The Facebook debacle & other issues

3 minutes ago, DollyDearest said:

I wasn't accusing. I just feel,it unnecessary to bring what people say on x every 5 mins. I empathize with people who feel strongly about something is all. I do apologize if I sounded dumb.

No I’m sorry! You don’t sound dumb at all, I just really like those creators and didn’t want their titles and thumbnails to be misconstrued. 

13 hours ago, ladyandlion said:

It's fine if he's not attracted to men but it's odd to even bring that up.

I sort of get it, from a creative standpoint. For example in terms of art, some'd rather draw women than men, animals rather than humans, cars rather than animals, and so on.
But he's not the one creating them, right?
So indeed! - If he doesn't want male dolls in his line of dolls, that's one thing. But if he wants them, but doesn't find them attractive... Danny, who cares about your no homo^^ tastes......

16 hours ago, sunlightandtea said:

No I’m sorry! You don’t sound dumb at all, I just really like those creators and didn’t want their titles and thumbnails to be misconstrued. 

thank you.

10 hours ago, Yumeiro said:

I sort of get it, from a creative standpoint. For example in terms of art, some'd rather draw women than men, animals rather than humans, cars rather than animals, and so on.
But he's not the one creating them, right?
So indeed! - If he doesn't want male dolls in his line of dolls, that's one thing. But if he wants them, but doesn't find them attractive... Danny, who cares about your no homo^^ tastes......

the question is why does sexuality play such a factor in making male gendered dolls?  just for  people to have options. the world isn't filled with just ladies.

Edited July 12 by DollyDearest

1 hour ago, DollyDearest said:

the question is why does sexuality play such a factor in making male gendered dolls?  just for  people to have options. the world isn't filled with just ladies.

I think for men there is a strong need not to be perceived as effeminate or emasculate; it can be a social death sentence.

6 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

I think for men there is a strong need not to be perceived as effeminate or emasculate; it can be a social death sentence.

I  agree. And it can lead to toxic masculinity.   I also feel Ken is being overshadowed by the pink lady. maybe am bias cause i feel  very little attraction to actual people. 

4 minutes ago, DollyDearest said:

I  agree. And it can lead to toxic masculinity.   I also feel Ken is being overshadowed by the pink lady. maybe am bias cause i feel  very little attraction to actual people. 

Maybe someday Eiji and Crimson will finally be Kenough for Danny 😔

10 hours ago, DollyDearest said:

I  agree. And it can lead to toxic masculinity.   I also feel Ken is being overshadowed by the pink lady. maybe am bias cause i feel  very little attraction to actual people. 

Not to get too tangent-y here, but you're right. Ken is inherently overshadowed by Barbie, but that's kind of always been the whole point of his existence in the doll line. He's the trophy husband arm candy for the woman that does and has it all. He's basically just a man-shaped purse for little girls to sacrifice to their dictatorship regimes be the dad in their games.

With SmartDoll, Danny likes to project his original characters onto every single release. In some ways, I can understand where he's coming from -- I rarely make (cis)male characters and it's even rarer still when one actually sticks around in my head for any significant length of time. I'm vastly more interested in telling stories about women and non-binary/transgender/genderqueer people.

On the flip side, even though SmartDoll is basically Danny's little vanity project to stick it to Volks or whatever, it's still a business. He could run it like basically every other doll company and give the sculpt a name, take a handful of pretty-ish pictures, and say "come get your man" without ever having to think more deeply about his lore. He could even make Eiji/Crimson/whatever boy to be Mirai's version of Ken and have him exist to be a glorified purse.

I appreciate what he's done in terms of expanding available body types and vinyl tones for this side of the hobby, but it's a strange business choice to both A) publicly acknowledge and B) straight ignore the demand for more boys.

41 minutes ago, Thespian said:

He could even make Eiji/Crimson/whatever boy to be Mirai's version of Ken

I don't think that fits with his concept of Mirai. 

18 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

I think for men there is a strong need not to be perceived as effeminate or emasculate; it can be a social death sentence.

It's really funny considering 'dolls' [in America mostly] are seen as a feminine item - something a girl would more likely to be interested in. That's the stigma, at least. So...since they are playing with dolls, does it really matter what sex the doll is meant to portray? 

IMO none of it matters at all. As someone who had to make a second account and use a friend's address to buy a Smart Doll that came with stains, the dolls are kinda mid. Cute, but still mid. And I didn't enjoy having to take a 'test' in order to purchase. Like, since I passed, where's my big discount? 

I've run a reptile selling business, so I have some insight on having to do 'what sells' or what my customers would prefer to see while also having it aligned with what I enjoy. Danny seems to expect people to buy his dolls and shut up. That's not how you run a business and I really don't know why people pander to him. Less sales = maybe he would hear his audience a little more. 

2 hours ago, Inolth said:

It's really funny considering 'dolls' [in America mostly] are seen as a feminine item - something a girl would more likely to be interested in. That's the stigma, at least. So...since they are playing with dolls, does it really matter what sex the doll is meant to portray? 

I mean in general men are expected to come across as masculine father-protector figures, and there is a lot of pressure to conform to that image. 

My comment was mostly about why Danny might have felt the need to signal his lack of interest in men and his great interest in women when discussing the process of designing Eiji. The comments in his post were unnecessary and not material to designing a product, but he felt the need to signal his straightness as he discussed working on the design for a male doll. I think men may feel compelled to do things like that as a part of maintaining their image as a man. 

I'm not trying to be critical here, I just think it's a reality of male existence.

Aaaaah, now I'm reminded of my essay class last semester. It was focused on gender issues, so I wrote all sorts of essays and research papers on these kinds of subjects. Forget it, I'm not doing it again! Though I will say there was a lot of talk about male-oriented dolls generally having huge, bulging muscles to perpetrate the idea that men must be BIG, MUSCLY, HULKING MASSES, and it is one of the things that have done a lot of damage over the years. It, along with many, many other things wrong with society and the patriarchy at large, has led to a theory called threatened masculinity, and honestly, I think Danny has this. Shh. And that may well be why he refuses to do much with male dolls again. It's a threat.

I'm not jumping in the drama, I'm just saying, we got a pear body for women so now we need a bear body for men.  Do it Danny, embrace the bear! 

30 minutes ago, DesertPhantom51 said:

I'm not jumping in the drama, I'm just saying, we got a pear body for women so now we need a bear body for men.  Do it Danny, embrace the bear! 

I’d like a body that would work for Gyomei Himejima, but it’ll probably be a cold day in Hell before bear bodies are made unfortunately. 😞

It's interesting how he's seen as very progressive and accepting when he's seemingly too insecure or disinterested to even make a male doll. Of course, it's his brand, it's his company, it's his product. He is not obligated to make male dolls if that's not the direction he wants for his brand, yet he seems to keep teasing the idea every couple of years. I can remember just getting into Smart Doll when Eiji and Crimson were available and they seemed popular enough at the time. I have no idea if that's changed. Perhaps the question of male dolls is neither here nor there but it was something that I thought was strange.

Overall, as I mentioned before, I find it stranger that he wants to sell Pride themed dolls but doesn't bother to advertise on the website (maybe he did for the month of June and I just missed that??? Honestly the "Pride Whiskers" are not even that noticeable to me.) Most of the images featured on the front page were kids and not adult doll owners (I'm not a business or marketing expert but I find these choices confusing. Based on the original question about whether Danny is profiting off of Pride, I tend to think so but that's only my personal opinion. Not everyone thinks or feels the same about Pride (though at times I feel like some people make excuses for brands just so they can still continue to buy their product without feeling guilty about what they could possibly be supporting.)

I will of course express my approval of Danny introducing darker skintones that are actually realistic and flattering as well as semi-real face sculpts (though they seem to have fully taken over from the overt anime styled heads which is a shame. I do prefer semi-real but there were a couple of anime faces I really liked and wanted for myself!) And it's nice seeing some plus size options introduced as well. But to me, I think the visual, physical representations of the dolls mean more than whatever they happen to stand for because ultimately, the owners can project what they like onto them. 

19 hours ago, PlasticJester said:

Maybe someday Eiji and Crimson will finally be Kenough for Danny 😔

we can only pray it be so. lol

I remember DC posting 0nce,that the lack of male dolls, was due to a "Luke"warm reception". i personally would love a male version of prowess.  also so where's the customer comments statng a Luke warm reception?

All this about him teasing stuff and to have more boy dolls has made me wish more and more for the Mecha Suit!!

For a guy that collects transformers as well this would be fantastic with my power masters. But i know... Its a tease he probably only printed 1 set

A lot of these are just Marketing and very alike to how boutique designer labels do it. Mass vs Niche so its not going to suit everyone.

For people like me who only have 1 SmD and diversity to me are different types of 1/3, I will likely be less moved by the current diversity strategy. But he (Danny) has only so much resources... 

And for those wondering why a lottery or preorder strategy is not used... That in itself will cannibalize the mainline... So he has got to work put a way that doesnt pin himself against himself lol.

To change the subject slightly, I went to a con today and saw a Smart Doll in person for the first time! A Pear, the owner was very nice and let me hold her. She also had one of the prototype 1/4 heads, and whoo boy I have gotten way too used to thinking of MDD as 1/4. Those heads are TINY.

2 hours ago, PlasticJester said:

She also had one of the prototype 1/4 heads, and whoo boy I have gotten way too used to thinking of MDD as 1/4.

Minifee and the Iplehouse JID are good examples of 1/4, and they're totally different from MDD. 

I have resin 1/4 dolls, but I somehow forgot how totally different the scale is? I'm so used to MDDs and their giant noggins.

It's a little weird to read this thread and lots of comments about how he isn't doing a male doll when a new one has been in the works and kind of fast-tracked to fit the evolve frame due to customer demand. 

The last post about the new boy was at the end of June, and it looks like progress has been pretty steady. 

17 hours ago, Yuan said:

It's a little weird to read this thread and lots of comments about how he isn't doing a male doll when a new one has been in the works and kind of fast-tracked to fit the evolve frame due to customer demand. 

The last post about the new boy was at the end of June, and it looks like progress has been pretty steady. 

I kind of suspect that some of that may have been motivated by people questioning why, if he was so set on making the Pear dolls regardless of their popularity, the same didn't apply to boy dolls. But the comments you're talking about probably predate the re-release news.

20 hours ago, Yuan said:

It's a little weird to read this thread and lots of comments about how he isn't doing a male doll when a new one has been in the works and kind of fast-tracked to fit the evolve frame due to customer demand. 

The last post about the new boy was at the end of June, and it looks like progress has been pretty steady. 

I was mostly referring to Eiji & Crimson 

Not sure if this is the right place to say this but I have to admit that I'm a bit sad that they've been moving away from doing anime sculpts more and more 

I guess the semi-real sculpts are more unique and therefore offer more brand-recognition or something? Ah well.. concerning the new boy - I think there's also a bit of a discrepancy between 'thing Danny shows/is working on' and 'thing that makes it on sale (outside of his blind box shenanigans)'.