China's Manufacturing Revolution: From OEM to Original Brand
How decades of factory expertise became the foundation for a creative movement that is reshaping the industry
The OEM Era
For most of the modern figure hobby's history, Chinese factories were invisible. When a collector in 2005 admired the paint work on an Alter figure or the crisp details of a Max Factory release, they were almost certainly looking at a product manufactured in Guangdong Province, but nothing on the box told them so. Chinese factories operated as OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) partners, producing figures designed and branded by Japanese companies. The arrangement was straightforward: Japanese brands handled creative direction, licensing, and marketing, while Chinese factories provided the manufacturing expertise, labor, and infrastructure to turn those designs into physical products at scale.
This era warrants attention rather than dismissal. The factories that produced figures for Japan's most respected brands were not unskilled assembly operations following simple instructions. They were building and refining a complex set of manufacturing capabilities: precision steel mold fabrication, PVC injection molding at tight tolerances, multi-stage paint application systems, and hand-assembly processes that required trained workers with steady hands and sharp eyes. The workers and engineers in these factories solved production problems daily, figured out how to mold impossible geometries, developed techniques for paint effects that the original designers may not have known were difficult, and built institutional knowledge that grew deeper with every production run.
Guangdong Province became the world's figure production base because of this accumulated expertise. By the 2010s, an estimated 80 to 90 percent of all PVC figures sold globally, regardless of the brand name on the box, were manufactured in Chinese factories. The Japanese figure industry's quality reputation was built on Japanese design and Chinese manufacturing working in partnership. That partnership created the foundation for everything that came next.
Building Expertise
Decades of OEM work did more than build factory infrastructure. They created a massive skilled workforce, trained supply chains, and an industrial knowledge base that would prove essential when Chinese companies decided to launch their own brands. Workers who spent years painting figures for Japanese clients understood quality standards from years of hands-on experience. Engineers who built molds for Kotobukiya and Good Smile Company knew exactly what precision the market demanded. Managers who coordinated production schedules for multiple international brands understood global logistics and timing.
The shift in confidence became visible at trade events. China's Canton Fair, the country's largest trade exhibition, offers a telling case study. For years, figure and toy manufacturers exhibited under strict rules: photography of products was restricted, and the atmosphere reflected an industry that treated its manufacturing capability as a service to be sold quietly rather than a creative achievement to be celebrated. Over time, that changed. Booths grew more ambitious, products were displayed openly, and Chinese companies began presenting their work with the pride of creators rather than the caution of subcontractors. The Hong Kong-Dongguan DesignMatch partnership, which paired Hong Kong's design talent with Dongguan's manufacturing capacity, formalized a collaboration model that helped bridge creative ambition with production reality.
The supporting infrastructure also matured in ways that mattered. Art schools and vocational programs in Guangdong began producing graduates specifically trained for the toy and figure industry. Online communities on platforms like Bilibili and Xiaohongshu (RED) created spaces where Chinese sculptors, painters, and collectors shared work, critiqued each other's output, and built an aesthetic conversation that was distinctly their own rather than a translation of Japanese hobby culture. By the time Chinese figure brands began to emerge, they had access to a deep talent pool and a cultural context that gave their creative work its own voice.
The Brand Breakthrough
The companies that made the leap from factory floor to brand name did not follow a single template, but they shared a common insight: the expertise to make great figures already existed in China, and what was missing was not capability but creative ownership. Myethos, founded in 2013 as Mirror Studio (镜之工作室) by a sculptor known as Mirror Uncle (镜叔) in Hangzhou, is a compelling example. Mirror Uncle built a company around a specific artistic vision, drawing from classical Chinese painting and mythology to create figures with an aesthetic that was impossible to mistake for a Japanese manufacturer's work. Myethos did not succeed by being a cheaper alternative. They succeeded by offering a visual identity that stood apart from established peers.
APEX, founded in 2018 in Shanghai by sculptors with backgrounds at established Japanese figure manufacturers, represents a different path: industry veterans who understood the premium figure market's standards from the inside and set out to meet or exceed them with a Chinese brand. Their early Arknights figures demonstrated a level of finish quality that was strong enough that many international collectors started reconsidering older assumptions about what a Chinese brand could deliver. Solarain, based in Shenzhen, took yet another approach, emphasizing bold poses, vibrant color work, and a design energy that drew from China's game industry aesthetics.
What all of these companies shared was access to domestic Chinese intellectual property (IP) that gave them a creative advantage. The global success of games developed by HoYoverse (Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail), Hypergryph (Arknights), and Manjuu (Azur Lane) created a licensing environment where Chinese manufacturers often had first access to the most popular new character designs. These were not consolation licenses for characters that Japanese manufacturers had passed on. These were the most wanted characters in figure collecting, and Chinese brands were producing definitive versions of them.
Scale and Speed
The manufacturing infrastructure that Guangdong built during the OEM era proved capable of feats that would be difficult to replicate anywhere else. The 2025 release of the animated film Nezha 2 (哪吒之魔童闹海) provides a vivid case study in what this infrastructure can do when demand surges. After the film became a massive hit, one collectible figure manufacturer reported receiving orders that were 500 times their normal volume. Rather than turning orders away, the region's manufacturing network mobilized. Twelve mold factories formed an emergency production alliance, pooling capacity and expertise. Approximately 2,000 workers were brought onto production lines within days. Standard production cycles of 35 to 50 days were compressed to as few as 10 days. This kind of rapid scaling is only possible when thousands of specialized suppliers, skilled workers, and production facilities exist within a compact geographic area and share established working relationships.
Pop Mart, the art toy company founded in Beijing, offers another window into the scale of China's figure and collectible industry. It is known for blind boxes, sealed packages that hide which design is inside. The company has sold over 100 million units of its signature LABUBU character products, and its market valuation has at times surpassed the combined value of Mattel and Hasbro, the two largest Western toy companies. Pop Mart operates more than 700 retail stores globally, with locations across Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Whatever your feelings about blind boxes as a format, the logistical and manufacturing achievement of scaling from a niche art toy company to a global retail presence in under a decade is remarkable, and it runs on the same Guangdong manufacturing base that produces scale figures.
These examples illustrate something important about where the industry stands. The manufacturing capacity in Guangdong is large, flexible, responsive, and battle-tested across product categories ranging from precision collectibles to mass-market consumer goods. That combination of scale and agility gives Chinese figure companies a structural advantage in responding to market trends and sudden demand spikes while maintaining competitive pricing.
What This Means for Collectors
For collectors, the practical impact of China's manufacturing evolution is more options, more competition, and more creative diversity than the market has ever seen. Chinese manufacturers bring price points that reflect efficient domestic production rather than the layered costs of international outsourcing. A Myethos 1/7 scale figure, made at one-seventh of the character's full size, often costs meaningfully less than a comparable release from a Japanese premium brand, not because it cuts corners but because the company controls its production pipeline from sculpt to shipping. That pricing pressure benefits all collectors, including those who buy exclusively from Japanese brands, because competition keeps the entire market more honest about the relationship between price and quality.
The creative dimension matters just as much as the economic one. Chinese figure companies are not trying to be Japanese companies with lower prices. They are building something distinctive that draws from their own artistic traditions. Myethos references classical Chinese painting and ink wash aesthetics in ways that produce figures unlike anything in the Japanese catalog. APEX brings a technical precision and dramatic staging sensibility shaped by Chinese game design. Newer companies are exploring original character designs rooted in Chinese mythology, historical costume, and contemporary pop culture. These perspectives enrich the figure world by expanding the range of what a figure can look like and what stories it can tell.
The workers and artisans behind these figures deserve recognition. The sculptor in Hangzhou refining a digital file at midnight, the mold engineer in Dongguan holding tolerances to hundredths of a millimeter, the painter on a factory line matching gradient colors to a master sample under fluorescent lights: these are skilled people doing careful, demanding work. The growth of Chinese brands has made more of these contributions visible, giving credit and creative ownership to people whose work was previously anonymous. That visibility benefits everyone involved.