What's up with Male Dolls?

25 minutes ago, Noxxbunny said:

They really do still cater first and foremost to the male otaku audience.

That’s… not really true though? If they were still making dolls of characters from shitty degenerate eroge I could see it, but they’ve distanced themselves from their past and have really cleaned up their act. Nowadays they just release characters from popular anime, and those characters are popular with male and female fans alike.

Also not sure why the staff was surprised you had an MDD. They’re outrageously popular with female collectors, and the vast majority of doll collectors are female anyway. Been to Doll Point and struck up conversations with the staff there a zillion times, they’ve never once been surprised that I’m a woman who collects DDs. Most of the female staff there collect them too 🤔 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—if Volks’ boy dolls sold better, they’d sell more of them. The fact that they don’t is because there’s not enough demand. Maybe it’s because the body is not attractive enough, idk? It’s up to them to generate demand by making products people want, but for whatever reason they’re not putting effort into it. Maybe they’ll change their tune if Imomodoll and other brands show there’s a market for them, much like how they’re getting into smaller dolls now that TinyFox has blown up the market.

3 minutes ago, ragnamuffin said:

That’s… not really true though? If they were still making dolls of characters from shitty degenerate eroge I could see it, but they’ve distanced themselves from their past and have really cleaned up their act. Nowadays they just release characters from popular anime, and those characters are popular with male and female fans alike.

Also not sure why the staff was surprised you had an MDD. They’re outrageously popular with female collectors, and the vast majority of doll collectors are female anyway. Been to Doll Point and struck up conversations with the staff there a zillion times, they’ve never once been surprised that I’m a woman who collects DDs. Most of the female staff there collect them too 🤔 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—if Volks’ boy dolls sold better, they’d sell more of them. The fact that they don’t is because there’s not enough demand. Maybe it’s because the body is not attractive enough, idk? It’s up to them to generate demand by making products people want, but for whatever reason they’re not putting effort into it. Maybe they’ll change their tune if Imomodoll and other brands show there’s a market for them, much like how they’re getting into smaller dolls now that TinyFox has blown up the market.

Maybe it was just the employee out that day, but she did actively double take, question if I meant SDM/Midi specifically, and then I had to correct and say MDD again. I went once in early 2020 so maybe it's different now, but that's what happened when I went. 🤷‍♀️

I still agree more on it being a cyclical problem. Don't sell boys, no sale on boys. The aftermarket alone shows there's demand for the bodies at the very least. Been trying to get a SWS body for a floating head for a while now and they always get snapped up. I'm hoping Imomodoll puts some pressure on them to at least start selling the DDB bodies as standards. I've been wanting to do mod work on my boys forever and never do because I can't get replacement parts if it doesn't go well, which is a shame.

1 hour ago, ragnamuffin said:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—if Volks’ boy dolls sold better, they’d sell more of them. The fact that they don’t is because there’s not enough demand. Maybe it’s because the body is not attractive enough, idk? It’s up to them to generate demand by making products people want, but for whatever reason they’re not putting effort into it. Maybe they’ll change their tune if Imomodoll and other brands show there’s a market for them, much like how they’re getting into smaller dolls now that TinyFox has blown up the market.

This is admittedly a little frustrating to read, ngl 😂 I would understand if there had been a period where the boy bodies were marketed and sold online but were fazed out after a period of abysmal sales, but as far as I know they have never been available online alongside the girls since their introduction. How could boy bodies sell better if they've been intentionally put in this situation where they are guaranteed to sell worse?

Of course the DDP or DDS (for example) are going to sell better than the DDB under these conditions-- Not only can Japanese collectors buy them online without having to make a trip and schedule an appointment, but the entire rest of the world is also able to purchase them easily online as well. The difference in availability is so huge that I just don't know how one could confidently claim that the demand is the issue.

I might be stuck in an echo chamber, but within Japan, MDDs are the predominant model worked with, and there's an enormous amount of activity towards customizing the hell out of them and treating them as personally designed OCs.

This photo of a meetup outside Comiket is a pretty accurate snapshot of what the JP ownership profile looks like rn (imo).

It makes sense that the MDD was the first to get upgraded to 2.0 and also makes sense that that's where Volks is focusing their attention. 

(Sorry to the poster of this, our forum hasn't allowed Twitter embeds for years now, but it's important that this be visible inline with the post to illustrate the point.)

 

Edited September 5 by chef_mai

36 minutes ago, 0bsequi0us said:

This is admittedly a little frustrating to read, ngl 😂 I would understand if there had been a period where the boy bodies were marketed and sold online but were fazed out after a period of abysmal sales, but as far as I know they have never been available online alongside the girls since their introduction. How could boy bodies sell better if they've been intentionally put in this situation where they are guaranteed to sell worse?

Of course the DDP or DDS (for example) are going to sell better than the DDB under these conditions-- Not only can Japanese collectors buy them online without having to make a trip and schedule an appointment, but the entire rest of the world is also able to purchase them easily online as well. The difference in availability is so huge that I just don't know how one could confidently claim that the demand is the issue.

The thing is that boys have been released before—Kirito, Len, Kaito, etc. Len barely sold the first time the Kagamine twins were released, and you can infer from group pics alone that male dolls are not as popular as female dolls because you rarely see them. This isn’t a chicken and egg issue—if people really wanted boy dolls, they would buy DDB or DDSB through Dream Choice, use third party parts, or dress their dolls up as boys despite having female parts. There are ways around the scarcity of boy bodies/parts, including signaling to the company that you actually want them by putting your money where your mouth is.

What’s frustrating to read is people insisting that their niche interest is somehow mainstream and that Volks is purposely withholding products to upset their customers. Like ??? They’re in the business to make money and market primarily to the Japanese market. Dream Choice is accessible to a significant portion of Japanese doll owners by virtue of having Doll Points in the two largest cities of a very small country. They can reasonably extrapolate the demand for male bodies based on Dream Choice orders and releases of male dolls. The overseas market likely doesn’t even factor into their calculations for female dolls, let alone male dolls.

If you honestly think there’s a huge demand for male dolls on par with female dolls, ask yourself why Azone only has a small selection of boy dolls out of the sea of girl dolls they produce? Why Obitsu doesn’t produce boy dolls at all apart from one in 1/12 scale? Why the only company that exclusively produces male dolls in vinyl gets next to no interest at doll conventions? The answer isn’t because they pander to male otaku (they don’t). 🙃

Edited September 5 by ragnamuffin

59 minutes ago, ragnamuffin said:

The thing is that boys have been released before—Kirito, Len, Kaito, etc. Len barely sold the first time the Kagamine twins were released, and you can infer from group pics alone that male dolls are not as popular as female dolls because you rarely see them. This isn’t a chicken and egg issue—if people really wanted boy dolls, they would buy DDB or DDSB through Dream Choice, use third party parts, or dress their dolls up as boys despite having female parts. There are ways around the scarcity of boy bodies/parts, including signaling to the company that you actually want them by putting your money where your mouth is.

What’s frustrating to read is people insisting that their niche interest is somehow mainstream and that Volks is purposely withholding products to upset their customers. Like ??? They’re in the business to make money and market primarily to the Japanese market. Dream Choice is accessible to a significant portion of Japanese doll owners by virtue of having Doll Points in the two largest cities of a very small country. They can reasonably extrapolate the demand for male bodies based on Dream Choice orders and releases of male dolls. The overseas market likely doesn’t even factor into their calculations for female dolls, let alone male dolls.

If you honestly think there’s a huge demand for male dolls on par with female dolls, ask yourself why Azone only has a small selection of boy dolls out of the sea of girl dolls they produce? Why Obitsu doesn’t produce boy dolls at all apart from one in 1/12 scale? Why the only company that exclusively produces male dolls in vinyl gets next to no interest at doll conventions? The answer isn’t because they pander to male otaku (they don’t). 🙃

It's frustrating because a lot of these conclusions seem to be based on the predetermined assumption that male dolls do not and will not sell, and I don't think you've demonstrated that the assumption is based in objectivity.

The characters mentioned may not have sold well because they were boy dolls and the doll collecting market hates boy dolls. Or they could have sold poorly because the characters were not particularly popular, or not popular in the way that sells dolls. I don't know personally, but from my very limited exposure Kirito in particular seems to be either an audience surrogate that people aren't particularly attached to or a character people seem to particularly dislike.

People do buy DDB, DDSB and the Integrated Asexual body through Dream Choice, even internationally. Proxies make good money off of it, as others in this thread have mentioned. There is an extremely popular 3rd party male torso for MDD, one I've seen far more often than the Integrated body. People do, very often, dress up their female MDDs like boys. Very often. This isn't a super weird thing that never happens.

I'm not claiming that Volks is trying to piss off anyone. I don't know why they've chosen to sell their male dolls this way-- that's part of why I made this thread. Like I've already mentioned, if male dolls were such a teeny tiny niche microfetish of an interest that only 4 weirdos in Sacramento, CA were interested in... I don't think Volks would still be producing them. I don't think Volks would have put in the resources to design and produce them in the first place. They are a company, not a charity. Like you said, they're in the business to make money. Why would a company with an international presence, whose goal is to make money, intentionally make less money based on an unfounded notion that their product just won't sell anyways so why bother? And also forget the rest of the world exists suddenly? While still spending the money to continue producing these direly unpopular pieces of vinyl for Dream Choice?

OBVIOUSLY female dolls are more popular than male dolls. No one is arguing that male dolls are a secret powerhouse that will one day overtake female dolls altogether. But are they such a ridiculous hyperniche underground mini-market that they're not worth selling when they're already produced? No.

Edited September 5 by 0bsequi0us

2 hours ago, 0bsequi0us said:

It's frustrating because a lot of these conclusions seem to be based on the predetermined assumption that male dolls do not and will not sell, and I don't think you've demonstrated that the assumption is based in objectivity.

The characters mentioned may not have sold well because they were boy dolls and the doll collecting market hates boy dolls. Or they could have sold poorly because the characters were not particularly popular, or not popular in the way that sells dolls. I don't know personally, but from my very limited exposure Kirito in particular seems to be either an audience surrogate that people aren't particularly attached to or a character people seem to particularly dislike.

People do buy DDB, DDSB and the Integrated Asexual body through Dream Choice, even internationally. Proxies make good money off of it, as others in this thread have mentioned. There is an extremely popular 3rd party male torso for MDD, one I've seen far more often than the Integrated body. People do, very often, dress up their female MDDs like boys. Very often. This isn't a super weird thing that never happens.

I'm not claiming that Volks is trying to piss off anyone. I don't know why they've chosen to sell their male dolls this way-- that's part of why I made this thread. Like I've already mentioned, if male dolls were such a teeny tiny niche microfetish of an interest that only 4 weirdos in Sacramento, CA were interested in... I don't think Volks would still be producing them. I don't think Volks would have put in the resources to design and produce them in the first place. They are a company, not a charity. Like you said, they're in the business to make money. Why would a company with an international presence, whose goal is to make money, intentionally make less money based on an unfounded notion that their product just won't sell anyways so why bother? And also forget the rest of the world exists suddenly? While still spending the money to continue producing these direly unpopular pieces of vinyl for Dream Choice?

OBVIOUSLY female dolls are more popular than male dolls. No one is arguing that male dolls are a secret powerhouse that will one day overtake female dolls altogether. But are they such a ridiculous hyperniche underground mini-market that they're not worth selling when they're already produced? No.

I agree with everything here. Male vinyl dolls will always be the weaker sellers and that is totally okay, but I as well think that they would sell better if they were simply more available. And the character dolls don't count, because, yes, I think Volks hasn't dipped into the sources there in terms of franchises where the most potential for well selling boys would be.

Another thing that came to mind, one of the extremely popular faceupartists that rakes in insane amounts of money with every auctioned head they do makes mostly ... well, take a guess? Correct, heads that could be boys and they advertise them on boy bodies. So there clearly is a very well paying audience out there with interest in the guys. But having to jump through hoops doesn't malke it easier.

I just think it wouldn't hurt Volks at all if their boy bodies would be available regularly in the online store.

3 hours ago, 0bsequi0us said:

It's frustrating because a lot of these conclusions seem to be based on the predetermined assumption that male dolls do not and will not sell, and I don't think you've demonstrated that the assumption is based in objectivity.

You don’t think my assumption is based in objectivity because you don’t want to believe it 😂

I’m not saying male dolls don’t and won’t sell, I’m saying they currently don’t sell in the numbers needed to justify making them a regular part of their lineup. I’m not going to beat a dead horse here—you’re free to think what you want, but if male dolls were half as popular and in-demand as you seem to think they are, simply put there would be more of them, hybrids and all (and yes, I’m well aware of the Kakuso torso). The fact is, you can go to a doll convention in Japan (which is the main market for these dolls) where 70% of attendees are female (so not male otaku) and 95% of the dolls there are female-presenting. The pic in @chef_mai’s post above is typical of a post-convention group photo. It’s overwhelmingly female and MDD-sized.

3 hours ago, 0bsequi0us said:

Why would a company with an international presence, whose goal is to make money, intentionally make less money based on an unfounded notion that their product just won't sell anyways so why bother? And also forget the rest of the world exists suddenly?

You and a few other posters in this thread seem to be thinking about this from a very Western perspective, but what you seem to forget is that you are not the main target audience and Japanese tastes are wildly different from Western (and even other Asian countries’) tastes. Anime doll collectors are an extreme minority in the overall doll hobby, especially outside of Japan, and Volks is a very conservative Japanese company that makes these dolls almost exclusively for the Japanese market. They only sell what they think will sell—you can clearly see this in their clothing lineups, which mimic existing dealer outfits that are trending at the time.

There’s a lot of creativity here but next to no innovation because Japanese companies are SO risk averse (ask me how I know 🙃), and Volks is no exception. They will jump on the boy doll bandwagon when boy dolls start trending, and you might just get your wish with all these innovative Chinese doll companies making inroads into the Japanese market.

Also, we already know where all the male dolls are. They’re hiding at @PolitelyNefarious’ place 🤭

Edited September 5 by ragnamuffin

The odd thing to me is. If Volks boy dolls only sell to a relatively small group of people and only have a few poor-selling collab dolls, and they don't want to put too much money into making clothing for them...well, we have another doll of that kind. It's called the Dollfie Dream Pretty and you can buy it in the online store 😂 so why not put the boy bodies there as well?

On 7/11/2024 at 12:46 AM, Noxxbunny said:

It's funny because I've always seen the market as very obviously there and for whatever reason Volks just doesn't want to take the risk. I'm on a part of the internet where wanting goods of favorite male characters seems to be bigger than ever. The fact that they won't branch out into "easy" sales like Ensemble Stars, Twisted Wonderland, Hypmic, Genshin/Honkai etc is fascinating to me. Because I would say most of those guys would still fit the skinny frame of DDB.

I have a lot of friends in those circles who see my 9S and very much want dolls of their favorites too. It's always disappointing when I have to tell them that even making a custom will be hard because they don't directly sell the male bodies in the first place. The "husbando" market to me feels larger than ever among fans of male characters in the last two years especially...

Maybe they are just set in their ways. I always groan at the fact that male DDs will almost ALWAYS release with a female character. Like they aren't confident in the sales of guys.

I'm really hoping that changed with Kaito. People snapped him UP and it's clear he was quite popular. Fingers crossed that maybe a success like that will convince them that male DDs are worth selling after all. It always felt like an unfair competition for sure. I'd probably sell all my girls for a hoard of boy dolls...if they'd sell them(and clothes for them) to me!! 😆

Yeeessss. I'm huge into otome games and I've dropped an embarrassingly large sum of money on merch of my best boys. I would LOVE to make vinyl boy DD customs of my absolute favs if the bodies were offered regularly on the Volks website. I did make one custom boy from a video game and had to settle for using a SS size girl chest instead of a boy body because that was before Kaito even released, so it was next to impossible to find a boy body then, but it turned out OK because the character wears a very loose outfit. Anyway, all of this to say that I agree there's definitely an untapped market and I think sometimes female otaku buying power is really overlooked in general. I'm certainly not the only one in my circle to have dropped thousands on anime boy merch lol. Take my money, Volks!!! I want dolls of my husbandos!!!

Edited September 5 by Riesz

17 minutes ago, Riesz said:

Anyway, all of this to say that I agree there's definitely an untapped market and I think sometimes female otaku buying power is really overlooked in general.

You hit the nail on the head here! There is definitely a problem in the otaku market in this regard, lol! A lot of companies in that market tend to not really care about female otaku or acknowledge that they exist! I once heard from a guy in Japan that the otaku market tends to assume that women spend their disposable income on things like makeup, jewelry, clothes and other (stereotypical) girl things. Basically girls are not geeky is an international stereotype despite the existence of A LOT of evidence that women are ABSOLUTELY no less geeky then men, regardless of country. Apparently a similar mentality is why manga aimed at girls or women (especially the latter) tend to have live action versions more often than anime versions, and why anime merch tends to be made more with men in mind. Again, it's a self-reinforcing cycle that contributes to an untapped market.

It's really frustrating that male dolls just don't get produced. It is odd that there's so little. I will actually not buy certain dolls or from certain companies if there is no male body for it. Like damn Volks, all you have to do is just make an easily available male DD body and my wallet would be drained every time I have a project in mind. Even Imomodoll's bodies are currently out of stock on their taobao store when I was looking to buy one! Obitsu at least has their male bodies, and their Parabox 50cm male body is pretty nice if you're looking for a slender body type. But there's still literally nothing. It's making me pull my hair out. The resin market is much better, but I would see this cool fantasy body and it's a girl body. Can't really complain though as there's a lot of exclusive fantasy male bodies too. But, I would like to get more vinyl dolls if they would just make the damn boys. And not as fullsets too. I don't care much for those releases and just want parts that I don't have to get via a proxy or bother someone I know that lives in Japan just to get it.

Is it because they don't want to market to women or assume women spend less on merch? Well, I would say it's the opposite in my experience as the biggest merch whales are always female and do they even know about the buying power of fujoshis? There's a reason why the term fujobux exists! I wonder if it's because that women tend to hide their otaku tendencies better since they usually appear to be normal people while male otakus....aren't.

It's really the same situations with other types of products, such as girlpla. Don't get me wrong. I love all the pretty ladies, but I want some pretty men too....

Edited September 6 by Amapola

9 hours ago, RozenGermain said:

Okay first off, This is just mean girl BS! IDK if you wanted to be blunt or not, but it come off more like you're being rude!

What's rude is entirely dismissing what someone says just because it doesn't fit your narrative. I live in Japan, am active in the doll community here and have worked for a Japanese company for over ten years, so I'm very familiar with the market here and how Japanese companies operate. I gave my informed opinion on why boy doll bodies are not regularly available, and the response has been 'we know better than you because there's a bunch of us on DollDreaming who want vinyl boys, Volks is just being mean to us' as if Volks doesn't do their own market research and doesn't already have an idea of how boys sell compared to girls. Like that is such an unbelievably delusional take... But if you think that rehashing the same debunked arguments and complaining online about this issue is a productive use of your time, have at it 🙄

Edited September 6 by ragnamuffin
Spelling

15 minutes ago, Amapola said:

Is it because they don't want to market to women or assume women spend less on merch? Well, I would say it's the opposite in my experience as the biggest merch whales are always female and do they even know about the buying power of fujoshis? There's a reason why the term fujobux exists! I wonder if it's because that women tend to hide their otaku tendencies better since they usually appear to be normal people while male otakus....aren't.

It's really the same situations with other types of products, such as girlpla. Don't get me wrong. I love all the pretty ladies, but I want some pretty men too....

I never heard the term fujobux before lol! But you're completely correct about the fu community (especially the fujoshi part) being very fond of buying merch of their fave yaoi bois! Moi loves making dolls of Fuuta and Haruka, I have several nendos of BL characters (5 are variations of the MDZS boys, but I do have an Aoba) and a Wangxian shrine, plus my habit of not wanting merch of Sephiroth or Cloud separately! Granted, there is some awareness that fujoshi are a lucrative market to a degree, but they still mostly cater to straight dudes with fan merch. Straight girls do have some merch of husbando characters from gacha games, and there are some recent releases of the Amnesia Memories boys (an otome game), but again they are the minority.

I wouldn't be surprised if women had a habit of hiding their otaku tendencies more often than boys. Girls are very often (regardless of country) trained to present themselves in a way that appeals to men, and geek girls are stereotyped as undesirable (there's a reason the hated alternative to cheerleader-chic makeover trope exists), so girls would hide their otaku status as a result, especially in the context of fujoshi, as gay dudes and stories about them are not something considered appealing to straight men.

Alright let's keep things civil please. No need for name calling and finger pointing. 

 

Billy

2 hours ago, Riesz said:

Yeeessss. I'm huge into otome games and I've dropped an embarrassingly large sum of money on merch of my best boys. I would LOVE to make vinyl boy DD customs of my absolute favs if the bodies were offered regularly on the Volks website. I did make one custom boy from a video game and had to settle for using a SS size girl chest instead of a boy body because that was before Kaito even released, so it was next to impossible to find a boy body then, but it turned out OK because the character wears a very loose outfit. Anyway, all of this to say that I agree there's definitely an untapped market and I think sometimes female otaku buying power is really overlooked in general. I'm certainly not the only one in my circle to have dropped thousands on anime boy merch lol. Take my money, Volks!!! I want dolls of my husbandos!!!

Definitely also in the sphere of dropping thousands on my favorite anime boy. 😆 I say as I type from my character shrine that is my room...

"Whale" spenders are certainly out there. I just happened to get lucky that of the 4 DDBs, 9S was one of them(frankly I say the DD is what STARTED this for me lol). I've been there as well with my customs...I have 9 boys and I started with a Parabox body with a DD head. Then I moved on to SS bust and loose clothes.

I support the boys as much as I am able. I was day one for 9S. I was day one for Kaito. If the timing had been better, I would have also been getting Alphinaud. Len and Kirito are outliers to me for boys I wasn't interested in. Meanwhile, of all my dolls, I have bought one girl from Volks ever. 😂 I'll be here whenever they wanna take my money...for now, it will continue to be funneled into merch of my oshi lol.

Literally one of the reasons I put up for why the lack of demand for boy bodies exists even in Japan is artificial scarcity. This is often utilized to increase demand for something, but it can have the opposite affect as well. IDK what most people in the JP doll community believe about the boy doll desert, let alone the vinyl one, I do think that sources should include a good chunk of the population in terms of general opinion (45% minimum). One opinion will never be enough. We're just a handful of peeps on a doll forum speculating as to why, and tbh the self-reinforcing cycle with the artificial scarcity is the answer that makes the most sense to us. ESPECIALLY when the DDP is readily available on the site despite it's lack of popularity.

It's not like Japanese doll fans think boys are icky is the correct answer. Azone boys sell well on top of having had a higher percentage of them historically compared to DDs. I've mentioned the male otaku theory too and I think there's overlap with the inaccessibility aspect there too. I know DD specifically still has male otaku be the largest percentage of the fanbase. There were people in other threads (I think in an SmD thread but I don't remember well) that mentioned this. straight male otaku, well, many of them do think boys are icky, so they don't collect them.

In the context of Azone, which has the largest percentage of fans be female, they are a fashion doll company. Men's fashion has a reputation for being bland and boring, so it makes sense that a fashion doll company would gravitate to girl dolls, due to the face that women's clothing is allowed to be flashy. Considering the fanbase for Azone has a higher percentage of female fans, I'm not shocked that they have released more boy dolls compared to Volks.

I heard of a company (presumably Granado) whose vinyl dolls were all boys, but if it is the Granado Vindoll boys, it makes sense as to why they wouldn't be cared about. Granado is a Chinese company and more known for resin dolls (leading to the vinyl dolls not selling because of their fanbase being more interested in resin), their style is clearly more in line with popular BJDs, and it looks like they discontinued the Vindoll line at some point (either that or they have very limited openings). It's not like all vinyl doll fans in Japan are privileged enough to be able to get a dream choice doll anyway. Even in the context of the Japanese doll market there are likely multiple factors contributing to the lack of demand.

 

EDIT: I wanted to add the fact that there is in fact a boy doll artist who works primarily with DDs: A very popular faceup artist on Instagram!

https://www.instagram.com/jililijililiji/

This person auctioned off heads and even full dolls (boys included as I saw them sell a full MDD boy with the Kakuso torso)! They sell for a lot of money, even when they're just heads. They also often use male bodies to advertise dolls. It's not like the market for male dolls in Japan doesn't exist or is just a very small minority. Ignoring that doesn't help any arguments (same thing with the other popular DD artist that has a Nu"Carnival fanart doll I mentioned before). Neither does ignoring that having the boy bodies in Dream Choice means that while international fans have to jump through more hoops to get them, the Japanese fans still have to be devoted to getting a boy in a way that can be somewhat difficult and not considered worthwhile. Privilege does play a role in the ease of access to boy bodies for a reason!

 

EDIT part deux: I also wanted to add that Volks wasn't exactly the source of the problem. Too many vinyl companies play it safe and stick to MDD size light skinned girls. Literally the main exceptions are Tinyfox (mainly YoSD size vinyls), Imomodoll (sells boy bodies as well as the aforementioned YoSD size) and Smartdoll (1/3 dolls only, has dark skinned options available).

Edited September 6 by RozenGermain

I'm just going to say that commonly it seems that women buy male dolls, not always but commonly. I'm saying this because this wouldn't be the first time that what women/girls like is treated as lesser or not worth pursuing. Even if it does make money it wouldn't matter. Not saying this is the case, but it makes people's hackles go up when they're told "you just don't like this enough" when it isn't the truth.

A good example of this is the recent cartoon executive claiming that girls just "graduate out" of cartoons, and that was why cartoon network (among others) simply don't make things for them. This executive was a woman to be fair, but it started a whole uproar because it wasn't true. But it's treated that way by people, because that's just the way things are. It's the same song and dance that's been said about video games as well. Even if a show or game isn't enjoyed JUST by women if it is perceived to be so it is sometimes not treated as well.

 

Again I am NOT saying that is the case here. But it feels similar, so people are obviously a little leary of just deciding that a company knows better than them what they like. It's common enough in the west and the east I think, so people want to talk about it. 

Edited September 6 by Giragira
Spelling error

TIL the term "fujobux" is a thing xD

I haven't been on the vinyl doll scene for long, but I don't think saying "Volks caters to male demographic" is wrong. I mean, their collab dolls that has the boys--SAO, FF and Nier--are from series primarily targeted at the male demographic, especially the former.

This is anecdotal, but while some of my female otaku friends do like SAO, they don't specifically like Kirito as a character (unsurprisingly), and if they do, they ship him with Eugeo; and the thing about shipper is that if only one half of their ship is made into some kind of merch, they rarely get it. The only people I know who likes Kirito as an individual are my male otaku friends...and it's mostly because they can self-insert as him, something the girls can't really relate to.

How about Kaito and Len? Vocaloid fandom is fostered around their music scene, and among the boys' more popular songs, a good number of those are duet song with the girls (Len's Rettou Joutou and Migikata no Chou w/ Rin, Kaito's On The Rocks w/ Meiko, Cendrillon w/ Miku), or the song that heavily features one of the girls (Kaito's Cantarella w/ Miku). If you look at NND's most popular vocaloid song chart, most popular Len solo sits somewhere on the #40s; and none of Kaito's solo made it to top 100.

Even before the dolls, the Vocaloid girls' popularity ALWAYS exceeds their boy counterpart by a huge margin, so that would be a shortsighted of Volks not to expect the lower sales compared to the girls.

About other collab dolls: I know next to nothing about FF, so I won't comment on that. Fate, Konosuba, iM@s CG all have a sizeable female fans, but they are all very much danseimuke--the arts on their pixiv tags reflect that. And SpyxFamily: while they're indeed popular with men and women, they're still serialized at SJ+, that itself makes their target demographic young boys.

I'm SURE Volks have done their research, but as with the gajillion mobile games company out there who's trying to make quick cashgrab with mediocre IP-reliant games, I wish I know the thought process on their decision making.

What I'm trying to say here: probably Volks' collab boys don't sell well with women because the series they come from are first and foremost series aimed at the male fans without as many female fans. If they want money from the girls, they should either make one from joseimuke media (E.g. Enstars, L&D, Touken Ranbu), or from a primarily-aimed-at-men series with a huge women fanbase (E.g. JJK, any WSJ sports manga, Genshin, HSR).

One can probably argue "then they can just do a custom", but... Aside from the initial barrier of getting a boy body, anime doll/figure customizations are primarily boys' thing. There's a reason why we have a huuuuge selection of girlpla lines but the boy counterpart is basically nonexistent; and when they have boy plamo they are usually of Kamen Riders--another series primarily targeted at young boys. I'm not saying there's no girls who like plamo (I exist), but the community built around the hobby is undoubtedly not catering to them.

Yes, Azone did have 1/12 boy doll line (Picodanshi) at some point--but let's face it: they weren't of good quality. I've known it since their release but I feel like they didn't do justice of their initial illustration. Also, their customization options are very limited. The thought about doing custom of plastic/clay hair is very, VERY daunting, especially as a beginner. I know it scares potential buyers off.

(I sometime weep at the disparacy of customization options between Picodanshi and Azone's other 1/12 girl series like Assault Lily or Mimi Garden...)

I DID get one to do a custom myself but gave up because nothing I do can make it look like how I wanted him to be, and I imagine that's also a case for many--and it's probably also the case for the vinyl dolls; not only the initial barrier entry is high, the amount of work we gotta put to make the character looks like themselves is intimidating.

OTOH Obitsuroid has been a thing for a while, but now with Nendolls, I've seen more and more female fans make a nendoll out of their favorite character, and the thing with Nendoroid is that they have many, many customization option as they're highly interchangeable. GSC even has their own manufacturer that specialized in making boy Nendos, and their quality is top notch. Of course, the much lower barrier entry for Nendos are def a factor but... I dunno... Maybe if you make something specifically for them that's good and accessible AND put the money into marketing them, more people would buy them...?

Sorry for going off the tangent, and maybe my words don't mean much as a newbie to the vinyl doll hobby, but I just wanted to share some perspective. I don't think anyone's really saying they know better, we're all just groaning about the lack of anime boy dolls compared to the girls here, which isn't all that untrue methinks.

23 minutes ago, Kanime said:

TIL the term "fujobux" is a thing xD

I haven't been on the vinyl doll scene for long, but I don't think saying "Volks caters to male demographic" is wrong. I mean, their collab dolls that has the boys--SAO, FF and Nier--are from series primarily targeted at the male demographic, especially the former.

Fun fact, Nier is a glow-up example for a series that had an initial male targeted fanbase, they realized there were more female fans than they thought, and they changed their tune and now include that part of the market in their merch! The DDs actually exist because one of the female VAs from the game advocated for the collab because she had made her own custom 9S doll! Nier now sells female targeted merch like heels, perfume, jewelry, accessory stands, women's clothing...😆 prime example of them meeting their market demand and getting paid for it!

Agreed on SAO though because Kirito always kinda stumped me for who he was aimed at. The only conclusion I could come to was perhaps people who ship him with Asuna and like you mentioned, didn't want to only have one part of their ship? I'll never fully grasp it tbh.

Poor Picodanshi, I was so on board for them but I agree too that they didn't end up looking as cute as the illustrations... I want 1/3 boys who look like those guys, not 1/12...

1 hour ago, RozenGermain said:

I can see why. I don't think one doll enthusiast from Japan speaks for the entire Japanese doll community lol! Plus I'm pretty sure the man-hating part of the DD community who just really doesn't like the idea of male DDs being easily accessible is very likely just a vocal minority.

Not going to address the rest of the things you wrote because frankly none of it makes sense, but who are you referring to here? If you've got something to say to me, you can address me directly 😉

I never claimed to speak for the entire Japanese doll community, I merely stated the most logical conclusion for why Volks doesn't offer male bodies regularly based on what I know about the market. Not sure why this is triggering you so badly that you feel the need to make unsubstantiated claims about me and go on a posting frenzy in this thread.

Is the 'man-hating' part supposed to refer to me too? Because I personally don't care if Volks does or doesn't make male dolls easily accessible—I can do Dream Choice anytime. But if it makes other people happy, then I'm all for it. Variety is good for the hobby.

The real question is—and I'm genuinely curious here—why do you think Volks doesn't make male dolls readily available? If you honestly think Volks is just sitting on an inventory of male dolls and is refusing to sell them to the supposedly sizeable community of collectors that would pay good money for them (but for some reason is unable to identify them despite all the community events they hold year-round), why?

I'm not the person you asked but what you asked is generally the topic of this post. Why won't they sell them online? It could be lack of interest/not enough money. Could be that they just don't want to. None of us really have any of the vinyl doll companies info to know why or how they do things, we are all just venting/brainstorming. 

Unless one of us on the forum wants to go undercover, the truth is out there lol.

20 minutes ago, Giragira said:

I'm not the person you asked but what you asked is generally the topic of this post. Why won't they sell them online? It could be lack of interest/not enough money. Could be that they just don't want to. None of us really have any of the vinyl doll companies info to know why or how they do things, we are all just venting/brainstorming. 

Unless one of us on the forum wants to go undercover, the truth is out there lol.

I mean, you (not you personally, but in general) could email them and ask? They probably won't give us a clear answer, but it would be more productive than ruminating on the same possible reasons over and over ad nauseum...

11 minutes ago, ragnamuffin said:

I mean, you (not you personally, but in general) could email them and ask? They probably won't give us a clear answer, but it would be more productive than ruminating on the same possible reasons over and over ad nauseum...

Sure! I messaged volks just now (easiest for me to reach rn) and we can see what they say a few days. But I really doubt whatever answer they give will be stop the talk. For Volks at least I really don't think it would or will stop unless they make an honest go of selling male dolls online that aren't full sets. 

Not to be bossy ragnamuffin but if this topic is aggravating you it might be better to take a break from it. I really don't think anyone will change their mind about why they feel like they do for better or worse. I think most people on this topic are just really annoyed that they feel ignored in a hobby they like.

5 hours ago, RozenGermain said:

EDIT: I wanted to add the fact that there is in fact a boy doll artist who works primarily with DDs: A very popular faceup artist on Instagram!

https://www.instagram.com/jililijililiji/

This person auctioned off heads and even full dolls (boys included as I saw them sell a full MDD boy with the Kakuso torso)! They sell for a lot of money, even when they're just heads. They also often use male bodies to advertise dolls. It's not like the market for male dolls in Japan doesn't exist or is just a very small minority. Ignoring that doesn't help any arguments (same thing with the other popular DD artist that has a Nu"Carnival fanart doll I mentioned before). Neither does ignoring that having the boy bodies in Dream Choice means that while international fans have to jump through more hoops to get them, the Japanese fans still have to be devoted to getting a boy in a way that can be somewhat difficult and not considered worthwhile. Privilege does play a role in the ease of access to boy bodies for a reason!

I think we have the same very popular other DD faceup artist in mind here, as I mentioned in my easrlier post, Sealand, right? But yeah, both of these artists are focused a lot on boys and they make the big bucks with that.

 

I see discussions got a bit heated over here, but I don't think any of us here who wonder about the question of "why no boys?" mean to come across as mean. Yes, of course we are just a small group of people on a discussion forum, but I think the fact that we have such strong opinions about this could be an indicator that there surely are also people on the japanese side who wonder about the "why?".

In any case, I am very curious what the question directly to Volks will reveal to us.