AK Plaza said on the 28th that it opened "Poptopia," a space specialized in intellectual property (IP) content, at its Suwon store. Poptopia is a portmanteau of pop culture and utopia, meaning a sanctuary for subculture.
Poptopia was created on the fifth floor of AK Plaza Suwon with a size of about 600 pyeong. It is the largest IP content store in southern Gyeonggi. AK Plaza created Poptopia as a follow-up to the "AK Hongdae Project," which introduced a subculture content space in September last year.
Poptopia houses the newly renovated Gundam Base, Ichiban Kuji, and the newly created capsule toy specialty shop Gashapon Street. Animate, the largest animation specialty store in Korea, and SMG Store, which specializes in operating IP pop-up stores, have also opened.
In addition, it connects the existing Suwon store's Dotori Forest and Tamiya into a single theme, creating a large IP content belt that spans figures and gacha to animation, character goods, and plastic models.
AK Plaza plans to operate Poptopia as an evolving content space that does not stay in a fixed space but continuously introduces new brands and IP. It also plans to unveil additional new IP brands in Dec., strengthening a differentiated content experience.
An AK Plaza official said, "Poptopia was built not as a simple copy of AK Plaza Hongdae but as an independent IP-specialized space tailored to customer demand in southern Gyeonggi," adding, "We will gradually expand our IP specialization strategy to other stores."