Hirono's origin story: Lang, a letter to his son and The Other One
As of 13 November 2026. Hirono is the character of Chinese artist Lang, and HIRONO The Other One Series is his first figure series, released by POP MART on 1 October 2021: 12 regular figures and the secret Dreaming. All 13, with “Have” and “Want” marks, are in the Hirono The Other One checklist.
A letter his son will read only as an adult
When Lang’s child was born, he did something unusual. Instead of a simple wish for the future, he wrote his son a letter that, as he put it, the boy might only understand once he is grown up. In a 2021 interview he called himself a father in his thirties who had not quite figured out his own life. In the letter he looked back at the years he had lived, at what was important, what was real and what was illusion, and at the person he hoped his child would become: a little wilder, purer and freer, not living like everyone else and not listening too much to grown-ups.
Thinking about his son’s future, Lang kept returning to his own childhood and to the person he might have become. He worked on Hirono in the same mood, trying, in his words, to find the self he never reached and to grow again like wild grass. Hirono is not a boy who tries to look carefree; his job is not to please everyone but to show the feelings that usually stay hidden.
Mark what you already have
Tap — “Have”, tap again — duplicate (×2, ×3…). Hold — “Want” or one less.
- The Ghost
- Nowhere Safe
- Raving
- Marionette
- Staring
- Amnesia
- The Crow
- Vagrancy
- Being Alive
- Cuckoo
- The Monster
- The Fox
- Dreaming
Why does Hirono hardly ever smile?
Lang answered that himself before the first Hirono exhibition in 2021. His parents quarrelled a lot, the family was not well off and the upbringing was strict, so he grew up quiet, unwilling to show off and always the last one in a group of children at play. He would daydream, let his mind wander and study the small details of things. Work later made him more open, he said, but that child is still there, and he wants his art to bring back that boundless original self.
So Hirono’s pensive look is not just a design decision to make a character a little sad. Our author, Anastasia Tabachek, points out that reducing him to sadness would be wrong all the same: he can be angry, afraid, lonely, happy, dreamy or stubborn, and that mix makes him closer to a real person than to a cute mascot. Lang’s own line is often quoted: time passes, character changes, the body grows old, and only momentary emotions and states show who we really are. That idea became the base of the first series.
Twelve masks for one person
The Other One came out on 1 October 2021: twelve regular figures and one secret, each a different costume with the same familiar look. The name can be read as “the other me”; POP MART’s 2021 Chinese launch text says each figure is “the other him” we usually keep hidden. It shows clearly in Marionette, a puppet whose control bar lies on the floor, and in Nowhere Safe, where Hirono hides in a cardboard box as if a small, flimsy shelter could keep the world out. The cardboard is no accident: in a 2022 interview with Artron, Lang recalled collecting cardboard as a kid and wearing it.
The Ghost almost disappears under a white sheet, while Amnesia suggests memories, forgotten feelings and lost parts of one’s own story.
The rest are The Crow, The Fox, The Monster, Raving, Staring, Vagrancy, Being Alive and Cuckoo. They may remind you of different states of mind, but those are associations, not the artist’s explanations: Lang said he does not want to give viewers one correct reading; it is enough if someone stops in front of a work and, for a moment, steps away from everyday life. So The Other One works less as twelve answers than as a mirror.
Five millimetres that made Hirono recognisable
In 2021 Lang also shared a production detail. He wanted Hirono’s eyes to be bright and alive, which is hard to achieve in mass production. POP MART’s team solved it by making the eyes, about 5 mm across, as separate transparent parts set into the face. For a character whose whole point is emotion, a few millimetres of clear plastic became part of the artistic idea.
From skateboards and graffiti to the first Hirono exhibition
Lang started painting in high school and read a lot of contemporary literature. At university came skateboarding, graffiti, rock, folk and post-rock, and he collected designer toys. Work pushed all that aside for years; when he came back to art, he found it had never left him. Before painting he can spend longer looking for music that fits the emotion than on the painting itself, because the rhythm decides when a stroke is strong, when it is soft and when to stop.
On 8 October 2021, a week after The Other One came out, the first Hirono exhibition opened at Song Art Museum in Beijing and ran until 30 October. Its English title, Don’t Worry About Tomorrow, comes from Matthew 6:34, Lang explained; the Chinese title is a line from Caetano Veloso’s song “Summertime”: as long as that morning doesn’t come, nothing can hurt you. A similar phrase is written on the paper crown of the Cuckoo figure: the official photos show “Don’t wo… about t…”.
The show presented Hirono in several forms at once: paintings, sculpture installations, animation and the figures. The museum’s announcement featured 2021 canvases such as Paper House, Liar, Crow, The Silent Fox and Sad Monster (the LIAR sign also hangs round the neck of The Fox figure). Lang said art no longer has to stand cold in a museum and that he wanted his work to live in different forms, from canvas to blind box.
The dream that hid from everyone
The secret figure is Dreaming. The box states a ratio of 1:144 for it and 1:12 for each regular figure. Unlike most of the costumed regulars, Dreaming shows Hirono with eyes closed, in a blue polka-dot nightcap and pyjamas, asleep under a white blanket: he no longer watches the world with his usual stare but has shut himself away from it. Nothing confirms that Lang meant it as a return to childhood ease, our author notes, but given how Hirono began, with a father wishing his child the freedom to be himself, the association fits.
Why The Other One still matters
Since then Hirono has visited the world of the Little Prince (Hirono × Le Petit Prince), found refuge in Shelter, gone back to childhood games in Echo and run into the limits of adult life in Tamed Wildgrass. But The Other One is the starting point. In 2021 Lang compared finding a lost part of yourself to wild grass growing again; five years later POP MART released a series called Tamed Wildgrass. In 2022 he also explained that the character’s Chinese name, 小野 (“little wild one”), carries the wish that his son grows like wild grass wherever he ends up. That does not prove the later series continues his old words, but the echo is there.
All 13 Hirono The Other One figures
| No. | Figure | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Ghost | Under a sheet, ghost with a balloon |
| 2 | Nowhere Safe | In a cardboard box, party hat |
| 3 | Raving | Banana as a phone receiver, tear |
| 4 | Marionette | Straw hat, bow tie, puppet cross |
| 5 | Staring | Hugging his knees, little dinosaur |
| 6 | Amnesia | Dinosaur raincoat, puddle |
| 7 | The Crow | Crow costume, gold disc |
| 8 | Vagrancy | Patched dress, eared hat |
| 9 | Being Alive | HOME box house, boxing glove |
| 10 | Cuckoo | Paper crown, clock face |
| 11 | The Monster | Shaggy horned costume |
| 12 | The Fox | Fox mask, LIAR sign |
| 13 | Dreaming | Secret: asleep under a blanket |
The order follows POP MART’s official lineup.
How to collect HIRONO The Other One
Figures come one per sealed kraft-paper box tied with a string, each about 8 cm tall. Under POP MART’s rules a whole set is 12 boxes without duplicates, but the secret, if it appears, replaces one regular figure. On popmart.com/us a box costs $19.99 and a whole set $239.88 (13 November 2026); at the 2021 launch in China a box was 69 yuan. On ColleX you can track the full Hirono The Other One checklist, mark what you have and want, and find collectors to trade duplicates with. The later series are there too, including Hirono × Harry Potter (2026).
In the end, the most interesting thing about The Other One is that it began not with the search for a perfect product but with very personal questions a man asked himself after his child was born. Sometimes, to meet your “other one”, it is enough to remember who you were before you learned to meet other people’s expectations.
Frequently asked questions
Who created Hirono?
The Chinese artist Lang. He came up with the character after his son was born and first showed it to the public in 2021, with The Other One and an exhibition at Song Art Museum in Beijing.
How many figures are in Hirono The Other One?
13: twelve regular figures and the secret Dreaming. On ColleX the complete set is the 12 regular ones.
What is the secret and what are the odds?
Dreaming, Hirono asleep in a blue polka-dot nightcap and pyjamas. The box prints a ratio of 1:144 (1:12 for each regular figure).
When was the first Hirono series released?
On 1 October 2021, according to popmart.com. The first Hirono exhibition in Beijing ran from 8 to 30 October that year.
What does the name Hirono mean?
In Chinese the character is called 小野, “little wild one”: Lang said (Artron, 2022) he wished his son to grow like wild grass. SocialBeta (2024) writes that the Latin “Hirono” comes from the Japanese 広野, “wide field”.
Can you tell the secret by the box weight?
Collectors look for weight and shaking tips, but POP MART does not publish box weights and we have not weighed any, so we give no figures.
How much does Hirono The Other One cost?
$19.99 per box and $239.88 for a whole set on popmart.com/us (13 November 2026).