Cultural Aesthetics – Could They Affect Which Dolls You Can Purchase

What drew me to bjds is that they don't look like typical western style dolls. I've seen a number of companies recently come out with dolls that have a much more fashion doll/western aesthetic thing happening, and I don't tend to like them as they don't have the characteristics that make bjds attractive to me. If hypothetical company X assumed that all Westerners preferred that type of doll and it caused them to alter what they sold to their overseas market then they would probably lose me as a customer, because they would no longer carry a product that I wanted. If it was a company who's dolls I had previously liked, then yes, I would feel very disappointed. Sure it's the company's call when it comes to what they sculpt and who they want to sell to. However, that's doesn't mean that it's not offputing when it's a company you previously loved. If it were a new company coming out with western style dolls, I would have less of an emotional reaction and simply pass them by without a thought.

However, I find it unlikely that a company would go so far -- while I'm sure some people would like the more western style dolls, they'd undoubtedly get a lot of negative feedback from customers wanting the other sculpts. In the end, they might offer more styles to expand their customer base (which is what usually seems to happen), but I don't think they'd risk losing what they had by completely changing gears.

 

As far as the video game example goes, Square Enix made a marketing decision to have a more rugged character for their Western audiences based off focus testing. It's true that JRPGs are losing Western audiences do to tedious gameplay mechanics for the most part, but the mature Western audiences are tired of "little girl" characters as well as "femmy boy" characters (and "tough guy with long white hair" Sephiroth clones.) A game can be awesome but if you have characters that the gamer can't relate to in a genre as engaging and involved as an RPG then you've missed the mark. This is totally not a new concept either, they re-release games, tv shows, movies, etc with completely different key art, music, even re-doing scripts and editing in order to appeal to the locals better. Why do you think movie posters in every region are completely different? It's certainly not cost effective to come out with a ton of different key art per region; they do it for a very compelling marketing reason to ensure they market the product as strongly as possible.

In the same sense, if Asian BJD companies get enough feedback from a sizeable portion of their market they will start to adjust their product. However, on this side of the world we can say "but this sculpt is so popular, etc etc" but in reality the majority of their customers are more than likely in their home countries. Unlike the video game industry, where the majority of all game sales are in the United States alone, they have their home audience to think of more so than lil' old us.

 

Cultural Aesthetics – Could They Affect Which Dolls You Can Purchase?
Surely yes.
Why I got into BJDs? Because they were huge so it's much easier to sew for them. Because they were highly posable. Because they were anatomically correct (I mean not only presence of genitals but overall proportions and detailing). Because some of them were so realistic. NOT because of Asian aesthetics - I'm not into stylization at all. I actually want my dolls to be as realistic as possible.
Action figures are too small for me, more - they can't be totally undressed. I admire some outstanding sculpts with near 100% similarity to a living person, I wish something like that would be available among BJDs too...

No, I wouldn't cry if BJD manufacturers would make more European-, African-looking etc. sculpts like Iple did. I would say: hurray for Iple, hurray for realism, hurray for diversity!

If foreigner simply can't purchase some dolls that were aimed for local market only I'd feel bad as I'm a foreigner myself. Though, if company wants to make something nice and exclusive for the local customers - it's up to them. This is not a kind of hobby "Provide BJD for each person till 2020" or so, it's more about collections and limiteds. That's how this hobby goes.

 

Ignoring ethnic aesthetics, and going by the perception of pre-existing dolls (or games as the case may be) in country x, y, or z, I think it is a business move to indeed get a larger audience, and for many of the those trying to reach out to the wider audience, they're going to have to appeal to a distributer in order to do it.
The distributors, especially those who sell in a shop directly to a customer know their audience and are wary of buying things outside of the range that their customers have already established. They want something new, but they don't want to loose money with stagnant inventory. If say, company X sells really well, even though company X has made a conscious effort to make something that appeals to the aesthetic and therefore the distributer and potentially the casual audience, the distributer may buy more of company X when they go back to their regular aesthetic.
With that same idea, the doll company may try to do something similar, though minus the distributer. By making dolls that appeal to the wider audience, they may be more likely to sell, especially considering how hard it can be to get customers outside of this hobby to plunk down the cash the first time. Once they've got them, the person may begin browsing for more dolls akin to what they got, and if the company has other similar dolls, the customer may buy one of those, or she may buy a doll that is more from their main aesthetic lines.

I think from a purely business perspective, it's a bit of a hook to see who they can pull in. From a doll hobbyist perspective, I simply like seeing attempts into different aesthetics, variety and all. So I think it would be best to put out an equal choice, but they really are trying to sink a line into a new audience if they make a conscious effort to push something more in line to the aesthetic values of their target audience (no matter how stereotypical it might be)

Personally, I applaud those like Elfdoll trying something new (though I wonder if they are doing this in response to some of their actions in the fall likely loosing them many western customers, and I don't know if they changed their who-may-buy policies), even if I feel they're sliiightly off their mark. For that matter, why shouldn't they have dolls who's hands are built for the sole purpose of holding lipstick, ect. Other companies have hands built solely for holding swords, bows (and the weapons may also be built into the hand itself), other hands, made to "be" gloves, ect ect ect. I also feel she might not pass the mods, but then again, with so many companies adding aesthetics, it might be time to relook at their standard aesthetics. *shrugs*

On the subject of more "femmy boy" characters vs more "rugged boy" characters, for a lot of the male audience as I understand it, the more rugged character is likely to sell better. I think over the last few years, the male audience for computer RPGs has lost a lot of steam, and some companies may be trying to reclaim that while not loosing their local (Asian) audience. I do remember some time ago, NCSoft had to make a completely different aesthetic format for their City of Heroes game, for the Asian audiences. To them, the rugged men are usually the villans, so the super-muscle super heroes was not going to fly over there. For both dolls and games, they may be trying to open up their ideals a little more to try to make dolls that will hit different parts of the market. It's a relatively small market, but I think we're rather diverse in our opinions too, so the companies may be trying to do so as well. I would hope they keep selling all their previous aesthetic quality dolls as well.

There's also a whole thing about how heavy dose birth control pills may be changing what women are looking for, but I'll leave that out of this. If someone else thinks it's a valid point, go for it.


Ok, for some reason, I feel like devil's advocate posting this, but whatever.

 

That cracked me up! I have heard a lot of women complain that birth control pills made them moody, but I've never heard of their tastes changing! What's the story on that?