The Facebook debacle & other issues

There are a few things that I do like about Smart Doll.

The telescopic stand on the Smart Doll that can be used to stabilize the SmD for cool posing and carrying heavy items on their hands and arms.

They're more sturdy for some poses that are more wacky.

 

I just wish those options are also implemented on Volks Dollfie Dream BJDs. But, it's not too much of a huge deal.

 

Interesting, this thread is still ongoing! But, nonetheless Smart Doll is Danny's personal vanity project in the end. I just wish he matures up and wises up, but I don't see that happening for a long time.

On 4/29/2024 at 2:00 PM, SonataAvalon said:

...bro this dude is just more and more of someone's kid not thinking life's fair for them. That's the point of Volk's whole business, it's a LOTTERY for A ONE TIME ITEM. 

And what does HE MEAN EASIER TO BUY?! HALF OF THE ONES PEOPLE WANT ARE SOLD OUT

"Hey I'm aiming to make these dolls more accessible for people to buy them since this other company" 

"cool, what about the out of stock Chaos/dolls/collaboration dolls which you could ask the collaborator to have a renewed rerun, you'd make more money, or make more of the dolls that are sold out, and or remake them?"

"what collab"

I just feel Danny Choo should know people want to buy his stuff, and shouldn't be so elitist. I think the survey is irrelevant and shouldn't be a thing for someone genuinely wanting one, it's a hassle and for easily breakable, it feels way too like those "only the worthy can have this, so here's some facts, you should know them" and after what has been happening to me specifically with the site just won't let me complete it or turn it in. This infuriates me.

half of em get sold out, because ik of certain people, who will buy double s and triples of certain dolls for "project's "

Edited May 5 by DollyDearest

On 4/30/2024 at 7:35 AM, ragnamuffin said:

Maybe in the West, but Volks is probably one of the biggest and oldest names in the world of figures and gunpla. Their hobby business existed long before their doll business did (it was founded in 1972!), and that’s partly how Dollfies came to be in the first place—the word is a portmanteau of “doll” and “figure” since they’re dolls that can be posed like figures.

Also, to address your previous comment, it may be true that they started out focused on the male otaku demographic, but I don’t think that’s the case anymore. They really cleaned up their act when DD became more mainstream, and their marketing nowadays seems geared more towards their female fanbase.

The sad truth is, though, that Volks themselves look down on otaku and the DD line—DDs are explicitly banned from all Tenshi stores and Kachuan (their exclusive members-only facility), you can’t do the welcoming ceremony with DDs, and they really only coordinate special events like the cruise around Tokyo Bay and the invite-only auctions and exhibitions for SD owners 😕

Is it really true? Then that sucks, it's unfortunate that Volks treat their DD fans and collectors like that...

2 hours ago, ZandurFox said:

Is it really true? Then that sucks, it's unfortunate that Volks treat their DD fans and collectors like that...

I was a bit confused by this remark because it’s not..completely true? If by ‘Tenshi stores’ ragnamuffin meant any of the stores with ‘Tenshi no Sumika’, those are just all their stores that sell doll stuff, period. Of them, the only ones that are exclusively for SD are Tenshi no Mado in Harajuku and Tenshi no Sato in Kyoto. They’re very SD focussed stores, so I kinda don’t really know why you would want to take a DD there anyway (speaking as a fan of both). Once apon a time they actually were allowed in Sato, but the popular rumour (although it’s spoken about so much it’s more like an open secret at this point) was that a bunch of very rude, perverted DD fans ruined it for everyone else by taking NSFW photos and bothering both patrons and staff. They’re still allowed in the private photo rooms that you can pay to book - but again…id rather use the ones in Akiba Doll Point for free. (Anyway, since the infamous DD banning incident was so long ago and the fanbases are less distinct from eachother, I do wonder if they’ll allow them back soon? They did allow DDs at the private party at Sato recently…) As for all other ‘Tenshi stores’ (Tenshi no sumika’, DDs are welcomed - I mean they’d have to be, theyre sold there. I used to take mine to the Fukuoka one every other weekend. If you take a look at the regular group photos at the different Tenshi no Sumika shops throughout Japan you can regularly see DDs participating - and some you only see DDs.

As for special events - the upcoming cruise is themed around a SD line (oath of silver coin), so it makes sense for it to be for SD owners. One of the previous special events, the 2019 resort stay in Atami, was for both - you can clearly see DDs in the photos. https://www.volks.co.jp/owners/newakao2019/ (edit: well, on the site, a staff MDD - I thought they’d have an event report on the site, but the event photos I think are only on the volks_dollfie_event instagram, and I remember seeing DDs but unfortunately there’s no easy way to go to 2019 other than manually scrolling as far as I know)

None of this had much to do with the content of this thread, so I wasn’t going to say anything…but I just wanted to comment on that because I do sometimes see this ‘volks looks down on DDs’ sentiment from DD fans which is always a bit odd to me because it’s simply not true, they just handle the experiences in a different way. From my point of view, the experiences enjoyed by SD fans and the whole mythology surrounding them having souls etc (which is what the omukae ceremony is all about) is something that DD fans aren’t interested in or are actively weirded out by. But if they are, and requested it enough, Volks could potentially make an equivalent service exclusive to Akihabara - like how Dream Choice is the DD equivalent of Full Choice.

Anyway as for smartdoll I have nothing really to add that hasn’t been said - there’s a small but dedicated fanbase for them in Japan, but it never seemed to me that Danny really marketed to them much to begin with. All of his social media videos etc have always been in English, and unless I’ve forgotten, I don’t remember there ever being Japanese subtitles, so I imagine some jp fans feeling left out. Whatever he’s currently doing seems to be working for him and the niche he’s made, so my own feelings are irrelevant tbh.

Edited May 3 by Monty

25 minutes ago, Monty said:

I was a bit confused by this remark because it’s not..completely true?

You don’t need to act like I’ve said something patently false. By ‘Tenshi stores’, I was mostly thinking of Tenshi no Mado and Tenshi no Sato, but my understanding was that DDs were not allowed at Tenshi no Sumika either. I don’t live near one and have never been to one so I could be wrong about that, but the fact remains that you can’t bring them to those particular stores while no restriction on SDs exists at Doll Point or the Show Rooms.

I too have heard the rumour about perverted DD fans getting all DDs banned from Sato and Kachuan, which sucks because I’m a VIP member and would have liked to bring a doll when I go to visit, but can’t because I don’t have any SDs. I also would have liked to do the welcoming ceremony since it seems so wacky to me, but I can’t do that either 🤷‍♀️ 

Dolpa also seems more geared towards SD than DD. SD fans got a cruise and we got… a mook with some pictures of Piapro and Square Enix dolls? Most of the dolls on display are SDs and the grand prizes for bingo are Seitenshi and Reitenshi SDs. If you don’t collect SDs, why would you care about any of this? I understand that a lot of people collect both, and you’re free to disagree with my assessment, but as someone who only collects DDs, it sure feels like we’re an afterthought.

20 minutes ago, ragnamuffin said:

Dolpa also seems more geared towards SD than DD. SD fans got a cruise and we got… a mook with some pictures of Piapro and Square Enix dolls? Most of the dolls on display are SDs and the grand prizes for bingo are Seitenshi and Reitenshi SDs. If you don’t collect SDs, why would you care about any of this? I understand that a lot of people collect both, and you’re free to disagree with my assessment, but as someone who only collects DDs, it sure feels like we’re an afterthought.

They have had fullset DDs as grand bingo prizes in the past (notably Miku), but I agree they could do it more often. But I personally do not want a DD equivalent to the sei/rei tenshi simply because I do not want a DD that is almost impossible to ever acquire lol;; If they really did make tiny DDs like that, I’d want them more accessible. It may seem like there are a lot of SDs on display, but for some like the Dear SDs, those special events are literally the only way to get them. I think the overall accessibility of DD compared to SD is what causes the differences here.

Most of the other dolls on display are the one-offs - they used to have Dcoords as the equivalent at past Dolpas but they got phased out due to lack of interest - and it was likely due to Dream Choice as it happened not long after that started (A lottery for a doll you can’t choose the coordination of loses its appeal when you can go get a Dream Choice exactly as you want it I assume) . The appeal of the SD one-offs is two things that aren’t easily replicable with a DD equivalent: 1) older, discontinued limited sculpts (casting a single head in resin is very different/easier to manufacturing a vinyl head) 2) unique faceups (as opposed to printed DD faceups that could be gotten from Dream Choice). That said, I would actually love to see real DD one-offs with hand painted faceups and OOAK outfits like how Azone does its store events for custom one-offs by various different faceup artists though - even if it was ‘numbered’ heads only. 

I definitely don’t disagree with you that there could be a lot more things especially for DD fans out there (would personally really like a faceup class like they had for SD), I just disagree that all of this means Volks themselves looks down on their own products and fans of those products, anymore than I don’t think they look down on their hobby division and model fans who get even less fanfare. I simply think they have different expectations of what these 3 groups of fans actually want - whether those expectations are correct is a different discussion.
Anyway, don’t know if Dolpa still lets you submit feedback - but a desire for more DD focussed activities could be worth mentioning next time there’s a survey. For all I know they simply don’t think there’s a demand for these things if no one has mentioned them.

(Although we are a bit off topic from this thread now whoops)

13 hours ago, SonataAvalon said:

I am from US, can tell you that this "approach to marketing" does and wouldn't work. Even if being polite is an aim, you should see your customers as just "customers." people with a genuine interest in your service/item you offer.

And usually a businesses here goes for the "you'll buy it because you're falling for our marketing ploy lol"
 

12 hours ago, RozenGermain said:

Same here, and I can vouch. Both the US and JP have that same "the customer is always right" mentality. The main difference is that at least in the US the customer is more the entitled brat, and that's probably due to cultural values! And tbh, when western companies promote diversity, I am so jaded by rainbow capitalism that is see it as the marketing ploy that it is 100% of the time....

I said "seems to work better in the west" as in, it seems to work better in the west compared to Japan. I did not claim that his "approach" is the norm in the west. It doesn't work in plenty of places 'cause the way he conducts himself clashes with most people's values. BUT, there are clearly enough impressionable people, who buy his dolls and think that Danny is the most awesome person ever 'cause he's living the otaku dream in Japan. And I said "I want to say specifically in the US" because Danny himself says the majority of smartdoll owners are in the US, and the maps he posts tend to feature the US the most. Also, he attends a lot of cons & events in the US so it seems like he's mostly focusing on the US market. And I feel like the creators he features the most tend to be US based. But these are my observations.

It's kind of funny how he takes some parts of the Japanese culture and celebrates them as the greatest thing ever (the infamous wabisabi) but then he puts down the parts of Japanese culture that his ego doesn't agree with (treating customer as god).

Having worked in customer service, I feel like generally in western culture the aim is to be polite and keep the customer happy, BUT if the customer is wrong and being completely unreasonable, you are allowed to politely explain to the customer that they have misunderstood something (ofc, some customers will be unreasonable no matter what, and then you just gotta smile & hope they stop ranting at you and go away). Whereas in Japan it's usually that you're not allowed to talk back to the customer in any way, even politely, you're expected to apologise even when the customer is wrong.

I don't personally agree with the "customer is god/customer is always right" kind of approach, but Danny is taking it to the other extreme, where the customer needs to read several pages of texts saying "REASONS NOT TO BUY", jump through hoops to even place an order, and then be subjected to scrutinisation to determine if they're "worthy" enough of a smartdoll - or if they'll get their order cancelled and perhaps a ban from the website altogether if they give "wrong answers" in the scrutinisation email. Which is just completely ridiculous. And that is why I keep saying he shouldn't make his dolls commercial products, since he clearly wants to handpick his customers.

10 hours ago, DollyDearest said:

half of em get sold out, because ik of certain people, who will buy double s and triples of certain dolls for "project s"

What's "project s?"

13 hours ago, DollyDearest said:

"project s"

Project S? Is this something I want to be apart of?

4 hours ago, mizya said:

I said "seems to work better in the west" as in, it seems to work better in the west compared to Japan. I did not claim that his "approach" is the norm in the west. It doesn't work in plenty of places 'cause the way he conducts himself clashes with most people's values. 

I do agree with you with your points, that even if the audience, the little to none of effort shown by him, his "vanity of a product" is something that does "work" (emphasis on work) in the west better in Japan. I do also agree that his outreach "works" for some better than others, if half of his average is American buyers. 

 

 

4 hours ago, SonataAvalon said:

Project S? Is this something I want to be apart of?

I ment projects lol.  stupid autocorrect

7 hours ago, RozenGermain said:

What's "project s?"

projects. Not project s.  autocorrect is weird.

5 minutes ago, DollyDearest said:

I meant projects lol.  stupid autocorrect

Project S sounds like an anime lol

48 minutes ago, DollyDearest said:

projects. Not project s.  autocorrect is weird.

Haha that makes sense! What projects would those be anyway? Customizations? I have toyed with SmD customs before since I've seen people do them! But at this point I think the best option for me is second hand Smarties (or dealers), due to me posting on this thread and being critical of Danny in general....

9 hours ago, mizya said:

I don't personally agree with the "customer is god/customer is always right" kind of approach, but Danny is taking it to the other extreme, where the customer needs to read several pages of texts saying "REASONS NOT TO BUY", jump through hoops to even place an order, and then be subjected to scrutinisation to determine if they're "worthy" enough of a smartdoll - or if they'll get their order cancelled and perhaps a ban from the website altogether if they give "wrong answers" in the scrutinisation email. Which is just completely ridiculous. And that is why I keep saying he shouldn't make his dolls commercial products, since he clearly wants to handpick his customers.

I don't agree with that either. There's a nice middle ground for how to handle business. But ultimately he's tied his ego too tightly to the dolls and so he's being hypersensitive toward any criticism of them which is the reason for all the rigamarole. So I think it's just as much about protecting his fee-fees as it is about being elitist. Obviously there will always be customers who are rude or didn't read the fine print, but in DC's case...there's too much fine print to slog through. I'd truly like to know how involved it is to buy a Smart Doll these days. IIRC it wasn't this involved when it started. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some kind of secret easter egg type code buried deep in the depths of his various tomes that will let you gain the ability to buy a doll.  

25 minutes ago, RozenGermain said:

Haha that makes sense! What projects would those be anyway? Customizations? I have toyed with SmD customs before since I've seen people do them! But at this point I think the best option for me is second hand Smarties (or dealers), due to me posting on this thread and being critical of Danny in general....

yes customization mostly. then they resell everything else.

Edited May 3 by DollyDearest

1 hour ago, SonataAvalon said:

Project S sounds like an anime lol

with Gundam's lol

On 5/3/2024 at 5:28 PM, RozenGermain said:

Haha that makes sense! What projects would those be anyway? Customizations? I have toyed with SmD customs before since I've seen people do them! But at this point I think the best option for me is second hand Smarties (or dealers), due to me posting on this thread and being critical of Danny in general....

I prefer second hand anyway or fabric friends and dolls.

Edited May 5 by DollyDearest

14 hours ago, mizya said:

And I said "I want to say specifically in the US" because Danny himself says the majority of smartdoll owners are in the US, and the maps he posts tend to feature the US the most. Also, he attends a lot of cons & events in the US so it seems like he's mostly focusing on the US market. And I feel like the creators he features the most tend to be US based.

Not to be political, but what really gets me about his heightened focus on the US market is that we're gonna be going into a recession, and his inability to gain tangible traction in other markets (due to the combination of his marketing approach and his grating personality) is going to be a bullet right to the foot. Not just because we're his main focus, but because a lot of the worlds economy is tied up in the US dollar's influence on the market (even though the US dollar is losing power, however slowly), so if we go down, so do a lot of his other markets, which would mean he would have an extremely hard time pivoting to focus on a different market to save himself financially.

The purchasing power of the average American right now is extremely limited. A full basket of groceries for a single family right now can cost nearly more than half of what it costs to buy a SmartDoll (not including the accessories and clothes), and the monthly average rent for a single bedroom apartment in the US is $1.5k, which means less and less people can be marketed to, because if we can't afford the basic necessities for survival (food and shelter), how are we supposed to afford a luxury item without skipping multiple meals to save what little money we make? The average American is one paycheck away from homelessness.

On 5/2/2024 at 3:30 PM, SonataAvalon said:

I am from US, can tell you that this "approach to marketing" does and wouldn't work. Even if being polite is an aim, you should see your customers as just "customers." people with a genuine interest in your service/item you offer.

And usually a businesses here goes for the "you'll buy it because you're falling for our marketing ploy lol"

See, my only issue with this is that we do have companies who think and act like this on a frequent basis, it's just that they have PR teams that keep them paletable for potential customer consumption. Danny refuses to get a PR team, which would buffer us from a lot of the things he says and does if he had one; but even when a rogue US CEO says some off-the-wall bullhonky (like the Kellogg CEO suggesting poor people "just eat cereal for dinner" to survive record inflation and low wages), that behavior doesn't always automatically translate into losing the market. Kellogg is doing just fine, shockingly enough, despite basically saying 'let them eat cake' during one of the most difficult times modern Americans have faced financially.

Americans, unfortunately, are also fickle. We are slaves to our creature comforts and the convenience of our surroundings, and we will always choose those over having to be a little uncomfy to make a point. Not to mention that, as consumers, we tend to make our purchases somehow be a part of who we are as people. Like alcoholic drinks, for example: someone who drinks Budweiser often refuses to drink anything else on the firmly held belief that their subjective opinion on how good Budweiser is outweighs anyone else's opinion, and thus everything else is 'p***y beer', for either being too sweet or just not being something they personally enjoy. The same thing happened with SmartDoll, which is why there are so many sycophants who will fight tooth and nail at Danny's behest, because they believe that their subjective adoration for this particular doll brand means all other doll brands are inferior.

It genuinely can't be said that companies in the US abide by the standard 'the customer is always right' motto (in the sense that they will placate to the customer's whims) when they actively pick sides in divisive situations and put out ads to target specific demographics while ignoring other demographics entirely due to reputation and market data. They only follow that motto in the sense that the customer is only right if they fit the demographic they want to sell to, and everyone else is just bonus money if and when those people opt for their product.

Also, yeah, the pandering to select demographics during specific times and in a limited capacity solely to make more money is very annoying (speaking as a minority who's pandered to every single June and only during June)

TL;DR: America is gonna be in a recession soon, which is gonna effect Danny's financials because he isn't as focused on his other markets, and US companies can be just as bad as he can be, they just have a PR filter that Danny refuses to get.

Didn't he also ruin his rep with the Chinese doll community too, by making some insulting comments about them as well?
It really sadly seems like he's been his own worst enemy, beyond the 'nasty customers' that he wants to blame for everything.

7 hours ago, Blueberrie said:

Didn't he also ruin his rep with the Chinese doll community too, by making some insulting comments about them as well?
It really sadly seems like he's been his own worst enemy, beyond the 'nasty customers' that he wants to blame for everything.

I never heard about this... Do tell....

8 hours ago, Blueberrie said:

Didn't he also ruin his rep with the Chinese doll community too, by making some insulting comments about them as well?
It really sadly seems like he's been his own worst enemy, beyond the 'nasty customers' that he wants to blame for everything.

I have been looking at getting a SmD for some time but would randomly see some negatives popping up.... What happened for this one?

I found this...wow.

 

24 minutes ago, ZandurFox said:

 

I found this...wow.

 

Looks like the OP's account was deleted though, and that makes me a bit hesitant to take the post at face value. 

29 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

Looks like the OP's account was deleted though, and that makes me a bit hesitant to take the post at face value. 

As weird as it sounds, it's really not that odd to see people deleting their reddit accounts, especially if they've essentially made it as a throwaway for one thing.  I've seen tons of users in hobby subreddits delete their accounts after getting an answer they don't like/regretting the post/etc.  It's super easy to trash an account there, so I don't doubt the possibility of a user feeling guilty initially but then regretting their post for whatever reason and opting to nuke the whole thing.

I have no leg in this race personally, but it's been a wild thread to read through! I used to browse Culture Japan casually and browse Figure.fm, but began to lose interest when Danny's doll profiles started seeming weirdly...defensive?  I simply stopped following since I was more in the resin scene anyway, so to read all this years later feels almost surreal.

Edited May 5 by mmmuguet
typos