Gormiti

Gormiti is a line of collectible plastic miniature monster figures created in Italy by Giochi Preziosi in 2005. The figures are typically sold in blind bags together with trading or playing cards describing each character and its abilities. Although primarily marketed toward children aged 4–8 for imaginative play, the figures also developed a significant adult collector community. Within the franchise's mythology, the Gormiti are elemental warriors who inhabit the fictional island of Gorm. The characters are divided into rival factions, traditionally aligned with natural elements such as Sea, Forest, Air, Earth, and Lava. These tribes are often grouped into broader alliances representing forces of good and evil, in a fantasy setting inspired by heroic and mythological themes. The toy line's distribution model relied heavily on blind packaging, preventing buyers from choosing specific figures. This encouraged collecting, trading, and the purchase of duplicate figures, contributing to the growth of a secondary collector market. The commercial success of the franchise led to a wide range of related merchandise, including magazines, DVDs, video games, theatrical productions, and several animated television series. The figures are part of a broader tradition of collectible miniature monster toys popular in Europe and Japan. Commentators and collectors have frequently compared Gormiti to earlier toy lines such as Exogini, which Giochi Preziosi distributed in Italy during the 1980s. Exogini itself was an Italian adaptation of Japanese Kinnikuman-inspired Kinkeshi figures. Like Exogini, early Gormiti figures were made from rigid coloured plastic and emphasized collectibility, faction-based lore, and stylized monster designs. == TV series ==

The first television series, Gormiti, was co-produced by Giochi Preziosi and Marathon Media and based on the original Gormiti characters. It was broadcast for the first time on Italia 1 and Canal J from 27 October 2008. It started on October 5, 2009, on Cartoon Network in the United States, and Latin America on Disney XD of the year 2011. It consisted of three seasons, Gormiti: The Lords of Nature Return!, Gormiti: The Supreme Eclipse Era! and Gormiti: The Neorganic Evolution. On January 3, 2011, Giochi Preziosi launched its series in Brazil, where it is the number one show on TV Globinho. Gormiti has been well known among boys in Brazil, long before the television show appeared. There are already over 200 Gormiti licensed toys on the market in Brazil. The series got good ratings worldwide and positive reviews. A second series, Gormiti Nature Unleashed, produced in CGI, began airing in Italy in 2012. Apart from the setting and some characters, it is unrelated to the first TV series. A third series, Gormiti, began airing in 2018. A fourth series, Gormiti Legends further reboot of the franchise, which features some of the first Gormiti characters, released in Italy exclusively on the web, while in Spain also on television on the Clan television channel. It's about of a series of 10 episodes of 3 or 4 minutes each. A fifth series Gormiti–The New Era, is in the works at Italian production company Rainbow. and it costed nearly 15 millions euros. The first two seasons have already been shot, each one is made of 10 episodes. The series was filmed in Italy. == Video game ==

Owing to Giochi Preziosi's investment in the platform, Engine Software developed three Gormiti video games for the DigiBlast handheld between 2006 and 2007. A Gormiti: Lords of Nature video game for the Nintendo DS and the Wii was released by Konami in September 2010, and is heavily based on season one of the cartoon. == References ==