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JYP Entertainment gave into Stray Kids fans' desires by launching the much-anticipated merch for heart characters of the CASE 143 music video and MAXIDENT promotions. Before getting their official names, international fans named the main character a giant pink heart, Pipi.
On November 7, 2022, Stray Kids officially confirmed the names of the heart characters with a surprise merch announcement. Heart Tung, the representative pink character, and Heart Taeng, the alien green Pipi, have contrasting colors and subsequent personalities. The merch is currently restricted to only keychains.
Stray Kids' fans go wild over the long-awaited Pipi merch drop
Fans have been demanding Pipi merch since the music video of CASE 143 dropped on October 7, 2022. There were growing calls for the agency to actively bank upon Pipi's popularity after a life-sized Heart Tung was seen entertaining fans outside a music show venue. The MAXIDENT group also performed ending fairies and an SKZOO choreography video with it.
On November 7, JYP Entertainment opened pre-orders for STAY fandom's new point of interest, the heart characters seen in CASE 143. It released key ring details for the pink Heart Tung, aka Pipi, and green Heart Taeng, aka Mark Lee Pipi. Fans named the latter because of its resemblance with NCT's Mark. He wore similarly shaped sunglasses for the Hello Future music video.
While the pink and green hearts have made it onto the official merch list, STAYs now hope for other colored hearts to be released. A total of eight characters were introduced in the CASE 143 music video. Many hilariously commented that they would continue calling them Pipi and not claim the official names.
Stray Kids' members were even seen carrying Heart Tung and Heart Taeng with them in public, which generated more interest from fans.
The pre-orders for Heart Tung and Heart Taeng will continue until November 13, 11:59 pm KST. With a growing interest in the pink and green hearts, STAYs shared that they would like other colored heart characters turned into official merch. Some of the characters mentioned were the yellow fairy pipi and the blue grumpy Pipi.
Stray Kids' most recent album, MAXIDENT, has been steadily maintaining its place on the Billboard music charts. It also made them the second fastest artist to achieve two million sales in Hanteo within a week.
Inarguably the group's most successful comeback, JYP Entertainment went a notch above and introduced multiple adorable heart characters.
In other news, Stray Kids recently announced encore concert dates for the MANIAC World Tour. It will include Tokyo (February 11 & 12, 2023), Osaka (February 25 & 26, 2023), and Los Angeles (March 31, 2023). The LA concert will take place at the Banc of California Stadium.
With a nearly 20,000-seater stadium show, Stray Kids have become the second only K-pop boy group to hold a US stadium concert. Meanwhile, MAXIDENT is the group's second album to spend four consecutive weeks on the Billboard 200 album chart.
