New Armenian Character Blaze Manoukian Joins Pixar’s ‘Toy Story 5’

A new character with Armenian heritage is set to join one of the world’s most famous animated movie franchises.

According to the Armenian Film Society, Toy Story 5 will introduce a new character named Blaze Manoukian, who is half-Black and half-Armenian. The organization reported the news following an exclusive early preview event held at Disneyland.

Blaze Manoukian is described as a confident and independent 8-year-old girl who loves animals. The character is voiced by young actress Mykal-Michelle Harris and will reportedly play an important role in Jessie’s storyline in the upcoming film.

The addition of Blaze Manoukian is a major cultural expansion for the long-running Toy Story franchise, which has rarely explored Armenian representation in its decades-long history.

During an interview with TheGrio, co-director Kenna Harris explained how the character was developed as part of Bonnie’s emotional journey in the story.

“Bonnie is dealing with some loneliness and wants to connect with others in the film, so the first idea was just like, who is an aspirational character that we’ll just be like, ‘Yes, Bonnie, go be her friend.”

According to Harris, Blaze quickly became one of the most beloved characters within Pixar during the production process.

“Matt Nolte, one of our character designers, came up with this lovely design of Blaze. She’s Black, she’s half Armenian. She has this gorgeous curly hair. Immediately, we were just off to the races with the tech, because that kind of hair texture was a little bit new to the Pixar studio, but luckily we had a lovely culture trust of Black colleagues at the studio who were keeping us honest and making sure that Blaze looked as fantastic as she could. She’s one of my favorite characters now. She’s so awesome,” shared Kenna Harris.

The character’s design reportedly pushed Pixar to develop new animation technology capable of accurately portraying tightly coiled hair textures. The effort is being described as a technical milestone for the studio, which has continued to evolve its animation systems over the years.

Producer Lindsey Collins also revealed that Blaze performed extremely well during audience preview screenings.

“She’s actually everybody’s favorite. We previewed it with audiences. She was like number two. It was Jessie and then Blaze as the favorite character. It was parents who were like, ‘I just want my kid to have a friend like Blaze.’”

The upcoming film is the latest installment in the globally successful Toy Story franchise, created by Pixar and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. The original Toy Story film premiered in 1995 and became the first fully computer-animated feature film in cinematic history.

Toy Story 5 is scheduled to be released in theaters on June 19, 2026.

—

Support independent reporting from the region by subscribing to The Armenian Report. Our team is funded solely by readers like you.