The "Supposed" Popular Dolls You Never See

Hmm, I've never really had a problem finding pictures of any Volks doll, even the really old ones. But then again I purposely search the gallery section with the search term "Volks". If I can't find enough pictures there I check Flickr and if that's still not enough, I search Japanese blogs and find all sorts of stuff. Even with the case of Alice, for as new as she is, I've found a good amount of her around. More will surface when she's not so new, it takes time for fan pictures to develop.

Though I really should take up the challenge of searching for a popular company then an unpopular one and keep doing this to chart how many results each one gets. I bet the results are surprising.

 

Part of it may also depend on how many of the dolls go to the non-English speaking world, or simply to doll hobby-ists who don't make DoA their main hub of activity. Try flickr. When looking for Sugarable Hellena pics, I found a whole bunch of photos of her on flickr that are no where on here.

 

Also in the case of say Volks, their LEs always seemed to be a lot more popular than their standards. Just because a doll is a standard release doesn't mean that that doll is the most common or popular.

 

DOA is not the only place BJD people hang out so it is not representative of the BJD community at all. Livejournal, flickr, and facebook are just a few of the other places that you can find BJD. The Volks USA Fangroup on facebook is usually pretty busy if you are interested in Volks and keeping up with the releases and tutorials they post on their blog. If you are looking for photos of a specific doll flickr is usually the best way to go.

 

I was just thinking this actually... I was looking for photos of Volks Kanata... and indeed, for being a standard, and supposedly popular, there aren't many owner photos that I can find, here or on flickr.

 

Well, part of the lack of standard Volks doll sightings at least is in part due to Volks' *strong* emphasis on limiteds. With the Dollfie Dreams, there are over 50 head molds out in the wild. Only four, FOUR, are standard. And while I don't know the exact numbers for the various SD lines, they definitely have the same tons-of-limiteds-but-very-few-standards pattern. So while there may be less of any one given limited mold than of a standard, the sheer number of limited molds means that the number of all limiteds total far outnumbers the total number of standards. It feels a little weird to think of it that way, but it's a side-effect of Volks "merchandise as event" marketing approach.

Though that makes me think about specific limited Dollfie Dream molds. Now, one doll that's well loved that I don't see much of is Saber Alter--but the reason she's so ridiculously overpriced in the aftermarket is precisely because there are far fewer of her than can meet the demand of all that affection, so that doesn't surprise me. It does surprise me, however, that I don't see more of Haruhi, Mikuru, or Yuki Nagato, especially considering the popularity of the source material. Another one that I'm surprised at how little I see her is Komaki Manaka, especially since Danny Choo claimed once that he sees her "everywhere" when he attends a Dollpa. I guess that "everywhere" doesn't include places where people are taking many pictures.

 

I don't think the box opening section of the forum necessarily gives a representative view of the hobby. That is, it may be more likely for new owners rather than more seasoned ones to post their box openings. And while some people do start their dollie careers with Volks, quite a few start with less expensive dolls and move on up. So maybe you see fewer Volks box openings for that reason.

Something similar may be at work in gallery threads as well, although in this case it may skew a bit towards those who have polished their photography skills. And it seems that a lot of Volks owners have worked hard to polish their skills, so I'd expect them to be well-represented here (and in the Gallery+, as well).

Note that the above are simply guesses-- with no data to back them up!

But if I were to collect data, I'd ignore both of those sections of the forum and look at the database threads instead. To me they seem like they'd be more neutral in terms of types of dolls collected and owner characteristics, time in hobby, etc.

 

Geesh, seemed to me like there were enough Volks Reisner openings and posts in the Gallery.

I really wouldn't try and judge popularity by how often you see posts in the Gallery and Box Opening. And what actually makes a dolls seem popular or not? With Volks you are talking about a company. There are individual Volks dolls that are quite limited and some that aren't all that popular (as with most companies). I see plenty of Volks dolls posted... but then, it all depends on what you're noticing and what you're looking for... there are a TON of threads and to start checking them all out and seeing which dolls are posted more than others--that's nearly impossible! I'm on DoA a LOT and I can't begin to do anything close to that...!

For any doll, the best way to see posts is just to do a search. And it's true that some dolls don't have all that many threads about them--but that's true of a LOT of dolls.

And how can you tell what dolls are popular and which aren't? Is a doll popular if there are a lot of them owned? Or if they are talked about a lot--even though they make be very limited? The whole idea of popularity just confuses me, I guess...

 

I think part of it is down to collector type as well. Some people are more likely than others to photograph their dolls and put them on the net.

When I think about a doll's popularity, it's not how many pictures I see of the doll, it's how many times I see the doll model listed in people's doll families and signatures. If I see it a lot = popular doll. Another sign of popularity is when manufacturers start marketing clothes and accessories directly to a specific size. Lati Yellows are a popular size doll, there's a thriving discussion community here and on Flickr and there are many independent seamstresses here and on Etsy who only sell their designs in Lati Yellow size - if they can specialise to that level, I have to assume that there's a good reason for that. Strong sales = popular doll.

 

I think we don't see a lot of the Haruhis or Yukis is because they're probably owned by fans of the show, who aren't necessarily ABJD fans in the 'taking photographs of my dolls' sense. They're probably more of a 'sit on the shelf' type doll.

The show sold very poorly in the US compared to what they thought the demand for it would be, so I'm guessing most of the dolls are owned by non-English speakers as well.

 

As the owner of a number of Volks, some more popular than others, I don't post a lot of pictures because I don't get a lot of comments. I also don't post on Flickr because they charge... So I'm sure are plenty of doll owners like me who have relatively popular dolls but don't post them a lot.

 

Chehime , Flickr only charges for pro accounts. I had a pro account and then decided not to pay the renewal so I have a basic account that has more than enough room/features for what I need it for.