is it worth it?

theres a Komaki Manaka listing on mandarake right now for like $600+ in my currency, but the description of it... sounds pretty bad. i don't really care about the condition of the body or accessories much anyways, and i'm only really after the head. but is it worth it? what if the head is actually quite yellowed and damaged?  i can't really tell because the photos are so bad, and i also don't even know the usual market value of this doll anyways. i figure asking here is the best place because i really want to play it safe and not make a regrettable purchase for a fairly large sum of money. sorry if i'm asking this in the wrong place, or if it's inappropriate for me to ask, but in the case that this actually IS a good deal, i don't want to miss out on it.

1 hour ago, miraclelovely said:

but is it worth it? what if the head is actually quite yellowed and damaged?  i can't really tell because the photos are so bad, and i also don't even know the usual market value of this doll anyways.

If you have doubts about the condition, then I would suggest not making the purchase.

It won’t be unusual for a doll that old to have yellowing. 

i ended up going for it anyways because what i meant by 'the photos are so bad' is more of, i can't really see anything wrong with it from the photos and the lighting was just so awful that i really had no idea of the quality- that, and its a fullset doll for the price of a blank head and body. but that's a very valid piece of advice. i can only hope that the yellowing isn't too bad... if it is, well... lesson learned LOL

7 minutes ago, miraclelovely said:

i ended up going for it anyways because what i meant by 'the photos are so bad' is more of, i can't really see anything wrong with it from the photos and the lighting was just so awful that i really had no idea of the quality- that, and its a fullset doll for the price of a blank head and body. but that's a very valid piece of advice. i can only hope that the yellowing isn't too bad... if it is, well... lesson learned LOL

Do you have the link to the page?

i do! right here: 

https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1140898628&ref=doc&lang=en

i don't care for the body/clothes/wig honestly, it's a bonus that i'll eventually replace! as long as the head isn't in too rough shape then i'm good. even if there's a bit of yellowing, it's okay but i got some replies on MFC saying it was looking pretty decent as well. i know her socks are beyond saving and her hand is stained as well as some parts of her body. she'll be my first dollfie so i guess it's also a bit of relief to know that i'm learning on something that's already ruined- as weird as that sounds.

29 minutes ago, miraclelovely said:

i do! right here:

They do say yellowing, but it’s really hard to tell from those photos. The close up of her head seems fine, but the other photos look really yellow. The problem is fluorescent lighting tends to make them look yellow, so the type of light they used might be why they look like that. She seems to have a few small stains, but nothing unmanageable. 

The socks might be fixable with a spot stain cleaner. The rest of the outfit just looks like it needs some cleaning and pressing, but the color bleed on the white liner may not be fixable. The shoes are a total loss imo  

”underwear burnt” I’m not even sure I want to know what that is about...

The one thing I am noticing is that one of her eyes appears to be damaged. It’s hard to see, but it looks like the eye is scuffed or the iris material is cracked. It might just be a trick of the light, and the other one is so dark I can’t compare the two. 

thank you so much for the review on her! from the sounds of it, she wasn’t a total loss. hearing that her clothing- besides the shoes that look like they’ve been left outside for 3 years- isn’t even a total loss is great! i’ll let you know if her eyes end up arriving broken or not, because yeah.. the lighting is really weird. it’s just not easy to tell what’s up with her for the most part. i’m glad to hear that i can mostly fix her up though and even if she is yellowed, i think i’ll live with it because she doesn’t look bad. tbh, the pictures just look like they want to get her OUT lol, they didn’t really care too much to photograph her... and yeah

underwear burnt, i don’t think i wanna know what that means either LOL. it’s just such a confusing listing from the written description to the visuals. hope there’s some gold stored inside her head or something in case the rest of her is a bust lmaooo 

14 hours ago, miraclelovely said:

it’s just such a confusing listing from the written description to the visuals.

I don't know how helpful this is, but all Mandarake listings are machine translated! So often the wording comes out a bit scrambled, but you learn to figure out the intended meaning.

15 hours ago, miraclelovely said:

thank you so much for the review on her! from the sounds of it, she wasn’t a total loss. hearing that her clothing- besides the shoes that look like they’ve been left outside for 3 years- isn’t even a total loss is great! i’ll let you know if her eyes end up arriving broken or not, because yeah.. the lighting is really weird. it’s just not easy to tell what’s up with her for the most part. i’m glad to hear that i can mostly fix her up though and even if she is yellowed, i think i’ll live with it because she doesn’t look bad. tbh, the pictures just look like they want to get her OUT lol, they didn’t really care too much to photograph her... and yeah

underwear burnt, i don’t think i wanna know what that means either LOL. it’s just such a confusing listing from the written description to the visuals. hope there’s some gold stored inside her head or something in case the rest of her is a bust lmaooo 

Mandarake gets a lot of stuff in, so they don't necessarily have the time or resources to photograph things in a lot of detail.  The descriptions are machine-translated, and in my experience machine-translated Japanese is particularly bad (probably because of the different sentence structure than in English).

On the underwear, it looks like the elastic has yellowed, so maybe that's what it's referring to?

5 hours ago, RainbowNanaki said:

I don't know how helpful this is, but all Mandarake listings are machine translated! So often the wording comes out a bit scrambled, but you learn to figure out the intended meaning.

ooooohh, i figured but i'm still mostly unsure about.. "heavily damaged in the heavy dama" LOL. i can't think at all what that would mean.

5 hours ago, Tira said:

Mandarake gets a lot of stuff in, so they don't necessarily have the time or resources to photograph things in a lot of detail.  The descriptions are machine-translated, and in my experience machine-translated Japanese is particularly bad (probably because of the different sentence structure than in English).

On the underwear, it looks like the elastic has yellowed, so maybe that's what it's referring to?

oooh, that's a good point! might be it, tbh! i'm honestly mostly just concerned about the quality of the head- and ever so slightly about the body... i can't really tell just how okay shape it's in or not. what do you think? the lighting is just so different even throughout the various photos..

5 hours ago, Tira said:

On the underwear, it looks like the elastic has yellowed, so maybe that's what it's referring to?

Hopefully it’s yellowing or sunlight damage and not cigarette smoke. I think Mandarake does call out tobacco smells because they are a big issue for doll collectors. 

3 hours ago, miraclelovely said:

ooooohh, i figured but i'm still mostly unsure about.. "heavily damaged in the heavy dama" LOL. i can't think at all what that would mean.

If you load the page in Japanese, and then copy the description, you can put it into Google translate which sometimes gives a clearer translation, or you can try pasting in one sentence/section at a time to get a better idea of what's being described. In this case, Google translates the description much better!

"Unpacked/used, loose body" meaning this is an open and used item.

"Body colour transfer" obviously meaning the body is stained.

"Costume deterioration bleeding, discolouration" aka the clothes aren't in great shape.

"Shoe deterioration" obviously.

"Underwear discolouration" meaning they're not burned! Just discoloured somehow.

"Socks colour transfer" obviously, again.

"Damaged large box/damaged inner box" aka the 'heavily damaged in the heavy dama' part was just trying to say that both the outer box and the inner box parts are damaged.

Also @BeyondTimeis correct, I've seen listing specifically state cigarette smoke multiple times before, so I don't think that's the case here.

Edited September 17, 2020 by OccultBeast
mobile formatting sucks

12 minutes ago, OccultBeast said:

"Body colour transfer" obviously meaning the body is stained.

Hopefully that means minimal yellowing if any. Staining is pretty easy to correct.

41 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

Hopefully that means minimal yellowing if any. Staining is pretty easy to correct.

Yes, removing stains from the outfit would be a much easier fix than having to try and RetroBright the entire doll! But a good experiment for DD science if you did...

19 hours ago, Tira said:

On the underwear, it looks like the elastic has yellowed, so maybe that's what it's referring to?

I think that will be the case with the underwear discoloration too ^^
I hope she reaches you soon! And crossing fingers the so called problems will be minimum. Enjoy her!

I found the outfit and shoes in better condition on auction, if you're looking for a new pair.

https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/p594832415

On 9/16/2020 at 10:23 PM, BeyondTime said:

Hopefully it’s yellowing or sunlight damage and not cigarette smoke. I think Mandarake does call out tobacco smells because they are a big issue for doll collectors. 

hopefully!

On 9/17/2020 at 1:14 AM, OccultBeast said:

If you load the page in Japanese, and then copy the description, you can put it into Google translate which sometimes gives a clearer translation, or you can try pasting in one sentence/section at a time to get a better idea of what's being described. In this case, Google translates the description much better!

"Unpacked/used, loose body" meaning this is an open and used item.

"Body colour transfer" obviously meaning the body is stained.

"Costume deterioration bleeding, discolouration" aka the clothes aren't in great shape.

"Shoe deterioration" obviously.

"Underwear discolouration" meaning they're not burned! Just discoloured somehow.

"Socks colour transfer" obviously, again.

"Damaged large box/damaged inner box" aka the 'heavily damaged in the heavy dama' part was just trying to say that both the outer box and the inner box parts are damaged.

Also @BeyondTimeis correct, I've seen listing specifically state cigarette smoke multiple times before, so I don't think that's the case here.

thank you very much for the clarification! that's very helpful ^^ i don't mind that the box is damaged, or that the clothes aren't in good shape!

On 9/17/2020 at 12:14 PM, Singer Yuna said:

I think that will be the case with the underwear discoloration too ^^
I hope she reaches you soon! And crossing fingers the so called problems will be minimum. Enjoy her!

thank you very much! i hope so too, it would be awesome if there weren't many issues, from the photos she looks okay T_T

 

21 hours ago, StelSel said:

I found the outfit and shoes in better condition on auction, if you're looking for a new pair.

https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/p594832415

oh thank you so much! while they're really cute, i only really bought her for the head ^^ i appreciate that heads up so much though. maybe one day i'll end up getting her actual set of clothing again

 

i've a VOLKS pre-Super Dollfie To Heart "Multi" (Green Hair) dating back to the late-90's, whose head looks as if she was molded yesterday,

so i think that yellowing in post-21st-century Character Dolls

surely must have more to do with inferior chemistry in the vinyl compositions than anything else...

 

1 hour ago, Tasuke said:

i've a VOLKS pre-Super Dollfie To Heart "Multi" (Green Hair) dating back to the late-90's, whose head looks as if she was molded yesterday,

I’ve noticed a range in pvc figures  I have some that turned orange, and others that look like new. 

13 hours ago, Tasuke said:

 

i've a VOLKS pre-Super Dollfie To Heart "Multi" (Green Hair) dating back to the late-90's, whose head looks as if she was molded yesterday,

so i think that yellowing in post-21st-century Character Dolls

surely must have more to do with inferior chemistry in the vinyl compositions than anything else...

 

WHOA, she looks amazing... and she's that old? lol, now i'm quite interested in getting one of those.. but aside from that, i think you might be right. some older products age WAY better than newer ones.

 

11 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

I’ve noticed a range in pvc figures  I have some that turned orange, and others that look like new. 

orange?? dang, thats a wild change T_T

 

even so, with all the Dollfie-based horror stories i've heard of alone,

long-term longevity in these kinds of things do indeed scare the living dickens out of me as well.

 

VOLKS produced three HMX-12 Multi dolls that i know of in their late-90's "Ultimate Figure Series/Dollfie" line.

mine is, -i believe- the newest of the three, and smaller than the other two, in 21-ish cm. or so,

as opposed to the more standard 27-ish cm. of the elder two.

(bear in mind, this is conjecture, based upon what i do know about the doll i have,

opposed to what i think i know about the two others that i don't own)

 YMMV, of course, but IMO, mine has best head sculpt of the pack by far...

 

 

Edited September 20, 2020 by Tasuke

On 9/20/2020 at 9:03 AM, Tasuke said:

 

even so, with all the Dollfie-based horror stories i've heard of alone,

long-term longevity in these kinds of things do indeed scare the living dickens out of me as well.

 

VOLKS produced three HMX-12 Multi dolls that i know of in their late-90's "Ultimate Figure Series/Dollfie" line.

mine is, -i believe- the newest of the three, and smaller than the other two, in 21-ish cm. or so,

as opposed to the more standard 27-ish cm. of the elder two.

(bear in mind, this is conjecture, based upon what i do know about the doll i have,

opposed to what i think i know about the two others that i don't own)

 YMMV, of course, but IMO, mine has best head sculpt of the pack by far...

 

 

omg yes, that is without a doubt the best head of the three LOL. i am still shocked that it's such an old product?! age really didn't affect her at all, she's timeless!