The Facebook debacle & other issues

1 hour ago, salica said:

Not long ago there was a big conversation about the price of his doll carrier (which was crazy to me )  on that Fb group that I still didn't know Danny was a member of . 

I said what I was thinking about his ridiculously high prices as many other did . The day after , the administrator of the group completely had a break down saying that Danny left the group . ... let say that I wasn't surprise as I've seen him many times along the years  having a tantrum when someone was saying anything negative about his plans , his prices or his products.

The price is quite crazy for the bag. But I am sure many of us can understand why it is so expensive.
Still, why should we not be able to discuss it or share our views? Does he think that throwing a fit over it will suddenly make us able afford it, or justify purchasing it..?
It isn't a healthy way to go about things. Nor is forcing someone to bottle up "negativity".


But back on topic...
Is the facebook group in any way official in any way..? Like, Danny is/was a member... So it is not run by anyone directly associated with the business..?
Just to get things straight.

35 minutes ago, Daisy-chan said:

I feel like this is going to end up with everyone (who is still okay with directly supporting Danny by buying from him) stepping on eggshells trying to avoid offending him or even associating with anyone who could possibly offend him.

I hate to sound harsh, but I think this is 100% Danny's intention; to 'train' his consumer base into not only accepting everything he makes, but praising him for everything regardless of how they actually feel, or simply keeping their criticisms to themselves for fear that his fans will berate them for not being 'real fans' or worse, blacklisted from buying anything at all. 

 I really love his dolls and have been watching the brand since the first run of Mirai dolls and once owned both the original Mirai and Kizuna dolls, but I personally just feel icky every time I think about purchasing from him now. I've been looking forward to Cortex since it was announced, and have held off on buying Destiny until she gets a Cortex version, but I just can't justify it when he's treating people like this. 

46 minutes ago, Yumeiro said:

But back on topic...
Is the facebook group in any way official in any way..? Like, Danny is/was a member... So it is not run by anyone directly associated with the business..?
Just to get things straight.

To my knowledge the SMD lovers group on FB is not official. It's not run by Danny or his company. 

Ok, not to add insult to injury here but I have still not gotten a reply from Danny on my email.  I figured he would be busy ( we all see he's in LA right now per his Instagram and Twitter accounts ) and I didn't expect a fast reply anyway because of that and all the other stuff happening.

 

I'm going to give it til Friday and if I still haven't heard back, I'll resend it to make sure it didn't get lost in the Interwebs somehow.  I know that happens so I'm not upset about no reply yet.

 

I'm amazed at how so many people have come forward on Facebook and other social media with the issues they have had in the past with DC and even now.  Some of these people I have known for years and completely trust.  These are smart people who don't troll for any reason.  These are people I know love the Smartdolls they have and want more.  So I don't get why this is happening or why it seems to be getting worse.

 

Again, I thank everyone for keeping things civil here and not going off on the situation.  Keeping level heads is the best thing and I hope something positive comes out of this mess soon.

 

 

Billy

I am really upset by all of this. I am definitely a SmartDoll fan but do not bow down blindly. 

How? How can Danny think this is okay? How can his wife help in the business and think his attitude about all of this is okay? Has he never heard "treat others the way you would like to be treated"?!?!?!?!

Has he thought about how he would feel if he was banned from one of the companies he likes just because he was associated with someone who posted a mean comment or in-poor-taste picture? No, he has not. If there is one thing I have learned about Danny, it is that he is self-centered and has had his hand held his entire life. 

Some of the things he says I understand or can appreciate because I know how demanding customers can be sometimes (I have a friend who works in retail, I fortunately have never had to) but there is a line, there is supposed to be an easy to understand line that the face or voice of a company does not cross in public relations. I participate in the IT help desk at my company, do I tell the person I absolutely cannot stand that they are stupid and I will not help them with their issue because they are being rude? No! I suck up my pride and in the most polite voice I can say "Let me take a look at that for you. We'll get this fixed in a jiffy!"

 

I adore my Smart Dolls, and I still need Crimson and Destiny (or Twilight!) in my collection and I have yet to find any clothes that fit the dolls as well as what Danny makes; but these continuing issues are really disheartening. To me, the attitude Danny shows on social media is exactly the reason my company does not let our web developers run the marketing stuff. Sometime the "creators" or such in the company should never speak to customers publicly. Danny really does need a PR person to take over his accounts, at least they would not be "emotionally invested" in the products and could view customer reactions with a level head.

Hopefully this is all a huge misunderstanding, everything will be corrected and/or explained, and everything will be hunky-dory.

 

 

Edited April 25, 2019 by marishade
spelling mistake

On 4/24/2019 at 8:38 AM, Yenna said:

And to add to the language point: the original question was a very typical one coming from a Finnish person. Our language is blunt, we don't have all of the added politeness English does, heck we don't even have a word for "please".

You guys have great mythology though. 

 

— 

 

So having read about the evolution of the killing factories at Auschwitz, Mengele’s twin experiments, and other monstrous things the Nazis engaged in, I would say a person shouldn’t be called a Nazi unless they are actually a member of a Nazi movement. Survivors have specifically asked people not to use Nazi or Hitler as an insult because it trivializes what they went through, and it really does. Point being, I totally get that what was posted in that group was inexcusable to post about a doll maker. 

Facebook really doesn’t work in such a way that people are in the know about everything that happened in a group, even everything that happened in a group on any given day they were part of a group. 

The iM@S & Star Trek groups I am in have a lot of stuff in the feed, and I never see it all. I signed in one day and saw a post from the admin of one of my groups apologizing for a — by that point deleted — joke he had made in poor taste. I never saw the joke, and no one ever mentioned what it was. Anyone who joined that group today would be totally blind to that incident having happened. For all I know it was a fart joke, but it could have been something really unkind too.  

What Danny has done is kind of like pointing the finger of blame at someone who is standing next to someone who months ago did something inexcusable (and calling someone who isn’t a Nazi a Nazi is legit inexcusable) when that someone was standing someplace completely different. I think he knows enough about social media to know that makes zero sense, and he isn’t stupid.

 

tl; dr. I kind of suspect this has more to do with the theme of the group itself as opposed to a banner that was removed almost immediately after it was posted. 

Edited May 17, 2019 by BeyondTime

 

On 4/23/2019 at 1:52 PM, growcian said:

"OK... That sounds unnecessarily aggressive".

That's Danny's response to most things in a nutshell, and part of his cult of personality.   This whole thing is just so... ugh.  I get that he wants to stay hands on with the social media aspect of his company, and that's a huge part of what his fans love, his accessibility.  But damn, cancelling people's orders just for being associated with people who don't like you? This just gives them more fuel for not liking you, and this is why so many doll groups don't want Smart Dolls discussed or included.  

I willingly left Smart Doll Lovers because of how terrible people are treated in there, and because I was seriously made to feel unwelcome just for having a personal and logical opinion - when I joined the new group, the "bad group", I was blacklisted because of that stupid banner. WHICH by the way, is totally NOT the reason why Danny is upset, he's just using it as fuel to get his loyalists to come after the people who aren't in their little cult with some inflated sense of social justice over something most of us didn't even know existed until he brought it, then people started bombarding us with messages saying we were terrible for hurting his feelings etc etc blah blah blah. I've lost total interest in the whole thing and I'm blocked by Danny on instagram and facebook, and I didn't even say anything that bad. I'm really bummed out because that group was basically my only source of friendship, and now the people who I had added on facebook because of that group are completely ignoring me / blocking me as well. So. Yeah. I think the whole thing is silly. I just want to enjoy my doll with friends. That's it. 

1 hour ago, TiltyBird said:

I'm really bummed out because that group was basically my only source of friendship, and now the people who I had added on facebook because of that group are completely ignoring me / blocking me as well. So. Yeah. I think the whole thing is silly. I just want to enjoy my doll with friends. That's it. 

I think you will find the folks here are friendly, and smartdolls are always welcome regardless of how their creator behaves. I see people organizing doll meets all the time, and so far everyone here is pretty nice, although we do disagree at times. 

Personally I’ve always thought Mirai, and some of the others were beautiful dolls, I just wish their creator wasn’t such an ass. 

There is a Dollfie Dreams Adoption and Chat group on Facebook, and Smartdolls are on topic there. 

4 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

I think you will find the folks here are friendly, and smartdolls are always welcome regardless of how their creator behaves. I see people organizing doll meets all the time, and so far everyone here is pretty nice, although we do disagree at times. 

Personally I’ve always thought Mirai, and some of the others were beautiful dolls, I just wish their creator wasn’t such an ass. 

There is a Dollfie Dreams Adoption and Chat group on Facebook, and Smartdolls are on topic there. 

Thank you, I appreciate that.
Also there's nothing wrong with disagreeing with each other! We're all individuals and of course aren't always going to see eye to eye, but there's a way to do that and still get along and that's totally what I'm looking for. I'm fine with people having a different opinion than me, I'm not fine with being attacked for it! 
His dolls ARE cute, some of them perfectly fit into characters that I have in mind, but the more I hear about how he has treated people (including sicking loyal fans on a young girl to the point where she literally returned her doll in shame) the less I want to add to that collection..

Then I started looking at Dollfie Dreams, by the supposedly "evil" Volks, and OH MY STARS. THERE ARE SO MANY CUTIES. THERE ARE CUTIES AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE!! Why put the other down?! Didn't he even start off making his first doll WITH Volks? Anyhow, the whole thing is silly, and has made me definitely want to get a Dollfie Dream as my second vinyl girl. I'm really put off from purchasing from him again, just out of principle, but there are two dolls I REALLY want so it makes it really hard. 

Volks makes beautiful dolls, and a wide variety of bodies. Where they are limited is skin tones, and they don’t have such extreme bust sizes. XD

3 hours ago, TiltyBird said:

Didn't he even start off making his first doll WITH Volks

I always find it a little funny that Danny hates Volks so much, like they literally created the BJD industry LOL. It seems really screwed up to not give Volks that credit.

That's not to say that Danny's contributions are meaningless because they certainly are not (as well as the tons of resin BJD companies that have made their own niches and have moved far beyond Volks' original vision, some of which are even more advanced than Volks in design and quality, like Fairyland) Danny has made many contributions to the vinyl hobby like the accessibility, diversity and even the little things like his ingenious telescopic stand. IMO Smart Doll is very different from Volks despite the similarities, they both have entirely different aesthetics and visions and I appreciate both of them very much. 

But Volks literally created the foundation on which this hobby was built and I feel they deserve respect for doing so, instead of such intense dislike from him.

And I'm definitely not what you'd call a Volks loyalist, I had SmDs before I had DDs and the only reason I took the plunge and finally started collecting is because of Sailor Moon. But I am very respectful of the company that created this genre and revolutionized the doll industry, just like I'm respectful of Mattel for creating the modern fashion doll industry in 1958 even though I prefer Bratz to Barbie.  

 

Edited April 26, 2019 by Serena-Hime

On 4/24/2019 at 3:53 PM, baldylox said:

I'm going to give it til Friday and if I still haven't heard back, I'll resend it to make sure it didn't get lost in the Interwebs somehow.  I know that happens so I'm not upset about no reply yet.

There is probably a really good chance that all the email addresses of the accounts he banned are blocked on his mail gateway at this point. You might want to try using another email address when you resend.

8 hours ago, TiltyBird said:

Didn't he even start off making his first doll WITH Volks?

No, he did not.

the short history goes that many years ago danny decided to get into doll photography for some reason or another, and got himself a Volks Aoi v1, and a original Blue Saber.

then comes in Chun, or Puppy_52 who made a bespoke DD outfit for danny based on the original Mirai Suenaga seifuku. Many photo's of Blue Saber in this outfit ensue, later with the gaudy option of a L-bust which really did not fit the outfit at all.

danny then at some point asks for permission to tour the Volks facilities where they make their dolls, and he gets access, and makes an article about it for his website. Also at this point he offers his mascot design for volks to use as a character doll, and Volks politely tells him to bugger off.

choo then decides to go all Ferucchio Lamborghini, and make a "Smart" doll of his own, a smart phone controlled animated automata of sorts, with if I remember correct the claim that it would actually walk on its own.

Despite some tech demo's this idea does not quite go to plan, and Danny releases the Smart doll "Light" with the option for people to later on upgrade to the animatronic inner frame. With the emphasis that the people buying the "Light" edition would help fund the R&D for the actual product.

At this point Choo gives credit for mechanical design of the internal frame to another person. Was this person the same one who had made third party upgrades to Volks DD's on Yahoo japan auctions on which the smart doll light version's ball-spine seemed to be heavily based on was left unknown to me.

The clothes for the first of choo's Mirai's at least where comissioned from Chun/puppy_52 If I recall correct.

Then the animatronic version is cancelled totally. and choo focuses on expanding the "light" version product line into what it is today. (For this I personally consider the whole product a failed kickstarter of sorts, since you did not actually get what you backed him up for)

as far as I know choo has now removed mention of outside influence in the design of the smart dolls, and it is now only "By Danny Choo"

 

As an amusing side note Volks makes a partially animated sitting Mirai of their own for a display at an event not that long ago.

 

1 hour ago, finnleo said:

as far as I know choo has now removed mention of outside influence in the design of the smart dolls, and it is now only "By Danny Choo"

True. I don't think anyone is really credited, even vaguely at least for design. I never knew that Junko Nanami (Ronshuka) did the original faceups/mask design for Mirai and Kizuna until seeing it on her site: https://ronshuka.jp/portofolio/works/ and while I don't think Danny ever comes out and explicitly states he designs things he heavily implies it.

I wanted to bring up something else. In the feedback thread here we talked about his "Be nice to the bus driver" rant that's buried on the page for the free .PDF patterns here: https://info.smartdoll.jp/en/posts/smartdoll-apparel-patterns

He's ranting about how customers are too demanding but the part about karma is ironic given how he is behaving right now.

Part of those rants in that period were about that whole "the customer is god" thing. I don't know a lot of things about culture and customs in Japan, but I suspect that phrase is similar to "the customer is always right" expression here in the US. If so, it's certainly not meant to be taken as literally as he is doing in his justification for not operating under that idea at all. It doesn't mean working 18 hour days. It doesn't mean running your company by the whims of what every person tells you. What it does mean is being nice to people you interact with, even if they are sometimes rude. It might mean providing a replacement part to someone who bought your doll from ebay or secondhand because bending your policy a little bit doesn't really hurt you and it may gain you a repeat customer, or at least not create an unhappy one that tells his friends or posts here or on twitter about their experience. Or, basically this:

On 4/24/2019 at 7:59 PM, marishade said:

I participate in the IT help desk at my company, do I tell the person I absolutely cannot stand that they are stupid and I will not help them with their issue because they are being rude? No! I suck up my pride and in the most polite voice I can say "Let me take a look at that for you. We'll get this fixed in a jiffy!" 

He has instead revolted against that to the extreme that his philosophy seems to be "Danny Choo is always right."

Something has occurred to me. He's been posting hints he's got a deal with Warner Brothers to do DC superhero characters. If his behavior becomes where a partner like that considers it a liability to their own company or brand, there are no doubt clauses in any contract that will allow them to end the deal. There might be some karma after all.

@Yenna and @mizya: I know you two are Finnish and English isn't your first language. I just wanted to say I think your writing is more eloquent than many for who it is their first language, certainly moreso than me.

Edited April 27, 2019 by cfx

A bit off topic but if anyone wants to join my Facebook Smart Doll group you all are welcome. Danny isn't in my group. https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=2127606610844126&ref=content_filter

16 minutes ago, cfx said:

Something has occurred to me. He's been posting hints he's got a deal with Warner Brothers to do DC superhero characters. If his behavior becomes where a partner like that considers it a liability to their own company or brand, there are no doubt clauses in any contract that will allow them to end the deal. There might be some karma after all.

I was thinking exactly that as well, the moment he was teasing some sort of deal. I don't want to say that someone should somehow reach out to the company and let them know of his recent behavior, but....you know.

1 hour ago, finnleo said:

 

danny then at some point asks for permission to tour the Volks facilities where they make their dolls, and he gets access, and makes an article about it for his website. Also at this point he offers his mascot design for volks to use as a character doll, and Volks politely tells him to bugger off.

Did he actually get to go through Volks or did they also tell him to get lost here too? Because I know he toured Obitsu and did a (now unavailable) video on their process. Honestly right from the start that rubbed me the wrong way. I know it's just business, but to tour a factory and their process and then start a competing business in the next year or two afterwards(maybe the timeline was longer, I don't recall) always seemed kinda...gross to me.

Also in regards to his lack of credit, I think I once heard his clothes were made by TTYA. Anyone know if that's true or not?

But in regards to this entire thing...just ew. I don't really have any more descriptors for Danny's behavior lately. I really wish Smart Doll would have stayed about the dolls and not about Danny. Nothing against them(though I still wanted them to be robotic) but Smart Doll is now 100% off my radar for ever caring to buy one. After the Volks thing, I thought maybe I could buy one someday secondhand and still enjoy. But it's too soured for me at this point. I'd be too scared to ever post mine if I had one outside of the forum.

 

20 minutes ago, Noxxbunny said:

Also in regards to his lack of credit, I think I once heard his clothes were made by TTYA. Anyone know if that's true or not?

I don't think there's any absolute answer for this and I want to make that very clear as to not spread any misinformation, but the old denim stuff is very similar in many ways that seems beyond coincidence, down to small details such as how all of the stitching was done. The jeans, denim hot pants, and denim skirt are all very similar in every way, and those items did not have the blurb about being proudly made in Japan on the Smartdoll site. Note the designs weren't 100% identical; TTYA has straight leg skinny jeans instead of the bell bottom type, though I don't know if they had others in the past. The Smartdoll stuff has mostly been replaced with the "Hiroshima" stuff now though.

I don't have a good closeup picture of them at the moment, but here is a picture of the TTYA hot pants on my custom Luka, and I hope @foo won't mind that I'm borrowing a pic of his Miku wearing the Smartdoll ones. I've had a friend send me pics of the Smartdoll ones in closeup and they fit exactly the same in the butt and waist. Another bit is that some of the Smartdoll denim had Calvin Klein pocket design, a particular pattern of a loop in the threads; the old TTYA denim skirt I have has that exact same pocket design. While jeans all don't vary that much, how the stitching on the belt loops, front pockets, etc. is on these is identical as far as I can tell.

I'll use a spoiler tag as to not clutter up this thread with these pictures.

Spoiler

Miku Daylight by bodolza, on Flickr

 

Edited April 27, 2019 by cfx
extra bits

WHAT THE- I wasn't expecting the shorts to be THAT close. I can't even tell which is which. 😂

I am going to refrain from making assumptions on the TTYA theory, but I thought he had seamstresses working on clothes in the Smart Doll shop/office? Or are they just working on other things? I remember there was a brief TV interview of people visiting his store and there was a section that was not accessible really (but easily seen) by the public where his staff worked on...things? What is that section? XD

I know he also has this thing going on where sometimes he makes announcements seeking in-house designers, or people willing to make clothe patterns for Smart Doll bodies specifically (since he's all about that fits-like-a-glove aesthetic). Mayhaps the patterns of particular clothing was given/sold to him and this same designer worked with TTYA? (This is literally a grasp at straws here though since I don't know a thing about TTYA as a company, nor their history. 😖)

 

I do know that Danny Choo is quite deft at hiding his dirt. At this point he likes playing the victim card with VOLKs but as I've said before, we don't know what he tells THEM. VOLKs is the oldest company in the modern BJD community, and they are professional enough not to air the dirty laundry regarding their company, nor their dealings with other companies. Since Danny Choo didn't have much of a name back in the good ye olden days before his company even took root, finding his stuff with VOLKs is probably difficult now. But I too am curious of what he said to VOLKs and if he toured their factory aswell.

Edited April 27, 2019 by freakie-oppa

4 hours ago, finnleo said:

No, he did not.

the short history goes that many years ago danny decided to get into doll photography for some reason or another, and got himself a Volks Aoi v1, and a original Blue Saber.

then comes in Chun, or Puppy_52 who made a bespoke DD outfit for danny based on the original Mirai Suenaga seifuku. Many photo's of Blue Saber in this outfit ensue, later with the gaudy option of a L-bust which really did not fit the outfit at all.

danny then at some point asks for permission to tour the Volks facilities where they make their dolls, and he gets access, and makes an article about it for his website. Also at this point he offers his mascot design for volks to use as a character doll, and Volks politely tells him to bugger off.

choo then decides to go all Ferucchio Lamborghini, and make a "Smart" doll of his own, a smart phone controlled animated automata of sorts, with if I remember correct the claim that it would actually walk on its own. 

Despite some tech demo's this idea does not quite go to plan, and Danny releases the Smart doll "Light" with the option for people to later on upgrade to the animatronic inner frame. With the emphasis that the people buying the "Light" edition would help fund the R&D for the actual product.

At this point Choo gives credit for mechanical design of the internal frame to another person. Was this person the same one who had made third party upgrades to Volks DD's on Yahoo japan auctions on which the smart doll light version's ball-spine seemed to be heavily based on was left unknown to me.

The clothes for the first of choo's Mirai's at least where comissioned from Chun/puppy_52 If I recall correct.

Then the animatronic version is cancelled totally. and choo focuses on expanding the "light" version product line into what it is today. (For this I personally consider the whole product a failed kickstarter of sorts, since you did not actually get what you backed him up for)

as far as I know choo has now removed mention of outside influence in the design of the smart dolls, and it is now only "By Danny Choo"

 

As an amusing side note Volks makes a partially animated sitting Mirai of their own for a display at an event not that long ago.

 

And I believe Years back I read his statement about how He start make smartdoll because a 'certain company' didn't want to produce mirai doll and support her robotic concept or sort ?

 

2 hours ago, Noxxbunny said:

Did he actually get to go through Volks or did they also tell him to get lost here too? Because I know he toured Obitsu and did a (now unavailable) video on their process. Honestly right from the start that rubbed me the wrong way. I know it's just business, but to tour a factory and their process and then start a competing business in the next year or two afterwards(maybe the timeline was longer, I don't recall) always seemed kinda...gross to me.

20 minutes ago, AyaToyBox said:

And I believe Years back I read his statement about how He start make smartdoll because a 'certain company' didn't want to produce mirai doll and support her robotic concept or sort ?

Was just being crude in my wording for the sake of telling a story.

But basicly Volks flat out turned down his Mirai mascot as a character model.

For at the time, I believe for a good reason, since they have actual license's to deal with, and most likely also production obligations to those license's -- and they were being offered a totally unknown concept to them. -- I mean if I had been the Volks rep even I wouldn't have taken up his offer, unless I had a there and now financial estimate on how it would have performed on the market.

But I remember in the article him going through all of the basic molding stuff, and the face-up application, especially the masking equipment for quick application of details.

So Noxxbunny mentions the gist what I think Volk's ire with choo probably is, since they are to me a rather traditional entity on the market, and then you get someone coming in their house, taking pictures of stuff, asking questions about stuff, and then going off producing his own doll claiming superiority in concepts. -- so no wonder there might be a certain level of friction on that side of the story.

We could argue, would history be different if the Volks rep had taken choo up on his offer on using the mascot as a base for a character doll, but since this is where we are now, that's a bit pointless.

6 minutes ago, finnleo said:

 

Was just being crude in my wording for the sake of telling a story.

But basicly Volks flat out turned down his Mirai mascot as a character model.

For at the time, I believe for a good reason, since they have actual license's to deal with, and most likely also production obligations to those license's -- and they were being offered a totally unknown concept to them. -- I mean if I had been the Volks rep even I wouldn't have taken up his offer, unless I had a there and now financial estimate on how it would have performed on the market.

But I remember in the article him going through all of the basic molding stuff, and the face-up application, especially the masking equipment for quick application of details.

So Noxxbunny mentions the gist what I think Volk's ire with choo probably is, since they are to me a rather traditional entity on the market, and then you get someone coming in their house, taking pictures of stuff, asking questions about stuff, and then going off producing his own doll claiming superiority in concepts. -- so no wonder there might be a certain level of friction on that side of the story.

We could argue, would history be different if the Volks rep had taken choo up on his offer on using the mascot as a base for a character doll, but since this is where we are now, that's a bit pointless.

Who knows what actually happen , but well all I can read from people tweet or retweets all these years are like his "moaning" tweet of how certain company told him to make his body incompatible with their heads XD and how the minor drama starts when volks start put those volks doll only logos on dolpa and the sort XD ...

Edited April 27, 2019 by AyaToyBox
add more stuff

@finnleo Thank you for providing that short history. I'm not really familiar with his early stages since I didn't know who he was until I joined this forum in 2014. I wonder if part of why he dislikes Volks so much is because they refused to make a doll of his Mirai? If I remember right, when he had that "Volks doesn't allow Smartdolls into Dolpa and claims that they're bootlegs" smear campaign going on and people called him out on instagram, he replied that Volks threatened him with a lawsuit unless he stopped displaying Volks clothes and shoes on his Smartdolls at his store. That was probably the last straw. But honestly, what business wouldn't want to protect their products? To me it sounds perfectly reasonable, but in DC's mind he probably thought he's doing Volks a favour by advertising their products and was upset when Volks didn't think so.

Although, even way before that his website has been full of jabs at Volks, the first one I noticed was the "Knees bend enough to kneel on a table but not more than 90° - this is because the knee joint will split open and look...terrible as observed on other products which I wasn't a fan of" on the "design philosophy" page. There are more but his website is an absolute pain to navigate with links on top of links. He complains how his customers don't read his design philosophy to "set their expectations straight" but I wonder how many people who just stumble upon an online store selling dolls and haven't got a clue who Danny Choo is, even manage to venture on that page. 🤔

I think that I've heard the rumour about TTYA manufacturing his early jeans and in the photos that you posted, @cfx, those shorts do look pretty much identical. The TTYA ones seem to have red lining at the pockets and the waist? while SMD ones have white lining. I do find it interesting how he makes such a big deal about everything being manufactured in Japan... I suppose most of his clothes these days are. However, I found this tweet related to Jougasaki Mika rather interesting:
 

It says that usually the wigs are manufactured in Korea or Philippines and then sent to Japan to be cut and styled, but Mika's wig was such a complex style that it had to be fully made in Japan. Now, I don't think he's specifically boasted that the wigs are made in Japan, but when he tends to say that "everything" is manufactured in Japan, I assumed that the wigs are too. A while ago he posted this photo of wig fiber on insta, and now it kinda seems to me like the fiber is bought in Japan, then sent overseas to be made into a wig and then sent back to Japan to be styled? Not very sustainable if you ask me.
 

Spoiler

And a bit off-topic:

4 hours ago, cfx said:

@Yenna and @mizya: I know you two are Finnish and English isn't your first language. I just wanted to say I think your writing is more eloquent than many for who it is their first language, certainly moreso than me.

Thank you, however we have a bit of an "unfair" advantage to most Finns as @Yenna lived abroad when she was younger and went to an English-speaking school and I've majored in English at the university. xD Most Finns have a good knowledge of English because it's taught here from an early age (third grade of elementary school, so most kids are around 8~9 years old) but they may struggle with articles, prepositions and certain aspects of grammar. If you go to university, all the English classes are in English and grammar is taught in much more depth, so that improves your language skills a lot. Also, of course the kids who go to an English speaking school and people who have been living abroad tend to have better language skills. I'm pretty fluent in written English but my pronunciation isn't that great compared to some of my peers who've been living abroad. ^^;

 

Edited April 27, 2019 by mizya
fixed formatting

34 minutes ago, finnleo said:

 

Was just being crude in my wording for the sake of telling a story.

But basicly Volks flat out turned down his Mirai mascot as a character model.

For at the time, I believe for a good reason, since they have actual license's to deal with, and most likely also production obligations to those license's -- and they were being offered a totally unknown concept to them. -- I mean if I had been the Volks rep even I wouldn't have taken up his offer, unless I had a there and now financial estimate on how it would have performed on the market.

But I remember in the article him going through all of the basic molding stuff, and the face-up application, especially the masking equipment for quick application of details.

So Noxxbunny mentions the gist what I think Volk's ire with choo probably is, since they are to me a rather traditional entity on the market, and then you get someone coming in their house, taking pictures of stuff, asking questions about stuff, and then going off producing his own doll claiming superiority in concepts. -- so no wonder there might be a certain level of friction on that side of the story.

We could argue, would history be different if the Volks rep had taken choo up on his offer on using the mascot as a base for a character doll, but since this is where we are now, that's a bit pointless.

Yeah, I never saw an article where he did this with Volks. Just Obitsu. I actually expected that if anyone tried to sue him first, it would be them. But perhaps they did and just never said anything. Obitsu is even quieter than Volks about these things. I always found it interesting that Danny at least never targeted Obistu in claiming superiority. But I think it was because he maybe didn't see them as real competition to him since his problem is with Volks. They were just the ones unfortunately kind enough to let him tour. But hey, perhaps they turned down Mirai as well. Who knows.

But that sums up exactly how I felt about it. The staff and CEO at Obitsu were so nice to him in that video and then he turned around and started making his own vinyl anime dolls using a (from what I gather) similar process. But I don't know how much variation there really is to making vinyl dolls. It was a little off putting, but I was looking past it back then. The video was up on Crunchyroll before, but last time I tried to watch again, it said it was now unavailable unfortunately. A shame because I did really enjoy seeing how the dolls are made.

 

And very odd about the TTYA thing. 🤔 They really do look incredibly similar...I only have one pair of their jeans and the stitching, button, and just form of it also looks just like that. But I guess we'll probably never get actual real confirmation on that from either TTYA or Danny.