Enchanted by dolls

Hello everyone!

 

I love anime and visual novels and stuff, but I've never had dolls or even Figmas before.  The ball joints always kind of weirded me out and made me think of creepy marionettes.  But through random chance, Dolfies and Smart Dolls recently popped onto my radar.  I have had anime figures and things in the past, but they have always been solid PVC.  No wigs or real cloth clothing or anything like that.  Just take them out of the box, maybe pop a couple parts in, and you're ready to go.  Pulling a dakimakura cover over a pillow has been the most struggling I've ever done before.  But for some reason I found myself more and more interested in these cute dolls lately. 

I'm not sure if the lesson to be learned here is that I shouldn't trust quick knee jerk reactions (ball joints are ugly - not for me) or that I'm just a sucker for marketing trickery, but whatever the case, I found that I really started to like the pictures of the anime-style Smart Dolls on the official website and on Instagram.  It was like, the more I looked at them, the cuter they looked.  I thought dolls are supposed to be either cheap and generic, or expensive but creepy.  Why are these dolls so cute?  >_<

Of course I wouldn't really buy one, haha, that's crazy talk.  Let me just put one in my cart, along with some basic clothes.  Just because, you need an outfit right?  Some cute shirts, some jeans and stain proof leggings.  Oh and some extra hands for posing!  Apparently I need stain proof leggings too?  Ooh, there are bigger breasts and ornate lingerie for these girls?  That would just be wrong!  (adds to cart)

It ended up looking like all of my completely necessary additions were creating a hefty bill!  Good thing think I'm just checking them out and not really thinking about... SOLD!  Yeah, that's how it was.  And then Danny sent me a message making sure that my order was going to the right place, and he wanted to make sure that I knew what I was doing making this purchase.  Fair question, perhaps I was out of my mind!  It seemed I was able to feign sanity in my reply, as my order was processed and FedEx got it to me super quickly!

So that's how I got my first doll; Smart Doll Prowess in Cinnamon.  I loved her catty smile.  I think her facial markings and neko smile make her reminiscent of Miqo'te in Final Fantasy XIV.  In any event, I found Danny's videos on YouTube helpful in getting her dressed.  All of you Senpai are surely pros at dressing dolls, but it was kind of tough for me.  I was surprised at how hard I had to push to get the arms to go back in.  But I did get her bust changed out for the medium size, and I got her all dressed up in pink shorts, and the nice lace shirt, and that long red wine jacket.  I'm not sure if the jacket really "goes with" the lace shirt, but oh well.  She's a bit soft and squishy which has a nice feel compared to anime figures.  And her hair is so lovely.  It has such a nice flow, and feels so nice to touch.  ^//^  So now I have this really beautiful doll and I love her a lot.  Just another in a long list of things I'm not "supposed to" like (dakimakuras, visual novels, moe anime, My Little Pony). 

Welcome and congrats on your girl!!  The anime Smart Dolls are definitely very cute, especially Prowess!  She’s a favorite of mine and I hope to have one of my own someday.
 
I was also in the same boat as you several years ago when it came to my opinion of dolls, haha.

I’ve always collected anime figures but BJDs used to creep me the hell out!  They reminded me far too much of old creepy porcelain dolls plus I unfortunately had some quite bizarre interactions with some doll owners at the BJD section of one of my local anime cons that made me never want to touch a doll in my life.  Then around 2016 I saw the Hatsune Miku Dollfie Dream advertised in the back of one of the MikuExpo pamphlets and I was in awe!  I was completely unaware there were anime styled dolls and I was hooked!  Now I have six dolls and might be getting a seventh for Christmas... and that’s not even mentioning the very, very long list of dolls I have on my wishlist. 😂

Welcome to the hobby. I took the route from anime figures to dolls as well - just with the step of figmas in between.

For me, the possibility to freely pose them and dress them according to the occasion, makes dolls much more fun to have around. And the Smart Doll body (among others) actually does a pretty decent job at not putting too much emphasis on the joints as well.

Smart Doll clothes are very form fitting and can be quite fiddly to put on. All the short jeans come to mind, especially with stain protection shorts underneath... You will become used to it after a while, though. Lots of their tops are actually stretchy enough, you can put them on or off without having to remove the arms (head is often still necessary to remove) as long as you're careful and don't rush. This way, you don't have to fumble the arms back in under the clothing.

Enjoy the time with your doll and here on the forum!