What's up with Male Dolls?

On 12/15/2024 at 5:41 AM, cinnabunroll said:

I also agree that the designated boy sculpts are just kinda lame. They aren't as well detailed as the MANY femme sculpts, and even the one that has slightly more detail just looks weird at certain angles. I know they'd probably look better in the hands of professional artists (not knocking the artists at Volks ofc), but the sculpts themselves just have nothing to really grab my attention. I'm planning on shelling Angel Dust (cringe, I know, idc), and my head of choice is going to be DCH-16. It's androgynous enough, but it still leans heavily femme. I'm lucky that Angel Dust is supposed to be read as a pretty femme androgynous person.

 

Honestly also not a big fan of the designated boy head sculpts, personally I still think DDH-09 reigns supreme as a good and versatile head for boys.

6 minutes ago, MoiBakaDesu said:

Honestly also not a big fan of the designated boy head sculpts, personally I still think DDH-09 reigns supreme as a good and versatile head for boys.

Yeah. It makes me sad that they're discontinuing it.

I came across this interview with Mr. Shigeta where he specifically addresses male dolls:

Quote

The majority of your dolls are female - are there more male figures coming down the pike?

Yes. Right now, we have Kagamine Len, Kirito, and the Nier doll is the next one. In the future, I am sure we will have more boy characters because we have a lot of requests from lady customers.

Is there a certain character you would like to make into a doll, if possible?

There was one idea about Archer from Fate. They are one of the characters we were requested to make. So, that could be one. Last year, we released some Saber dolls.

It's from 2018, and since then we've had Kaito as well as the Dream Choice boy heads.

8 hours ago, cinnabunroll said:

Yeah. It makes me sad that they're discontinuing it.

They are discontinuing the 09?😢

Even the blank heads? 

4 hours ago, meteorite said:

I am sure we will have more boy characters because we have a lot of requests from lady customers.

 

Glad to hear more ladies are getting into vinyl, more people should be good for the hobby. 
 

33 minutes ago, pyoko said:

They are discontinuing the 09?😢

Even the blank heads? 

As far as I know, they are just discontinuing it from Dream Choice. All the dream choice heads will be unique to Dream Choice.  

 

 

23 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

As far as I know, they are just discontinuing it from Dream Choice. All the dream choice heads will be unique to Dream Choice.  

Oh! That's actually good to know! I was under the impression they were discontinuing heads 1 through 9 entirely, particularly because it looked like they put their remaining stock onto the website and haven't restocked them.

DDH08 was originally a Dream Choice exclusive, wasn't she?

1 hour ago, cinnabunroll said:

Oh! That's actually good to know! I was under the impression they were discontinuing heads 1 through 9 entirely, particularly because it looked like they put their remaining stock onto the website and haven't restocked them.

If that's true, I hadn't heard that. 

2 hours ago, cinnabunroll said:

DDH08 was originally a Dream Choice exclusive, wasn't she?

No, but before Dream Choice they had a few blank DD heads you could still only buy at Doll Point Akihabara (8-10), and she also made appearances as a DCoord. After Dream Choice (or slightly before), heads 8-10 lost their exclusivity and were available online too. So they did used to be exclusive, but since before Dream Choice existed.

2 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

If that's true, I hadn't heard that. 

I'm honestly just running off of two sources:

1. The JadePixel Dream Choice blog that was updated recently saying that heads 6-10 were being discontinued once their remaining stock was gone. I just re-read it though and it says heads 1-10 are just discontinued for DC.

2. The VolksUSA website because heads 1-5 reappeared on the site for sale and all the blank heads 1-10 have been either sold out or in low stock for the last few weeks. I don't remember 8 being available on the webite before, and I swear heads 1-5 were taken off the website entirely after they made Towa, Liliru, and Karin as their new standards, but I also have bad memory in general.

Beyond that, I just remember when I was buying my very first girl back in 2018, DDH08 wasn't available to be bought through the website. I flip flopped between 06 and 04 for a bit, but settled on 06 because of how generic and flexible her sculpt is. I kinda wish I'd never sold her...

Edited December 16, 2024 by cinnabunroll

2 hours ago, cinnabunroll said:

The JadePixel Dream Choice blog that was updated recently saying that heads 6-10 were being discontinued once their remaining stock was gone. I just re-read it though and it says heads 1-10 are just discontinued for DC.

 

I think that was because the initial announcement wasn't clear about the extent of the discontinuation, and a follow-up announcement provided that clarity.

Yeah, DDH-01 and 09 are pretty much among the top choices for customization in general, if they ever would discontinue the blank heads that would be an incredibly questionable decision from Volks side, really.

So I don't think we have to worry about any of them being gone at any point.

I know 09 is especially popular for male heads, with 06 probably being the next most popular? Outside of the Dream Choice exclusive heads.

In hindsight, I think this thread really was started with Americentric intentions. OP was probably not thinking much about the Asian demographics that actually buy male dolls more than anyone else, i.e. yumejoshi and BL fans, she more focused on people who wanted to shell male OCs (which is more of a western male doll collector thing). I think it was like... anime otaku like me and Noxxbunny who first brought it up! TBH I still admit that doll customizing being seen as a male otaku thing plus the collab boy dolls getting screwed over via IPs to some degree have to have been playing factors into an absence of faith in male DDs. I'm not surprised though. Otaku girls tend to be pretty disrespected the same way girl's media is in general, and even western otaku tend to act like all anime/manga is shonen so they don't help at all (female Asian otaku are actively disrespected internationally after all, especially the BL fans). I think actually acknowledging female otaku and their interests is rather recent as a phenomenon. So much so I'm surprised/amused that all but two Honkai Star Rail Nendoroids are of male characters! Again, yumejoshi and BL fans (especially the latter) tend to be the ones buying otaku merch anyway, so if anyone can get boy bodies more accessible, it's them! Though, mainly BL fans cause of how much buying power they have is a meme lol!

Considering the mention of gacha games earlier, I actually have an MDD body/head lying around that I basically decided to make into an HSR fanart doll of my favorite husbando in the game! Considering that guy is part of a pair with his sister plus him being a very popular husbando, if Volks announced official collab dolls of the two I'm betting there's a likely chance of the brother selling better! Yumeshippers may have less buying power than BL fans but it is NOT to be underestimated!

Edited January 23 by RozenGermain

3 hours ago, RozenGermain said:

Again, yumejoshi and BL fans (especially the latter) tend to be the ones buying otaku merch anyway, so if anyone can get boy bodies more accessible, it's them! Though, mainly BL fans cause of how much buying power they have is a meme lol!

I'm sure it's been mentioned in this thread before, but I feel like many BL fans have already made their home with resin BJDs (the sheer popularity of "uncle" size right now hah) especially since there have been actual BL collabs (RingDoll with lots of the MXTX series collabs for example, multiple releases of the MDZS and TGCF dolls in particular) through resin BJD makers. Seen lots of customs and OCs over the years as well with SDGrB/SD17 types of guys as well, and the more recent explosion of "uncle" size. Don't get me wrong, it'd be nice to see them in proper anime form, but between women having a stronger tendency to collect resin dolls (and Volks seems to lean into this heavily with Super Dollfie) and that side of the hobby having sooooooooo many options (not to mention many companies now offering magnetic...bits, which I've seen BL lovers in particular discuss on more than one occasion) that makes me wonder just how well vinyl guys would do when they're so heavily overshadowed by their resin counterparts? 
I'm neither a BL fan nor a male doll collector, so my two cents isn't a whole lot here (I only want Volks boys for the sake of collecting every body type, and they're at the very, very bottom of the wishlist) and I would like to see vinyl guys have more options someday, but it just reminds me of things like that graph showing Smart Doll Cocoa sales were... not doing so hot . As much as these niches should be filled, doll companies are ultimately businesses at the end of the day. Ramble (that is potentially redundant) over. 

I honestly do wonder why a lot of the female doll collectors are drawn more to the resin side when it comes to aesthetics. Personally the semi-realistic look is giving me nothing (dare I say I even dislike it), even with video games or other type of media, if it looks too realistic it is usually a huge turn-off for me. So it would be interesting to know why that demographic finds this more appealing than the anime style.

4 hours ago, Serena said:

but it just reminds me of things like that graph showing Smart Doll Cocoa sales were... not doing so hot

Do you have a link to said graph? 👀 

I thought Danny once used the ‘fact’ that most sales were for darker skin tones as justification for discontinuing Milk, but I could be misremembering this.

On 1/23/2025 at 3:28 AM, ragnamuffin said:

Do you have a link to said graph? 👀 

I've been hunting for it but can't seem to find it 😅😅 sorry, I feel bad since I don't have anything to back it up now. I'll either edit or repost if I do manage to find it somewhere! 

However, maybe it's also worth noting that a coffee/cocoa release at the same time as a tan/cinnamon release (when they drop at the same time) will sell out much slower than the lighter skintones. I believe this is what got someone to make the graph in the first place/check the inventory (doesn't seem possible now since an update changed it quite a bit) and draw numbers from there.

Also found it a bit interesting that darknavy is selling much slower than the other fantasy skintones did (I got my BN Prowess after eyeing her in-stock for something like two whole months) so it seems that darker skintones are unfortunately less popular in general (a shame, because it's the entire reason I even got Smart Dolls again- cocoa, coffee, and blacknavy are stunning in person.)

Oh, anyway, I guess this has derailed a bit, sorry 🙈 

On 1/23/2025 at 2:24 AM, MoiBakaDesu said:

I honestly do wonder why a lot of the female doll collectors are drawn more to the resin side when it comes to aesthetics. Personally the semi-realistic look is giving me nothing (dare I say I even dislike it), even with video games or other type of media, if it looks too realistic it is usually a huge turn-off for me. So it would be interesting to know why that demographic finds this more appealing than the anime style.

Personally, I enjoy both aesthetics, though I can't necessarily attribute it to a reason beyond both of them can look nice. 

As far as other collectors go, it might not be a definitive preference for one style over the other so much as a self-propagating situation that others have mentioned before. Most of the options for boy dolls are semi-real resin BJDs, so most of the people collecting boy dolls get into that aspect of the fandom. If you want a variety of male body and face types in your collection, while still maintaining a level of visual cohesiveness, semi-real resin dolls are the way to go. So because the options aren't there, the market goes elsewhere, so the makers assume that's what the market wants, and so on.

In my case, the couple I most want to shell as dolls is a het pairing - Tohsaka Rin and Archer from Fate/Stay night. I have the official DD Rin, and I absolutely love her, but I have to admit that it would have been much easier to customize resin BJD versions of them, instead of praying that Crimson or a similar Tea SmD boy becomes available again. The Volks boys are way too skinny, the Imomo and Vindoll guys are so big as to feel like a different scale, and so far I haven't found a resin anime sculpt that's available for sale, looks the part, and comes in tan.

On 1/22/2025 at 11:24 PM, MoiBakaDesu said:

I honestly do wonder why a lot of the female doll collectors are drawn more to the resin side when it comes to aesthetics. Personally the semi-realistic look is giving me nothing (dare I say I even dislike it), even with video games or other type of media, if it looks too realistic it is usually a huge turn-off for me. So it would be interesting to know why that demographic finds this more appealing than the anime style.

I'm a mostly resin/strung collector and I primarily collect anime sculpts. There are actually a lot of anime/highly stylized sculpts, and they're pretty popular in some communities. Most anime sculpt artists are usually very small and aren't in English speaking communities, so that's why you don't see much of them. Larger companies are beginning to release more anime sculpts and use male bodies as the model if that's an idea of how popular they are getting.

I think semi real is more popular because that was the primary option that as available first in the hobby to most people. I do notice that there are a notable amount of semi real sculpts that do well with more anime styled faceups so I think semi real is more flexible in many ways since you can paint it to be as realistic or simplified as you want while still having distinct visual differences with the overall sculpt. Most anime sculpts don't have strong facial features and look very flat.

The sheer amount of artists making boys in the resinsphere makes for some fairly varied and unique heads and bodies, so you can put together several dolls distinct to each other, while in the vinylsphere, you have DDB, Obitsu 45/48/50 boy, Smart Doll boy, Imomodoll 1/4+Uncle, and not much else. Yes, all of them are varied, but the problem is is that they are the only bodies available. And usually difficult/expensive to obtain, with exception of Imomodoll, which has other issues other than availability. Obitsu is easier to obtain but it may not be in stock and takes a while to return. Why would I go through all of that hassle to get a doll I don't even really want when I can make what I want with resin? Also there's now some resin artists adding the option of a silicone bust for their male dolls. I wonder if the marketing as anything to do with it as I've seen a lot of very provocative promo pics for resin boys, but not much for vinyl boys especially from Japanese vinyl companies.

Edited January 26 by Amapola

On 1/22/2025 at 6:22 PM, RozenGermain said:

In hindsight, I think this thread really was started with Americentric intentions.

Considering the mention of gacha games earlier, I actually have an MDD body/head lying around that I basically decided to make into an HSR fanart doll of my favorite husbando in the game! Considering that guy is part of a pair with his sister plus him being a very popular husbando, if Volks announced official collab dolls of the two I'm betting there's a likely chance of the brother selling better! Yumeshippers may have less buying power than BL fans but it is NOT to be underestimated!

This may be true, actually. Sometimes it's easy to forget how different the American market is from the Asian market(s). At LA Dolpa, after the panel about the DD 2.0 bodies, they asked for a show of hands for who would be interested in a 2.0 upgrade and/or standard release of both boys and Chimikko. They didn't seem too surprised at the interest in Chimikko, but they looked kind of gobsmacked when a whole sea of hands went up over boys lol.

Also you're totally talking about Sunday and Robin aren't you lol Yeah I can see those two making really good DDs. I'd also be a sucker for a Fancy Dan Heng (which is what I call DHIL LOL).

On 1/22/2025 at 10:08 PM, Serena said:

I'm sure it's been mentioned in this thread before, but I feel like many BL fans have already made their home with resin BJDs (the sheer popularity of "uncle" size right now hah) especially since there have been actual BL collabs (RingDoll with lots of the MXTX series collabs for example, multiple releases of the MDZS and TGCF dolls in particular) through resin BJD makers. Seen lots of customs and OCs over the years as well with SDGrB/SD17 types of guys as well, and the more recent explosion of "uncle" size. Don't get me wrong, it'd be nice to see them in proper anime form, but between women having a stronger tendency to collect resin dolls (and Volks seems to lean into this heavily with Super Dollfie) and that side of the hobby having sooooooooo many options (not to mention many companies now offering magnetic...bits, which I've seen BL lovers in particular discuss on more than one occasion) that makes me wonder just how well vinyl guys would do when they're so heavily overshadowed by their resin counterparts? 
I'm neither a BL fan nor a male doll collector, so my two cents isn't a whole lot here (I only want Volks boys for the sake of collecting every body type, and they're at the very, very bottom of the wishlist) and I would like to see vinyl guys have more options someday, but it just reminds me of things like that graph showing Smart Doll Cocoa sales were... not doing so hot . As much as these niches should be filled, doll companies are ultimately businesses at the end of the day. Ramble (that is potentially redundant) over. 

I wonder if the popularity of "uncle" size resins over vinyl might also be another case of cultural divide? At least locally I can only think of a couple people who like that large size over here. I personally don't much care for super large size resins because I find them difficult to handle with their weight and size. If I had them be shelf babies, it wouldn't be an issue, but my dolls end up getting handled a LOT. I change their clothes and re-pose them pretty regularly, and often take them out and about to meetups--our local group meets in person around once a month. I kind of get the impression that American collectors are much more likely to socialize in person than Asian ones? Not sure if that impression is accurate lol, but I do still kind of get the vibe that Asian collectors handle their dolls less or more gingerly than many Americans do. And when you handle dolls more often, and take them outside more often, vinyl suddenly gets a HUGE advantage over a resin of similar size.

42 minutes ago, Poofiemus said:

I kind of get the impression that American collectors are much more likely to socialize in person than Asian ones? Not sure if that impression is accurate lol, but I do still kind of get the vibe that Asian collectors handle their dolls less or more gingerly than many Americans do. And when you handle dolls more often, and take them outside more often, vinyl suddenly gets a HUGE advantage over a resin of similar size.

From my time on JP doll twt, I don't think this is true there? Loads of doll cafes, events, etc, as well as several people I'm mutuals with that take their dolls out on a regular basis to restaurants, parks, etc. 
If anything, I think American collectors that socialize locally are more of an exception? At least nowadays. Many meetup groups died out over the past decade+, and covid did a number on several as well. I would personally have to travel 5 and a half hours to attend an in-person meet, and that group doesn't even meet regularly. Americans are SO spread out across the country, while Japan is much smaller comparatively (although train tickets can still be pretty expensive.) Just look at the number of doll events in Japan vs the US. We have... what, one BJD-specific yearly convention (Resin Rose), and a handful of general doll conventions? ALL of which are spread out all over and require plane travel for a great number of people, which many are not willing to commit the time/money/energy to (and/or nervous to bring such an expensive doll around!) and there's maybe a dozen or so meetup groups that actually meet up regularly throughout the US. So, to reiterate, I do believe collectors like this are the exception- many are in the middle of nowhere (hi!) or even a suburban area with very few BJD collectors. There's plenty of large cities that don't seem to have any meetup groups for the past 5+ years despite being major urban areas otherwise. There's also a lot of collectors that seem to simply keep to themselves, but I don't think this is necessarily country specific. 
 

42 minutes ago, Poofiemus said:

I wonder if the popularity of "uncle" size resins over vinyl might also be another case of cultural divide? At least locally I can only think of a couple people who like that large size over here.

Definitely strikes me as "locally" because I've met a great many American collectors who have a hoard of uncle-sized resin dolls. It is a popular size, although you'll mostly see them in explicitly resin-focused groups. Perhaps not quite as popular as, say, a Minifee, but honestly, is anything as popular as a Minifee? I close my eyes and all I see is Chloe. Cannot escape them. (this is mostly a joke)
edit: although you are most definitely not wrong about unwieldy lol, I had an 80cm guy and good god... he was something... However, many resin dolls at 1/3 scale and above are already a little "unwieldy" just compared to DD/SmD etc solely because of the heavier material and stringing system. 

Edited January 30 by Serena

2 hours ago, Poofiemus said:

I kind of get the impression that American collectors are much more likely to socialize in person than Asian ones?

Americans are generally a lot more extroverted than Japanese (and possibly most people from most places lol), although doll people tend to be a lot more introverted than the general population regardless of nationality.

There’s definitely way more opportunities to socialize in Asia, and in Japan specifically, but whether most doll collectors take advantage of that is another story…

My experience living here is that they need to see you around a few times before they approach, but once you find a group, you could be doing stuff together every week if you wanted to.

Meanwhile here in Germany I am not ... not aware of any doll-centered conventions, maybe a meetup at bigger anime/manga conventions (although the only brand I ever see with an actual booth there is SMD). I'd definitely would bring my boys, also the bigger ones, out to play if that would be the case.

I do also agree with the opinion that for me personally uncle size is also just ... too large. The dislike for semi-realistic heads aside, I definitely wouldn't want to go bigger than my 68cm resin boy, and he is already hefty, but still fun to me to handle.

It is very interesting how different things are with the various countries though.

I'm gonna end up with a 75cm hunk of resin man soon, so I'll tell you how well my noodle arms take it.

I live in the Midwest and I have seen bjds and even a Smartdoll at our local anime convention and renfaire, but we don't have any dedicated groups within my range. To make things worse, I can't drive.

I do wish we had more specifically 1/3 DD-size-ish options for guys though, 1/4 size at least has Obitsu and the Imomodoll body. I really want some height difference amongst my boys, but the only options are manlet and short king.

On 1/30/2025 at 8:55 AM, PlasticJester said:

I live in the Midwest and I have seen bjds and even a Smartdoll at our local anime convention and renfaire, but we don't have any dedicated groups within my range. To make things worse, I can't drive.

Same basic area, same pain! I only ever saw a doll centric booth at an anime con once... And I can't drive either! TvT