Can we bring back the happy anime dolls?

Am I the only person who misses the cute anime dolls? I’m posting this here because I don’t want to get attacked by Danny Choo’s vast army of sycophants, or be called a racist or an ableist. I was a fan of smart dolls for years, I even liked Danny’s blog. Now that I am no longer a student I can get one, but they are all so depressing!!! I know inclusivity is important, but at some point something’s gotta give. Can Danny maybe include new fans who just want a pretty anime doll too? 

I feel the same way honestly. Almost all of the dolls I liked and had owned in the past have been discontinued with no sign of coming back. I'm in favor of inclusive dolls too, I think it's lovely he's done that stuff, but I wish it hadn't come at the total expense of the previous lineup. I'd love to see the return of Kizuna, Moment, Journey, and anime Cocoa Prowess. I wish we could have both types of dolls.

I think that there’s definitely a way to make cute and inclusive dolls  i wish there were more in the cutsey style! 

Not a fan of Danny, but I agree. I miss the original line up and the cute anime girls.

Agreed! I love my classic Mirai, Prowess, Kurenai and Shiki because of their super big eyes! I really miss those kind of dolls.

I feel like the majority of dolls that get released nowadays are the semi-realistic, which are beautiful (I have Entropy and she's actually my all-time favourite Smart doll sculpt), but my favourites are forever the very first Smart Dolls. I'd still love to get my hands on some elusive ones like Sana, but they seem to never pop up 😢

I hope Danny will bring back some of them, and keep them around for a while. Since I usually do not just have funds at the ready to spend. I missed out on that original Chitose drop a while back which absolutely broke my heart, since I used to own her and she was my favourite, but I had to sell her due to desperately needing the money at that time. And not having been able to adopt a new one when they dropped was really painful, especially since he said there would be no more plans for more afterwards. Also the fact they were just optional heads, and I did not have a spare body and would have had to purchase another doll along just to have a body made it even more difficult. 

I second this. I love the anime girls. Chitose, Starlight, Sana... I really want a Haruka one day but I am not really willing to pay the crazy secondhand prices. 

I can only agree with the posts above. I got my first SmD in 2021 and had a hard time choosing just one. I got Chitose Multiverse but there were a number of them I could easily have bought had I had the money. Characters like Moment, Prowess, Starlight and Classic Chitose were potential future aquisitions. None of the current line up really appeal to me so I am hoping that some of the ones I do like make a return. I wasn't prepared to buy option heads due to limited availability of bodies, body-less heads is something I'm not comfortable with.

I really thought Moment was going to be part of the forever lineup. But these days it looks like nothing is.

Looking at the older lineup I never realised how much more they resonate with me than the current semi-real focussed lineup. 

5 hours ago, Sebby said:

I second this. I love the anime girls. Chitose, Starlight, Sana... I really want a Haruka one day but I am not really willing to pay the crazy secondhand prices. 

Haruka was soo pretty, isn’t she Mirai’s little sister? 

5 hours ago, Stupid_Hoomun said:

I can only agree with the posts above. I got my first SmD in 2021 and had a hard time choosing just one. I got Chitose Multiverse but there were a number of them I could easily have bought had I had the money. Characters like Moment, Prowess, Starlight and Classic Chitose were potential future aquisitions. None of the current line up really appeal to me so I am hoping that some of the ones I do like make a return. I wasn't prepared to buy option heads due to limited availability of bodies, body-less heads is something I'm not comfortable with.

Lol I could not imagine having a bunch of heads! 
 

I’m so glad I’m not the only one who misses the old lineup. Hopefully when they return in May there will be some anime girls added to the lineup. 

I think Danny is trying to shift SmD to a different public and kinda distancing himself from anime style because that's less attractive to the bigger audience than realistic faces or inclusive models.

21 hours ago, LaRosePetite said:

Haruka was soo pretty, isn’t she Mirai’s little sister? 

yep, she is! And one of the main girls from the original SmD art. Just like Mirai, Chitose, Kizuna and Eiji.

On 5/8/2023 at 12:16 PM, mukyuu said:

I think Danny is trying to shift SmD to a different public and kinda distancing himself from anime style because that's less attractive to the bigger audience than realistic faces or inclusive models.

That's a bit of a heartache. I mean anime style SmDs probably resonate more with some people more than the realistic fare. I know I was more interested in Smart Dolls back when they had more anime style sculpts available. Now with the more realistic stuff I feel more uninterested. I prefer more realistic sculpts on BJDs. 🧐

On 4/26/2023 at 5:06 PM, LaRosePetite said:

Am I the only person who misses the cute anime dolls? I’m posting this here because I don’t want to get attacked by Danny Choo’s vast army of sycophants, or be called a racist or an ableist. I was a fan of smart dolls for years, I even liked Danny’s blog. Now that I am no longer a student I can get one, but they are all so depressing!!! I know inclusivity is important, but at some point something’s gotta give. Can Danny maybe include new fans who just want a pretty anime doll too? 

I have to add to this because I’ve changed my mind. While it would still be nice to have more frontline anime girls, that’s just not the way things are done. Danny runs a small company and does things the way he wants to do them. He makes this very clear in the many articles he publishes on the website. It’s like shopping in a small boutique stocked with carefully curated items that reflect the owner’s taste. I’m not sure what changed my mind, it was something about holding my first smart doll that made something inside my brain click. These dolls are something different and special and a lot of effort is put into making them. I get it now. Not sure what “it” is exactly, but I get it. 

Mhhh, it still makes me strange to see an anime-style body with a semi-real head, if he wants to move mainly on that, he should also review the bodies.

There are semi-real heads that I like, but the contrast is too weird for me.

I am more towards semi-real, but there is a few anime ones that I like.

While trying to decide on my first doll, I had all the tabs open and kept closing them as I finally landed on Athena or Destiny. The big eyes didn't feel right for me, except for Blue Prowess. Not sure if it's the face paint. I know that not all their faces are for me, but that just saves my wallet xD

At this point the whole Smart Doll project has nothing to do with Japan, and might as well be located in the UK or the United States.  The doll line up looks like something mandated by the diversity, equity and inclusion department at some monied ivy league school.  What has that to do with Japanese culture?  Nothing.  Just look at these three companies.  I could find any non-BJD collect, and tell them that these three new product images are of dolls made in Japan, but one of them is run by a westerner, and they'd have absolutely no trouble pinpointing it.  One of these things is not like the others....

I'm interested in anime, Japanese culture, kawaii culture, all of that.  Danny's focus is on western liberal notions of cultural diversity, and, for some unexplained reason, military-esque ugly clothing.  I'm not saying that his dolls shouldn't exist, or that there isn't a market for them!  They absolutely should exist, but my interest in Japan and Japanese things, and Smart Doll's current incarnation is the furthest thing from that.

43 minutes ago, That_Dollfie_Dude said:

Smart Doll project has nothing to do with Japan, and might as well be located in the UK or the United States.

I think we've gone through this on the social media thread a few times already. Theories varying from being able to skirt local regulations because the product is a personal import, although I do have to admit that there probably are manufacturing contacts established that might not work as well overseas. And also losing the slight exoticness of being able to slap "made in japan" on the box.

But it is sort of amusing all things considered that the company is called culture japan, and produces stuff thats anything but.

8 hours ago, finnleo said:

But it is sort of amusing all things considered that the company is called culture japan, and produces stuff thats anything but.

Tried my best to keep from $h1tposting this thread, but, I can't really argue what @finnleo put here... 

18 hours ago, That_Dollfie_Dude said:

One of these things is not like the others....

I looked at the Dollbot page, and the first thing that popped into my head was "Oh look... normal corporate product disclaimers like the ones you find on a real business website.

One of these things is not like the others indeed. 

It also makes me think, maybe the first thing that needs to be brought back is happy, because what's on the SmD store pages now just seems to fall under the heading of anal retentive. 

I'm not sure if we want to go there. While in general I agree that currently there seems to be more semi-real dolls available than anime ones in the store, I'm not sure about some of the points raised here. The recent semi-real dolls not seeming Japanese enough... we're not applying the same expectations to Angel Philia, or Volks Super Dollfies, which are consistently more semi-real than anime-style, so it is not fair to expect only SmartDoll to reach this (arbitrary) standard.

And the diversity in the line-up is a good thing! This is the one thing which SmartDoll is doing right (with hiccups etc.), better than any of their competitors. And I'm sorry, but "The doll line up looks like something mandated by the diversity, equity and inclusion department at some monied ivy league school" sounds exactly like bad-faith arguments against the "forced diversity" (which is... a poorly understood myth at best, a bigot buzzword at worst). What are the criteria for a diverse line-up to not look "mandated"? There are currently 17 light-coloured (Tea and Cinnamon) dolls in stock, and 17 in Cocoa. What exactly is wrong with this ratio?

I agree with criticizing the disclaimers, the poorly-thought out posts, probably never buy a SmartDoll, but seeing this kind of arguments leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Even wondering what makes dolls "Japanese", whether SmartDolls can be called that (and does it even matter? Can a predominantly Western forum even come up with anything substantial to say about this?) could be an interesting topic for discussion. But let's leave the "the diversity is too much!" out of this. Japanese pop-culture is more popular than ever, there is no shortage of anime-style, pale dolls out there. It is understandable to want more, of course, and at the same time SmartDoll is not wrong for not supplying them if they do not want to (and to be frank, I am not sure if the current stock is a result of anime-looking dolls not selling, selling too well, or something else entirely).

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But it is sort of amusing all things considered that the company is called culture japan, and produces stuff thats anything but.

Quite frankly, an interest in military themes and motifs sounds actually pretty on-brand for Japanese pop-culture (Azur Lane, Girl's Frontline, for crying out loud, Vocaloid Senbonzakura songs and outfits!). Even Volks did some uniforms some time ago. Whether these are ugly or not is subjective. Unless you mean something else? For me for example, the stuff that Volks produces in general is also not substantially more "Japanese" (whatever that means) than what SmartDoll does. A lot of it is casual outfits, even inspired by other cultures. Their name is even in German. I am, of course not arguing here that Culture Japan is Japanese, just that all things considered, this is a pretty meaningless descriptor when applying to commercial product.

1 hour ago, Irulazuli said:

Unless you mean something else?

It all depends on how dry you want your humor served and with how much sarcasm is dished out as a side order.

But taking your examples from a literal perspective, you would think that a company that names itself as Culture Japan, would be all things related to japanese culture (Kimono's, Miko outfits, Tori-necklaces all that other stereotypical things), and at the moment you go to the site, and you are pretty much greeted with underwear which design is more or less knicked from Clavin Klein, Tank tops and Hijabs (To be clear, nothing against Hijabs, but just to bring up the point).

Then you mention Volks, and while yes, their name is german, but as a meaning I do believe it means "people" or for the people, with the general company charter to bring different types of hobby opportunities to various people, and as far as I can tell they are pretty much doing what they've named themselves to be.

So really, to me it boils down to how loaded a company name is to your personal perception of things. And pretty brutally in this sense Volks wins the name association game.

And while speaking of names ... I do have to wonder how much of a stab Dollbot was to the subjected matter... since they are about as robotic.

 

 

I was using Volks' name as an example of names not really mattering to the identity of one nationality over the other actually, so I guess for me it is not really loaded at all. One thing I want to point out that I don't really see the name Culture Japan anywhere on the website. The logo just says SmartDoll by Danny Choo. It only appears as the name of that old show Danny did about Japan deeper in some articles. I guess it might be a legal name, but since in this case it is not same as the brand, personally I think it does not really matter.

They did have yukatas some (long) time ago, if my memory serves (there is currently a Hakama set). This is splitting hairs, but for the record, there are no kimonos on the front page on Volks Store either.

1 hour ago, Irulazuli said:

They did have yukatas some (long) time ago, if my memory serves (there is currently a Hakama set). This is splitting hairs, but for the record, there are no kimonos on the front page on Volks Store either.

 

Iirc they had some earlier this year, around the time Yor was released.

Volks has a lot of contemporary fashion styles, some anime styles, and their Designer Collection period / theme cosplay. They do occasionally produce Japanese styles, but it's not like a major thing with them. Even the White Rose Collection Japanese school uniforms are Japanese takes on a western style, and I think a lot of their contemporary clothing is based on Japanese fashion sense, even though the styles themselves are western.

I'm told, but I don't know this for fact, that weekdays Japanese have to live with very conservative & strict rules for dress, so on the weekends they cut loose with wilder styles. It's like the weekends are when they can express themselves. We may see some of that in the clothing Volks produces, it may be that it provides people with a way to express themselves even when they can't express themselves in public, and that would be in keeping with Dollfie as "another yourself."

4 hours ago, Irulazuli said:

And the diversity in the line-up is a good thing! This is the one thing which SmartDoll is doing right (with hiccups etc.), better than any of their competitors. And I'm sorry, but "The doll line up looks like something mandated by the diversity, equity and inclusion department at some monied ivy league school" sounds exactly like bad-faith arguments against the "forced diversity" (which is... a poorly understood myth at best, a bigot buzzword at worst).

Please spare me your accusations of bigotry.  We're all consumers here, purchasing quite costly dolls.  I'm explaining why Danny's dolls do not appeal to me.  The reason Danny's lineup is so different from Volks and Dollbot is because Danny is inserting western tastes and preferences, and those are things I am not interested in.  In no way do I think my tastes or interests are "right."  They're just my tastes and interests.  I like cute Japanese things, and Danny's interests are elsewhere. 

I'm simply not Danny's target audience, and that's ok.  I'm just not interested in the western cultural diversity, or disability gear, or pimples, or overweight dolls, or amputees.  But if you love those things, that's awesome!  I'm glad that there is a company out there that is making something you're interested in.  We don't all need to be interested in purchasing the same things. 

I do apologize if my post came off as too rude, or if it sounded like I'm trying to say how others should see things.  This is just how I see it, and why Danny won't get any more of my money.  For me, if I'm looking for anime dolls, I'll stick with authentic Japanese companies.  If you have more western aesthetic preferences, or if you feel Culture Japan produces products that are just as Japanese as Volks, then by all means, buy Smartdoll.  We are all allowed to have our aesthetic preferences, and it's okay for those to be more in line with Volk's or Dollbot than Culture Japan (and vice versa). 

Edited July 14, 2023 by That_Dollfie_Dude
clarity

On 7/8/2023 at 1:02 PM, That_Dollfie_Dude said:

At this point the whole Smart Doll project has nothing to do with Japan, and might as well be located in the UK or the United States.  The doll line up looks like something mandated by the diversity, equity and inclusion department at some monied ivy league school.  What has that to do with Japanese culture?  

Danny is ethnically chinese and was born in England, so if it doesn't reflect japanese culture, then maybe there's a reason it doesn't. It may be based out of Japan and sell primarily to them, but there's no actual reason it should be restricted to japanese culture. If you don't like how he's running his company, maybe you should create your own doll manufacturing company and run it the way you think it oughtta be run. I mean, HE did.