Popular Asian lifestyle brand opens first Hawaii store

HONOLULU (KHON2) — A new batch of tenants were welcomed to Pearlridge Center Mauka, including a popular Asian lifestyle brand opening its doors for the first time in Hawaii.

Get Hawaii's latest morning news delivered to your inbox, sign up for News 2 You

During Saturday's grand opening, lines wrapped around the second floor of the mall waiting to shop for products from toys, collectibles, plushes and even makeup.

"It sells a lot of cute stuff, especially for kids like the Sanrio characters that I'm wearing right now," said shopper Chloe Devera.

Aloha Market attracts more than 7,000 Los Angeles visitors

"I bought like three capybaras, like three different blind boxes, and like a bunch of Sanrio characters," Leiandra Fagaragan, another Miniso Shopper.

With more than 6,000 stores worldwide and 200-plus stores nationwide, Hawaii customers were eager for the store to open its doors.

"This is something I've never seen at this scale before and the excitement, it's just like, I'm so happy to be home and I'm so grateful that all these people came out to see us," explained Kealii Cabral, Pearlridge Miniso Area Manager.

Fagaragan and others said they waited at Ross. Once the gates opened at 9:45 a.m., they bolted to the new Miniso location and were some of the first few people to experience the store.

"When we were planning this whole adventure, we were like 'So how many people gonna go, how early do we need to be here?' We were shocked though because when we came to Pearlridge outside, we were like 'Oh no, are all these people already here for the Miniso?'" said shoppers Kara Nakagawa and Kailey Kurashige.

Find more Hawaii, Oahu, Maui and Kauai news here

The new Miniso location will not only bring more Sanrio products to Hawaii but also products from BT21 and more, which can be harder to find in the state.

"We've had grand opening events before but when I say Hawai'i people turned up, they turned up."