donutella comes from a sugar-powered planet. When she found Earth's sweets she founded a "sweet colony" here, and the Donutella line has run to three figure series. Her pink-frosted-donut head is one of the most recognisable shapes in the brand, and she is an official character in KAYOU Wonder Voyage Series 1 alongside Stellina and SANDy.

'Til Death Do Us Part

This is the skeleton side of tokidoki, and it is where the "dark" half of the logo lives. Adios spent 500 years in Hell, was kicked out for being too good-natured, and now lives on Earth with his girlfriend Ciao Ciao and their cat Skeletrino. The line's tagline is that one thing lasts beyond life: love. Adios and Ciao Ciao both appear in the Wonder Voyage card series.

Lucky Cats

Lucky Cats is a set of nine fortune-themed cats, each tied to a wish such as love, prosperity, protection or wisdom, sold as a blind box with a chaser called Baller Kitty. It is a good entry family if you like maneki-neko designs.

Everyone else

Punkstar, according to the brand's character page, is a crew of kids who turned an abandoned karaoke-machine factory into a hangout for music, art and skating. Tokimondo is a monster and mecha spin on the cast, with Megalocorno among its eight figures. You will also meet Latte, Palette, Lumi, Mooka and other individual Unicornos with fan followings of their own.

The Collaborations

Collaborations are how most people first meet tokidoki without realising it. The years below are the ones tokidoki lists on its own collab page.

• Hello Kitty and Sanrio. The longest-running one. tokidoki x Hello Kitty started in 2006 and is still going, and the wider Sanrio relationship (including Gudetama) dates from 2013. Today there are tokidoki x Hello Kitty and Friends blind boxes such as Pumpkin Spice, Sweet Pink Carousel, Butterfly Garden, Fast Food and Galactic Cats, with Kuromi, My Melody, Cinnamoroll and Pompompurin drawn in tokidoki's style.
• LeSportsac. The bag collab launched in 2006, one year after the company was founded, and returned from 2014 onward.
• Marvel. Two runs, 2009 to 2012 and 2016 to 2018, with Marvel heroes drawn as tokidoki characters.
• Barbie. The 2010 tokidoki Barbie was the first Barbie with a fully tattooed arm. A second came in 2015.
• Arcane: League of Legends. The Riot Games collab produced a Unicorno blind box series with Vi, Jinx, Ekko, Caitlyn and the rest of the Arcane cast, on sale by October 2024.
• Others. Karl Lagerfeld (2010 onward), Onitsuka Tiger, Peanuts, MLB, Overwatch and Be@rbrick are all on the list, and tokidoki designed Luce, the mascot for the 2025 Jubilee in Rome.

What tokidoki Collectors Actually Buy

tokidoki sells apparel and accessories too, but the collecting side comes down to four things.

Vinyl blind boxes. This is the core of the hobby. Each sealed box holds one figure in a silver foil bag, and you do not know which design you have until you open it. Most Unicorno sets have nine to twelve designs plus one chaser, the rarest figure in the set, and tokidoki prints a chaser ratio of 1 in 48 on its standard Unicorno product pages. A standard case is 8 boxes, and tokidoki's own product pages say a case does not promise a full set or a chaser. Figures are typically about 70 mm tall, with smaller Baby, Twinsies and Capsule Cuties formats and a translucent Unicorno Lite range at a 1 in 32 chaser ratio.

Special Editions and Limited Editions. These are named single figures sold openly, with no blind element, such as the Twinsies Gamer and Streamer pair or the Series 12 Bambu BB Limited Edition. Collectors buy them when they want a specific character without gambling on a box.

Plush. Soft versions of the same cast, from the early SANDy and Mozzarella plush of 2008 through to today's plush blind boxes. Our tokidoki figures and plush collection page covers what we carry.

KAYOU Wonder Voyage collectible cards. In September 2025 KAYOU, the Chinese manufacturer behind the KAYOU Naruto and My Little Pony collectible card lines, released the tokidoki Wonder Voyage Collectible Cards Roaming Edition. Series 1 has 157 card types across 12 rarity tiers, with 8 cards per pack, and every card was designed by Simone Legno. A Series 2 follows in September 2026 with 161 cards. To be clear: these are collectible cards, not a game. There are no rules, no decks and nothing to play. You open packs for the art, the foil and the rarer tiers. Start with our KAYOU tokidoki Wonder Voyage cards guide, then the Wonder Voyage rarity guide once you have opened a pack and want to know what the letters mean.

Everything tokidoki we stock, figures and cards, sits on our tokidoki hub.

Why tokidoki Appeals to Collectors

Most collectible lines ride on a story. Naruto, My Little Pony and Pokemon all ask you to know the show before the cards or figures mean anything. tokidoki is different: it is an art brand first. There is a light dusting of lore for each family, but nobody expects you to have read anything. You can pick up a Unicorno because you like the colour and be exactly as much of a fan as someone who has collected since Series 1.

That makes it an easy gift and an easy gateway. Parents buy blind boxes for kids, adults buy them for their desks, and the Hello Kitty and Arcane crossovers pull in people who would never have searched for the brand. The cute-and-dark balance keeps it from feeling babyish, and one artist behind every figure and card gives it a consistency licensed lines rarely manage.

Why Is It Written "tokidoki" in Lowercase?

Because the brand writes it that way, and so do we. On the products, the logo and tokidoki's own site it is always lowercase, even at the start of a sentence. You will see it capitalised on retail sites and in headlines, but that is the retailer's choice, not the brand's.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does tokidoki mean?

tokidoki is the Japanese word 時々, which means "sometimes". It is the name Italian artist Simone Legno gave his characters, and it became the company name when the business was founded in 2005.

Who founded tokidoki?

Italian artist Simone Legno, born in Rome, founded tokidoki in Los Angeles in 2005 together with Pooneh Mohajer and Ivan Arnold. Legno is the company's chief creative officer, and every card in the KAYOU Wonder Voyage series carries his artwork.

Is tokidoki Japanese?

No. tokidoki is an American company based in Los Angeles with an Italian founder. The Japanese name and the kawaii influence come from Legno's love of Japanese pop culture, but it is not a Japanese brand.

What is a Unicorno?

A Unicorno is tokidoki's signature character: a pony that walked through a magic waterfall and became a unicorn. Stellina was the first Unicorno, and the figures have been sold as blind boxes since Series 1 in April 2011. Genuine figures carry the tokidoki logo on the chest, two small pegasus wings at the neck, and come sealed in a silver foil bag inside the box.

Is tokidoki worth collecting?

Collect it because you like the art, not as an investment. Chasers and retired series are harder to find and are chased on the second-hand market, but a blind box is random and tokidoki does not promise a chaser even in a full case. If you want a specific figure, a Special Edition or a single from a reputable seller is the safer route.

Are the tokidoki cards a game?

No. Wonder Voyage is a collectible card line with no rules, decks or gameplay. You collect the cards for Simone Legno's artwork across a ladder of rarity tiers with foil, gold stamping and holographic finishes.

What is the difference between tokidoki and Sanrio?

Sanrio is the Japanese company that owns Hello Kitty; tokidoki is a separate American brand. They have collaborated since 2006, which is why you see Hello Kitty and friends drawn in tokidoki's style.

Where to Start

If you are brand new, a single Unicorno blind box is the classic first step, and a pack of Wonder Voyage cards is the smallest way to get Simone Legno's art in your hands. Browse both on our tokidoki hub, and read the Unicorno blind box guide before you open a figure so you know what a chaser is.