Inside the 10 Billion Won Toy Museum: Lee Sang-hoon’s Ultimate Collectors’ Paradise
Daniel Kim Views
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| Photo=MBC |
[Sports Today reporter Kim Tae-hyung] Comedian Lee Sang-hoon is opening the doors to an astonishing toy museum — the product of 25 years of collecting and roughly 1 billion KRW (approximately $750,000) invested to build it.
The MBC program ‘The Manager’ airing March 14 will profile Lee, widely regarded as one of South Korea’s top toy aficionados, and chronicle his life as a devoted collector.
In the episode, Lee leads viewers through a museum he filled with pieces from his personal collection.
Housed across two floors and occupying about 200 pyeong (roughly 7,100 sq ft), the museum showcases a staggering, museum-quality assemblage that befits a consummate superfan. The displays are packed with figures from popular animated series, Marvel and DC superheroes, and even the Super Sentai franchises, which span some 50 years. When the program reveals that Lee invested about 1 billion KRW (approximately $750,000) just to assemble the museum, the studio commentators react with visible surprise.
The show also pulls back the curtain on a familiar collector’s affliction: the urge to complete an entire line. Known among fans as “line sickness,” this compulsion drives Lee to acquire every figure in a series. He quips that leaving a character alone makes it look lonely, explaining his personal collecting ethos and getting laughs from the panel.
Near the episode’s end, the program spotlights a phenomenon Lee has inspired: fans who began collecting after watching his YouTube channel and who have since become collectors in their own right — a group playfully dubbed “Sang-nat-goe” (literally, “monsters spawned by Sang”). Their presence underscores Lee’s outsized influence on the toy community, and their wholehearted embrace of his intense hobby adds another layer of entertainment.
Lee Sang-hoon’s unrivaled toy-collecting world can be seen on the broadcast.
[Sports Today reporter Kim Tae-hyung ent@stoo.com]
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