The Facebook debacle & other issues

Once again... I 👏 only 👏 own 👏 a 👏 Smart Doll 👏 because 👏 of 👏 drama!

I mean, it was people on the resin side talking about Smart Doll. And maybe "because of" is poor wording. Thanks to drama? Either way, I would not have spent as long looking at Smart Dolls if there wasn't drama.

If you want DoA drama, some of the transactions gone wrong are wow, a lot. To be honest I bite my tongue on DoA quite a bit, because it's not worth the hassle of responding to bad takes there. (Also I find the forum a bit behind the times. It's not 20 years ago, get with it DoA! You can't claim to be a definitive resource while excluding vast swathes of the resin scene.)

2 hours ago, davidd said:

And the shoes were better, too. Wish I would have purchased more of the "Tall Boots." But, silly me, I was taking Culture Japan at their word, that they would not arbitrarily discontinue items without notice

My sister got me a pair of high heeled feet for Christmas a few years back because I wanted to get the sandals he made. Not long after that I noticed the sandals were discontinued to never return and I never got a pair, didn’t even know they were in danger of being discontinued. Really like his sneakers and those knee high suede boots he used to make before the dark times, before the “same sole” era.

As for his shoes now I just see lazy designs and lazy manufacturing with overpriced vinyl heels and no more variety.

Edited July 6, 2021 by AliensOfGold

5 hours ago, davidd said:

What was sad, though, and initially upsetting, was that I did not think my "observation" (that Smart Dolls are "luxury goods") was in any way out of line; additionally, my comment was merely posted in agreement with another comment (which also got deleted, and I assume the poster was also blocked). 

I think this is the part that saddens me the most these past couple of years :  that anyone who even remotely voices any kind of critical opinion is almost instantly blocked and labelled a hater. 

Surely anything other than food, clothes, and something to use to get on the internet (large portions of public infrastructure here expect you to have a phone and internet access now) is a luxury item? Not exclusively of course: some clothes are luxury, some odd things like books have no tax here so are essentials on a technicality! But anyway, as much as I love dolls, and as much as I want dolls, ultimately lack of dolls causes me no material or physical harm.

That was a lot of words to spend on 'dolls are a luxury good' 😄 no idea why that would get someone blocked. How can something that costs ¥52000 not be luxury! I could buy over 100 obitsu heads for that! I'm not sure what I'd do with 100 obitsu heads, but that's not the point.

Wondering how many obitsu heads it would take to fill a bathtub, and what the conversion rate of a bathtub full of obitsu heads to smartdolls would be...

40 minutes ago, Katsudon said:

How can something that costs ¥52000 not be luxury

Doesn’t he admit on his site on every single page that the dolls are luxury items?

I dunno if everyone has seen but...

$6000USD/£4400GBP for a CENTAUR! THAT DOESN'T POSE PROPERLY!

Jesus christ, just buy a resin centaur body and DIY them together. There must be one that fits. Plus it has the bonus of you can actually move the joints and it DOESN'T COST FOUR GRAND!

3D printed, blu-tacked horse smfh.

That 6000$ centaur prototype with an awful paint job and that needs modding to work properly XD

nO sCaLpErS aLLowEd iN sMarT dOlL lAnD

PS: all the other prototypes are like 3000$ and they're just regular dolls with 3D printed heads. My point still stands lmao

Edited July 6, 2021 by LuluChan

Dudes, do you think he's reading the forums, because the price has already decreased by ¥100000?

1 minute ago, Katsudon said:

Dudes, do you think he's reading the forums, because the price has already decreased by ¥100000?

Pretty sure he's responded to stuff we've said here before without calling us out by name, but he also classifies us as "haters" so idk if he'd actually make any positive changes because of our complaints.

Danny choo: Why you should not buy the Centaur

*no one buys centaur*

Danny: 

The blu-tac killed me. I'm dead. RIP me, it's time to join the skeleton war instead.

Well, can say this about the centaur - something in the prototype garage actually looks like a prototype for once - not that I personally would sell something that felt so incomplete.  Guess price will drop till somebody bites.

6k for this monstrosity?

Pretty sure I could get at least a couple of Fairyland centaurs, fully blushed with artist faceups and outfits, and most importantly, capable of posing, for 6k.

Edited July 6, 2021 by bbotss
Edited images

1 hour ago, Katsudon said:

Dudes, do you think he's reading the forums, because the price has already decreased by ¥100000?

Nah, the price decreases are a thing if no one buys the items straight away - it's a gamble.

And on the topic of the centaur... He sure cashes in on hype more that not. That 2B head still makes me cringe
I mean, "we can look into making a centaur" vs. "centaur smartdoll is in the works!!"
Most companies tend to not announce projects till they've got a foothold. People tend to get disappointed when things fall through, when you've been promised something.

I haven't seen anything about this, and forgive me if there is already discussion about it, but it seems like Smartdoll just isn't keeping doll stock. It used to be unusual for there to be less than 10 models in stock, now you'll be lucky to find anything other than Mirai and a few mainstays. All others are listed as 'back soon-ish.' Has there been any other news about supply issues? Or is there truly that much demand? Or maybe this is a very temporary thing and I've just checked the site at the wrong time. Very curious if anyone knows.

15 hours ago, abs2891 said:

Not a high bar, but there hasn’t been actual scamming of the, “I paid for a doll from this company and then never got a doll or my money back” variety which has happened in resin (unless I’ve missed something)

<snip>

*cough cough* Dollshe *cough*

I just can't with that centaur 😬

It sold at $4500 and I cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone would pay even close to that for that hot mess! His fans will buy anything at any price apparently, good for him I guess.

3 hours ago, Yumeiro said:

Nah, the price decreases are a thing if no one buys the items straight away - it's a gamble.

 

Yeah, but within 20 minutes? I've never seen a price drop in the prototype garage that fast! 😮 (And also within 5 minutes of me and @LuluChan posting in this thread)

2 hours ago, CrazyDollPerson said:

I just can't with that centaur 😬

It sold at $4500 and I cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone would pay even close to that for that hot mess! His fans will buy anything at any price apparently, good for him I guess.

Oh no, I went for a nap and someone bought it? Well, at least they didn't pay $6k! Bargain. /s

Edit: I wanna resond to @sunlightandtea so her post doesn't get lost. I... don't know what's going on. Early on during the pandemic, one of their factories closed which put a dent in the vinyl production. But it was never this bad, with so many of the dolls being out of stock. Danny did say something on insta about having to direct resources to the DC girls for a bit, so that might be what's happening. They might be pushing out the DC dolls ASAP for possible licensing reasons, or just to get them done. That, plus the interstellar blue bomb that dropped a bit ago has probably depleted supply of the regular girls. Hope they can get them back soon!

Edited July 6, 2021 by Katsudon
Added something more serious

I guess this means the centaur will not become a full production model, then? That's too bad. Danny seemed quite enthusiastic about the idea, and initially appeared to be making good progress on it. I suppose the tooling and production costs would have been too high to make it cost effective.

11 minutes ago, Katsudon said:

Yeah, but within 20 minutes? I've never seen a price drop in the prototype garage that fast! 😮 (And also within 5 minutes of me and @LuluChan posting in this thread)

It’s possible they can see website metrics like 100k hits in the first 10 min, but no one has it in their cart so they hold an immediate fire sale.

It’s also possible that he saw your post and “bought” it himself just to show you two up. 😆
 

6 minutes ago, davidd said:

I suppose the tooling and production costs would have been too high to make it cost effective.

It may simply be that designing a proper frame just wasn’t worth the cost.
 

 

So, a fair warning to anybody in this thread, or those who say anything negative about SmDs in any doll-centric areas:  People in the Smart Doll facebook groups can and will use anything you say there (or here) as a means to get you essentially excommunicated from all of the facebook hugboes for being a hater.

 

I was fully exiled from Smart Doll Land for 1.) Saying Batgirl's current outfit looked awful and people should save their money by commissioning something better, and b.) "Constantly being hateful and negative."  I have never said anything particularly mean/negative in te Smart Doll centric groups beyond that.  I have, however, brought up my grievances in this thread and a few general BJD/vinyl groups.

 

So yeah, watch out.  I know one of the admins/mods of one of the facebook groups IS a member here,  At least one.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Meowjima

16 hours ago, AliensOfGold said:

My sister got me a pair of high heeled feet for Christmas a few years back because I wanted to get the sandals he made. Not long after that I noticed the sandals were discontinued to never return and I never got a pair, didn’t even know they were in danger of being discontinued. Really like his sneakers and those knee high suede boots he used to make before the dark times, before the “same sole” era.

As for his shoes now I just see lazy designs and lazy manufacturing with overpriced vinyl heels and no more variety.

I know! Even if I was not crazy about the design, the original loafers that came with my (aftermarket) Kizuna were amazing, just like miniatures of well made human shoes.  I got another doll recently (again not from Danny) from the newer generation and I was astonished to find PLASTIC SHOES! What??? I mean you do not get the cool jeans and stuff anymore but ugly-butt cheap plastic molded shoes?  He has definitely gone too far into “play line” for kids.

9 minutes ago, Meowjima said:

So, a fair warning to anybody in this thread, or those who say anything negative about SmDs in any doll-centric areas:  People in the Smart Doll facebook groups can and will use anything you say there (or here) as a means to get you essentially excommunicated from all of the facebook hugboes for being a hater….

*snip for length*

So yeah, watch out.  I know one of the admins/mods of one of the facebook groups IS a member here,  At least one.

Big brother…I mean Big Choo….is waaatttccchhhhiiinnnggg.  🧐🥺😱😳

4 hours ago, CrazyDollPerson said:

I just can't with that centaur 😬

It sold at $4500 and I cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone would pay even close to that for that hot mess! His fans will buy anything at any price apparently, good for him I guess.

Sorry, what?! 4.5k? 😲

Have people gone mental?

5 hours ago, sunlightandtea said:

I haven't seen anything about this, and forgive me if there is already discussion about it, but it seems like Smartdoll just isn't keeping doll stock. It used to be unusual for there to be less than 10 models in stock, now you'll be lucky to find anything other than Mirai and a few mainstays. All others are listed as 'back soon-ish.' Has there been any other news about supply issues? Or is there truly that much demand? Or maybe this is a very temporary thing and I've just checked the site at the wrong time. Very curious if anyone knows.

I noticed this too earlier this morning (I checked the store slightly before the Centaur went up in the garage). I think they are fiddling with the filters in the background because the there is a LOT of weirdness. The available dolls are really low, and the "Story tellers" section suddenly contains dolls that have been confirmed as discontinued for months. 

2 hours ago, davidd said:

I guess this means the centaur will not become a full production model, then? That's too bad. Danny seemed quite enthusiastic about the idea, and initially appeared to be making good progress on it. I suppose the tooling and production costs would have been too high to make it cost effective.

The description confirms that they will not continue this project. That is a bit of a shame because a centaur model would have been super cool. But at the same time, I would have never bought a production version if it looked like this. A lot of the proportions were odd. I am surprised to learn that the prototype was not fully functional. I expected her movement to be limited (it was a prototype after all).