Littlest Pet Shop G7 Blind Boxes

February 21, 2024.

Littlest Pet Shop is a toy series consisting of miniature bobblehead animals and their abodes. As a child, Littlest Pet Shop was my main fixation for a long time. The pets possessed me. I loved collecting them, arranging them, looking at them, and holding them. My parents were gracious enough to feed my endless appetite for Littlest Pets, and I amassed a great collection of them which I still have today. Perhaps my Pet-gluttony inspired the bottomless hunger for material that I still have now. The Pets travelled to many places in my pockets. When my favorite pet was destroyed by a curious dog, I was devastated and wrapped its broken, chewed up body in adhesive bandages as if it were being set in a cast. I loved to study them, pouring over collectors' guides on web pages. Fans produced LPS webseries on YouTube, filming their roleplays as if they were drama series. The world of LPS seemed so vibrant, and it consumed me.

Before generation 1 of the current run of Littlest Pet Shop, the company Kenner produced realistic pet toys under the same name. The Kenner line ran through the 90s, and the franchise took a break before restarting with G1 in 2005. Hasbro's Pets started off with muted, natural colors, while having big bobbleheads and cartoony proportions. Playsets included pet shops, rooms for the pets, playgrounds, and carrying cases that doubles as sets for play. Over time, the pets became more colorful, species became more unusual and varied, and more molds were produced for existing species. Hasbro eventually introduced personality types for the pets, represented by symbols in their stylized eye-shines. Pets might belong to the "sportiest" group, represented by a teardrop shape, some pets were "sassiest" with a star, and so on. In 2012, the series was rebooted for G4 (some sources, such as Wikipedia, also call this G3, which can be confusing), and pets became even more colorful, cartoony, and abstracted. The style change was a great source of derision among existing fans. Many of the pets represented characters in new cartoon, starring Blythe (a character representing the doll line which had some previous tie-in releases with LPS), and various pet characters. During this time, it was common for toy lines to produce a cartoon show or web series featuring a core cast of a few characters that would see many toy releases. Franchises like My Little Pony and Monster High had great success using this marketing strategy. The change to a more charcter-focused series caused a great upset among fans at the time, though pets that were not representative of particular cartoon characters were still being released. Several generations were produced under the rebooted brand, until we make it to G7-- a return to an earlier form.

G7 pets are being produced by Basic Fun, the same company that has been handling the current retro-style My Little Pony line (Fizzy, Parasol, Aurora, if you need a refresher). A new series of pets has been released, both reusing classic pet molds and newly introduced molds, including those modeled off of never-before-seen species. Themed multi-packs, playsets, and blind boxes are on store shelves as of early 2024. Today's feature are blind box pets. The blind box pool contains 18 new pets, which are all housed in a cardboard box styled after a pet carrier. The pet is housed inside, along with a collector's card featuring the pet and a small accessory. There is also a code to unlock content in some tie-in game which I know absolutely nothing about.

The boxes are really cute and nice looking, showing the entire pool of pets on the back.

The pets in the boxes were the bull and the siamese cat. They are both very, very cute, and feel just like the old pets do. They have big, glossy eyes, and cute sculpted details.

The bull seems to have some issues with the paintjob on its face. The color of the eyes seems a bit dull, especially when compared to the eye whites of the cat, and there appears to be a mark on the iris. Some collectors online were posting that the gradient on their bulls' faces had some application issues, so perhaps these is some kind of production problem with this pet specifically. It still looks really cute, despite the flaws. The bull comes with a trophy accessory.

The cat is immaculate. So very cute, with flower-shaped details in its ears, a cute blue bow holding a ponytail up at the top of its head, and its tongue poking out of its mouth, just a little. Very pleased with this pet. It comes with what seems to be a pet dish filled with lemonade, which is a little bizarre, but if that's what it likes, who am I to judge?

The boxes included small cards corresponding to the pet inside, and a pamphlet showing the current complete collection of G7 Littlest Pets. Number 1-18 are the pets included in the blind box pool.

I was really impressed with what I saw from these blind boxes, and what has been posted online about the G7 pets. They look and feel great, and I'll be looking forward to collecting more of them in the future. I'm hunting for the axolotls, caterpillar, and the ant pets to add to my collection. A little while before I found the blind boxes, I was able to get my hands on the axolotl, lizard, and hippo 3 pack at a Target store. Those pets may be included in a future review, but won't be getting their own feature because the packaging was destroyed immediately (was excited). In future articles, I'm hoping to post more about G7 pets, and perhaps more about my childhood collection of pets. There is an obscene number of them. Thanks for reading as always. I hope you enjoyed the Pet lecture.

Littlest Pet Shop Resources:
Basic Fun's Website (G7)
Littlest Pet Shop Collector (Kenner Pets)
LPS Merch