Pudgy Penguins Sets Shanghai LINE FRIENDS Launch Event for October 1

Pudgy Penguins will mark the debut of its collaboration with LINE FRIENDS with a Huddle event at the LINE FRIENDS flagship store in Xujiahui, Shanghai, on October 1. The project's Chinese-language account, pudgypenguinsCN, announced the gathering, and the main pudgypenguins account amplified the post on September 30.

The event is the first confirmed public rollout tied to the Pudgy Penguins × @_LINEFRIENDS collection, which the project began teasing in late September. Product details, pricing, and the scope of the co-branded line have not been disclosed. LINE FRIENDS is the character brand spun out of the LINE messaging app, with retail and licensing reach across Asia.

A Wider Asia Push

The Shanghai launch sits inside a dense stretch of physical retail and community activations for Pudgy Penguins. September saw the project open its first Japanese pop-up at Tokyo Dome City, return its Pudgy Popup to Seoul for Korea Blockchain Week, and announce a four-day Singapore Huddle series timed to Token2049.

Pudgy Penguins began as a collection of 8,888 penguin NFTs on Ethereum and was acquired by Luca Netz in April 2022, after which it was repositioned as a consumer brand. Physical toys distributed through Walmart and Target have surpassed 1.5 million units, and the project also launched the PENGU token for governance and ecosystem use.

What to watch: whether the LINE FRIENDS collaboration is limited to the Shanghai storefront or extends into broader retail distribution, and what the project shares next at its Singapore Huddle, scheduled for October 6 to 9.