If you've played Arknights: Endfield or spent any time in the Wuling region, you've almost certainly run into the Chubby Lungs — those round, bean-shaped dragon mascots plastered across road signs, safety notices, and fast-travel points. They're the unofficial face of the city, and at Anime Expo 2026, they took center stage at the Hypergryph booth in the form of basketball and curling mini-games. I went hands-on to find out how these chubby dragons became convention headliners.
What Are Chubby Lungs, Exactly?
In Arknights lore, Lungs are a humanoid race based on Eastern dragons — think thin, pointed horns and serpentine tails. Operator Chen Qianyu, one of your first party members in Endfield, is a Lung. Chubby Lungs are a stylized, mascot-ified version: round, expressive, and deliberately designed to be adaptable. The developers told me the rounded base shape lets them swap features and accessories freely while keeping the overall impression lighthearted. In Chinese culture, round shapes also evoke "reunion," tying neatly into Spring Festival themes the series regularly celebrates.
From Community Meme to Official Mascot
The first bean-shaped Lung designs appeared in the main Arknights game to represent the Sui siblings. Players promptly dubbed them "Beans," and the nickname stuck long before Hypergryph gave them an official name. When Endfield introduced the Wuling region, the team needed a city mascot — something cute and friendly that could bridge Yan's heritage with Tianshi's modern, everyday presence. A Chubby Lung fit naturally. They didn't stop at one, though. Drawing on Wuling's concept as "a city of Tianshi and a city of learning," they created two: a white "Pen" Lung with a mischievous uwu smile, and a green "Blade" Lung with a grumpy :< frown. Scholarly and martial, relaxed and disciplined — friendly rivals that now populate signage across the entire region.
The Anime Expo Booth Experience
Walking up to the Endfield booth at Anime Expo 2026, you were greeted by replicas of in-game landmarks: Tele-Protocol Points (the fast-travel terminals that heal and link to your depot) and Protocol Dataloggers, affectionately known as "wavy tube men." Bright banners featured the main cast, and a Mi Fu-inspired boxing game let you test your reflexes. But the Chubby Lung stations drew the longest lines.
Two arcade-style basketball machines used Chubby Lung plushies as balls — one Pen, one Blade. You grabbed a plush, aimed, and threw. Beside them, a tabletop curling lane used the same designs as puck handles. Slide your Chubby Lung toward the target; closer to center means a higher score. Both games were instantly readable, even in a crowded convention hall, and that was entirely intentional.
"Their round and cute shape makes them really easy to imagine as part of simple, playful mini-games, and basketball and tabletop curling are both activities that are easy for visitors to understand and join in on at a booth," the development team explained. "We didn't want the booth experience to just be about lining up, checking in, and receiving freebies. We wanted visitors to have something more interactive and entertaining to do, while still making sure the activities felt connected to the game rather than added on randomly."
Why Zhuang Fangyi Was the Perfect Ambassador
The booth also featured a Zhuang Fangyi cosplayer posing with a Chubby Lung basketball — a deliberate nod to the character herself. Released as a 6-star operator in version 1.2, Zhuang Fangyi is Endfield's resident Chubby Lung fanatic. The irony: she's a Kylin (based on the qilin, a dragon-goat hybrid — think Ganyu from Genshin Impact), not a Lung. Her obsession with the mascots made her the natural face for the booth's photo ops, and the team loved the image of her holding a Chubby Lung ball.
Merch Demand Outpaced Supply
If you were hoping to snag a Chubby Lung plushie at the con, you were out of luck. Gryphline had produced plushies after the community turned the designs into a long-running meme, but demand was so high they sold out before Anime Expo. A quick search confirms U.S. stock is still depleted; your best bet is watching restocks on marketplaces like ACGGO or catching pop-up markets. The developers admitted the enthusiasm "exceeded what they originally expected," and fan art, memes, and custom designs have fed back into the team's own creative process.
What Comes Next for the Chubby Lungs
Hypergryph isn't committing to specific future appearances, but they're listening. "If there are chances where Chubby Lungs fit naturally with the theme or format of an event, we would definitely love to explore more ways to bring them into the experience," they said. The version 1.4 update doesn't include Chubby Lung events, but the door stays open. Meanwhile, the team is already prototyping new mascot lines — they know players want fresh visual series alongside the Lungs.
Why This Matters for Players
Chubby Lungs started as a community joke, became a regional mascot system, and now anchor physical event design. That trajectory — meme → in-game utility → convention centerpiece → merch phenomenon — shows how Arknights treats its world-building details as living, expandable assets. For players, it means the little dragon on a road sign in Wuling isn't just flavor text; it's a design language the team can deploy across media, merch, and live events. Keep an eye on those round little dragons. They're not going anywhere.
Comments (0)
Loading comments…