How did you find out about BJD and how did you get the first doll?

I think I first saw a BJD on Deviant Art around 2006. It was a Dream of Doll Camine and I was immediately enchanted. However, I was a student with no money so didn't look into them any more until later when I became re-obsessed in 2008 (though I do remember seeing someone walking around at Acen with a doll at some point in-between). It was then I decided to commit and get one for myself. So I joined DoA as well as a local doll forum, and ordered my first doll (Dollzone Yuu)....However, shortly after that, on the local doll forum, a girl posted the cutest boy doll I'd ever seen (Abio Angel Er) for sale...and I had to have him. So even though I'd ordered a different doll first and he hadn't even arrived yet, this second hand boy came home to be my first doll ever and I have no regrets. Also the girl I bought him from ended up becoming my best friend to this day so, win win.

 

It was when I was in middle school, I believe. I was Googling something about 3D printed dolls, and that led me to an article about the (since abandoned?) Smart Doll Plus project. (Y'know, the robot ones.) That led me to learn about Smart Doll, which led me to learn about Dollfie Dream, which eventually got me introduced to resin BJDs, too. I ended up really wanting a SmD or DD, and I finally bought and customized a DDH-29 MDD in the summer of 2023. I also, for my 21st birthday last year, was gifted with my first resin girly, a Minifee Honoka a la carte from Denver Doll.

 

A happy accident, lol. I wanted a drawing mannequin but something more realistic. Stumbled upon Volks. Looking through I saw their SD. Finding them interesting I showed my friend. Did more digging and eventually I found Dream of doll and we decided to buy Too and Bee-A to make into our OC. Eventually we got our friends into it and all started buying dolls.

 

I started getting back into dolls with my obitsu 1/6 dolls. Eventually I started looking at dolfie dream dolls, which led me to finding super dolfies. A little more research into BJDs led me to a couple of videos on Luts dolls. After surfing the website I found KDF kai and was mesmerized I think I spent a good 3ish weeks off and on staring at his page on Luts. Eventually I figured I would get him if he was constantly on my mind after that long. I bought him direct from Luts and since then I have fallen down the BJD rabbit hole!

 

I got to know about this hobby more than a decade ago but I just recently received my first BJD ever, the reason why is because even though I started to like them since loong ago I couldn’t find the right one until now.
I was looking for a boy that could fit on what I wanted but back then the majority of Boy Dolls didn’t meet my expectations.

My first Doll is a Loong Soul Fang Ri Tu, the first time I saw him I knew he was my dream doll and surely had to own it so without doubting I bought him and I couldn’t be happier then ever, I also have spent a lot of money on clothing and expensive stuff but the funniest part is that even though I couldn’t find the right Doll back then, now that I own him I found two more boys that meet the same qualities just like him, these two boys are from great artists and are already in the making to be sent to me!

 

I was big into anime, cosplay, and the convention scene at the time. There was one cosplayer whom I followed, who happened to upload photos of her Custom House Ai to her cosplay.com profile. Seeing it just made me completely smitten! That was late 2005.

From there, I did a TON of research, joined DOA, etc. Soon I saw Volks Shiro Tachibana, and finally decided I had to own a BJD. But learning he was limited, I looked at more dolls until finally finding Dream of Doll and seeing DOT Camine for the first time. And that was it.

But being a teenager with zero money, though at least having just gotten my driver's license, I worked two summer jobs through the entire summer, ignored all my friends' summer plans () and scraped together just enough to order my DOT Camine.

 

I don’t fully remember how it happened, exactly – it was around 2007, I believe, and I think I somehow ended up on the Super Dollfie Wikipedia page. I must’ve been doing a wiki walk or some thing. Anyway, I was immediately enchanted by them, but the actual BJDs were way too expensive for me. So I bought one of the original Dollfie Plus dolls – does anybody remember those? – And tried to be content with her. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work. I ended up joining DOA around that time, and admire dolls long before I ever had one. My parents wouldn’t let me save up for something so expensive at the time, even though I desperately wanted a Luts dark elf Soo.

When I was 18 and in my first year of university, I finally saved up and bought a Resinsoul Mei. I was completely enchanted with her at the time, although once I graduated and had other dolls, I realize some things about the company’s engineering and resin quality weren’t quite what I wanted. So I ended up selling her on a few years later, and the rest is history. (finally got that DES last October, to boot!)

 

I discovered them because a friend of mine liked them. Even if I am currently getting back to the hobby, my first doll was DoD's Shall. It was a shock discovering that the company had closed, as they had my most favourite dolls back then.
Still would've loved to get Tender Shall tbh.

 

Back in the day, I was at a bookstore when I saw a doll magazine covering "dolls of japan!" With Volks Ami Ayase on the cover! Inside were other dolls including some vinyl azone cuties, and being a huge anime/manga fan kid I thought they were so cool!

I never ended up buying that magazine but I kept looking at it when I would go to the store, for the cpuple weeks it was there. ^^; I also would see BJDS online, and ended up spending hours looking at dolls I wish I could have like the ones by Dream of Doll (RIP)

Years later, I'm an adult and have my own BJDS who I cherish!

 

I collected dolls for many years already when I first saw a pic of a bjd and it was back at 2007 I think it took me a while to buy one cause I had to have the money and also I was a bit scared of the "resin" would it break , stain etc I wasn't familiar with polyurethane resin dolls or artifacts before but when I gor my first one it was instant love and snowballed from there. I don't have a very dramatic story because as a collector I was activelly searching to know about news in doll production so it was only natural that sometime I would find bjd's.

 

I started with Pullips-- like a gateway drug these expensive bundles of plastic led me down the path to more expensive pieces of plastic. Before getting into Pullips I was watching videos of Bratz, Liv, and Barbie dolls on YouTube, and while watching these videos I came across a stop-motion video that included a Pullip doll. I made an Instagram when I started my Pullip collection, and a mutual had a Soony- I thought she was really cool. I had already known about BJDs because I loved the anime Rozen Maiden and doll wigs are always modeled on BJDs, but I wasn't familiar with any brands or anything further than the image of a BJD. I remember my first love was Andreja's Minifee Chloe. My first doll ended up being a Feeple60 Chloe.

 

In 2001 I found out about them in the ot section on a forum for other dolls, they were still very niche back then I think so I did not look into them. 20 years later I was at a point of having my collection of other dolls complete, so I started looking for something else, and remembered bjd. I bought my first one direct from iplehouse and my second from a US dealer. Now I buy new and used from all over. I am considering reducing my other dolls by 90 percent and mostly collecting bjd.

 

I've always loved dolls and got into anime pretty young. I had a close friend as a kid who had briefly lived in Japan, and brought back some Takara Jenny dolls when her family moved back to the US. I fell in love with them, and my mom (bless her) bought me some from eBay.

Over the years I collected more Jenny and Licca dolls, and at some point when I was browsing, I found listings for BJD stuff. I don't remember super clearly, but I believe I saw wig listings, and they were modeled on some classic moody looking male BJD (maybe like DOD, Crobidoll, or something?) I was immediately interested, and eventually found the Volks USA website after looking into BJD. When I saw the prices, I was instantly put off and thought I would never own one - especially because I was only around 15 or so at the time. Still, I coveted them!

Because I was immersed in the world of Japanese dolls, I also discovered brands like Azone and Pullip. I bought a couple of Azones - Pure Neemo Tsukiko Tsutsukukushi and Picco Neemo ExCute Aika, and I just loved them! I became really into the posability and high detail aspect, which again made me interested in BJD.

When I was about 17, my family had a yard sale. I had always been a collector (of various things), so I had a pretty huge haul to sell. I managed to make around $300 off that yard sale, which was about enough to buy an MSD! After some research I decided to buy a Bluefairy Tiny Fairy Emilie through LUTS (I don't believe they sell Bluefairy anymore, but they did at the time). I bought her with a faceup and two wigs, but in classic beginner fashion, told myself I would just make clothes to save money, which I ended up regretting (I did make some, but they were not... the best). I pretty quickly decided to repaint her, and got more into the customization part of the hobby. After that, I never looked back, and I've now been in the hobby for almost 10 years. I love my dolls and this community so much!! It has really enriched my life

 

I was into monster high dolls, and I regularly shopped for past dolls on eBay. Eventually, I started getting recommendations from New Clover Singing’s eBay shop that she had at the time (under the username Jeeryama). I looked at the dolls, but I thought they were insanely expensive, compared to my MH dolls. I then ended up following some doll people on Tumblr, and one of them was blogging about Ringdoll. I had a very off again on again relationship with my ex, so in one of our off again moments, I started a layaway with Ringdoll for one of their limited editions from their infamous line. I had no idea how long fullset BJDs took to be produced, so I emailed ringdoll like every month after I finished my layaway being like “is he ready yet?” Which probably irritated the heck out of RD but I was a newbie and I didn’t know any better.

He took about 6 months to ship, and came in while the ex and I were on another off again moment, but that’s its own story.

 

I discovered them on tumblr in 2015. I instantly fell in love but i was a teenager and couldn’t afford them so i forgot about them. In 2020 i saw an advertising poster an art exhibition and the girl on that poster had a bjd in her arms. That poster re-activated my love for them and after doing some research here on DoA i bought my first doll through AC

 

I also discovered BJDs on Tumblr, but it was just this year! I started a Tumblr blog for my Sylvanian Families photos and through the various Tumblr toy blogs I found my way here. I probably wouldn't have been confident buying one without having found DoA and been able to read through company reviews. Those reviews led me to Denver Doll and getting Tamia, my Realpuki Obi.

 

In the early 2000s when Angelic Layer manga released in north America I really wanted a doll like the ones in the manga. In my searching online for real version dolls I learned of bjd.
It wasn't until 2014 when I was finally able to afford my first doll. I ordered on ebay, through a reputable proxy account, and got my limited edition Loongsoul Reno bjd (since been traded)

 

I found out about BJDs through the Monster High Arena forums. People were talking about how much they loved BJDs but they were so expensive. I remember thinking "What doll company is that?" and looking it up. 5 resin dolls (and lots of OT ABS dolls) later, I'm hooked!

 

I found out about BJDs about a year or so ago when my ex at the time showed me a Moonlight Jewel video making a BJD of one of his vtubers. Admittedly didn't care about who the vtuber was but I thought the whole process was cool and then I spent several hours watching EVERY VIDEO she made... now its been a year and I've got three girls and I'm loving every moment of the hobby!

 

I found out about BJDs almost a decade ago. I was really into monster high dolls at the time and was watching all sorts of YouTube videos about them when I came across Nicole’s Dreams repaints. The size and customisation fascinated me and I pretty much fell in love right then and there.

I didn’t get my first doll until a number of years later in 2021 when Dream Valley released their giraffe centaurs Dean and Howard. The bodies were incredible so I made an impulse purchase and bought the only male doll in my collection to this day Dean. However he wasn’t my first doll as I picked up an instock Fairyland Sylvia from DDE as a birthday present for myself.