"Those Anime Dolls"- Does the connection bother you?

don't bother me at all. i'm anime fan, but if i weren't, even then... so what?
i mean, they mostly have those big eyes and stuff :P
it's like tis "do ppl have right to feel ofended if someone blah blah blah" (i don't remember, but u know what tread i mean ;P)
it's your doll,and if you love them you shouldn't be worried about what others think about it, right?
it's offensive only if someone says that on purpose to annoy you or make you sad.

actually, my only friend who didn't say "omg CREEEEPYYY", said: "omg! EMO-DOLLS!!!"
xD
does that bother you? :P

 

Well my dolls have never been called anime dolls but they have been called Lolita dolls. Normally this wouldn't have bothered me but the guy who said it was my tutor for Japanese culture and art studies and none of them were dressed in Lolita clothing. He is supposed to know better than that and that annoyed me so much because he would be teaching me and I might be learning things that were completely wrong.
As it happens, most of what he taught in the classes was totally wrong and I had to double check all my notes with another professor.
I actually passed that class where most of my (smarter lol) friends failed.

Even if you don't know what BJDs are, if you have a PhD or a degree in Japanese culture you should know better than to just call them a Lolita doll when they quite clearly aren't even close to being dressed that way.

So my point is- If a person who doesn't know what a BJD is or is unfamiliar with Asian culture calls it an anime doll or dollfie or Lolita doll, I really don't mind.
If a person who is paid to teach Japanese culture or has learned Japanese culture in a institute makes that mistake, I get annoyed.

 

I have a Dollfie Dream with big blue animetic eyes, massive boobs, and a super cute school uniform so if I said that bothered me someone would need to slap me silly. I've loved anime almost all my life, and discovered these dolls through the anime community, like I know many members here did. Honestly, only my DD has ever been associated with anime for obvious reasons, but if any of my other dolls had that connection made it wouldn't bother me at all. Hell, I'd probably agree and say "Yeah, she looks a lot like *insert clamp character here*."

 

No, the connection with anime does not bother me at all. I found these wonderful lovelies through anime/cosplay, so I'm thankful for the association. If I hadn't been exposed to anime, I probably would not be posting this right now. And as for being called otaku, it is in a way true. I'm an anime otaku and an ABJD otaku, if by otaku you mean obsessed.

And as for the negative images that people associate with anime fandom and project onto BJD fandom, I don't particularly care. The same people that will believe that all anime is kid stuff or extremely violent will believe that all doll people are obsessed maniacs with no life or grip on reality no matter what we do or say to convince them otherwise. It's best just to either correct them or ignore them and go on doing what we enjoy.

 

I'm not big into Anime but my boyfriend is. Actually I'm not into Anime at all with the acception of Pucca (if that even classifies as Anime).

Anyway, because I'm not generally familiar with anime and I only have ONE Playstation game called Chrono Cross, the first doll I saw that reminded me of a character (on Chrono Cross) was ShuShu, and yes, I do now want a ShuShu because of the likeness. I love my Chrono Cross game and the characters in it.

Also, I do think there is a standard view the Orientals/Asians seem to have on people, when they animate them they look the same - the giant eyes, the tiny mouths, the pointy hair... They represent people this way in their cartoons, in their video games and in their dolls.

It doesn't bother me in the least that people fashion their dolls after their favorite characters, I'm trying to get on the list for a Johnny Depp Minimee for crying out loud - to each his own right?

We all love characters

 

he probably meant because you see a few lolitas carrying around BJDs, not neccessarily that the doll wears lolita clothes. having looked through a few lolita publications youll see pictures of BJDs + people holding them so i can see how he'd make that assumption. alot of people seem to think if you like lolita you like dolls, or that the two are interlinct. they're not, but i happen to like both

 

The point is that he should have known that the two weren't linked. Part of the course that he was teaching was about fashion and subculture. He could have at least said that had seen them in a magazine (which highly doubt because he knew very little about it to begin with).
I don't think it's totally unreasonable to expect a professor in Japanese art and culture to know that not everything a Lolita carries around is a part of the Lolita subculture. I've seen pictures of teddy bears in Lolita magazines, those aren't necessarily always Lolita. Like I said, if it had been anyone else I would have been forgiving but a man who's job it is to teach this stuff to us making a rookie mistake like that is terrible.

 

Over-all, the anime association with these dolls doesn't bother me... Some anime I like, some I don't, but it's generally a useful comparison to make when you're trying to explain the dolls to someone who's unfamiliar with the type.

What bothers me much, much more is the "sex doll"-thing that some people outside of the hobby seem to be so focused on once "anatomically correct" gets mentioned. Pair that with the Yaoi-thing that crops up so often within the hobby and it can get to be a bit much for those of us who aren't the least bit interested in resin sexuality. o_O

 

isn't it kind of inevitable that all asian trends get linked back to anime? if it does bother you, you need to find something else to focus on because i don't this this association can be escaped. XD

 

oh, if he's supposed to know about fashion than that is pretty weird. i mean, like i said i can see how someone would say that but its still pretty odd

 

It does bother me, yes. Mostly because I try to make my boy look as realistic as possible- no weird hair, no anime eyes, no faceup that looks like it came from an anime. It bothers me that noone seems to notice it, to see the hard work I put into making him look realistic, only for the masses to go "that anime doll"

It doesn't bother me as much though, as people who call him a Chucky doll. These dolls don't even look similar.

 

It does not bother me because it does help to explain the androgynous appearance of the male dolls.

I also believe that the first asian BJD that we became aware of from Volks were originally created as larger figure kits of their smaller anime kit dolls. If you look back to the molds from the first popular companies (Rasendo and Volks) you will see that they were very much stylised in the way of popular anime art at the time.

I have not encountered anyone who expected me to be an Otaku or a gothic loli because of the hobby though. Actually I have not encountered anyone who thought negatively of the hobby either - probably because my friends are artists.

 

Anime art isn't the same across the board. It's possible to have a more realistic looking sculpt and still have it look anime-esque. It may not be that people are missing your hard work, but that the shared aesthetic is still there (and if you have an on-topic doll it most likely will be). I never got the whole Chucky thing either.

 

I see no problem with it. I'm not sure how it happened; I know I saw my first BJD at Otakon, and subsequently have gone to doll panels there and chatted with other people with dolls. Either way, "Oh, is that an anime doll?" is a much preferable reaction to "Ahh! It's scary! It's creepy!" or "Dolls? What's wrong with you?" ^^;

 

What? You mean teachers are human too? Heaven forfend!
The big difference between a BJD and a teddy bear is that while you might see both in a Lolita fashion magazine, most North Americans (and indeed most Japanese if my coworkers and students are anything to go by) are almost certain to have seen a teddy bear outside of the Lolita scene, and fairly likely not to have seen a BJD in any other context (if they’ve seen them at all).

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to imagine that a professor in Japanese art and culture might think of himself as someone whose purpose is to enlighten people about older culture (tea ceremony, the 1970s resurgence/creation of certain folk myths?), or to focus most of his effort on his research into the role of visual art in Japanese workplace culture that 97% of his students will never know about. Maybe he only talks about Lolita at all because it’s expected by the department...just like my Linguistics professor had to tell us about head-driven phrase structure grammar, even though he was mostly interested in lexical-functional grammar.
And keep in mind that, at least from the outside, the Lolita scene seems very strongly defined. Within the culture, there are things that Are and Are Not Lolita…and with the assumption that most things that make it into a magazine are in the are category, is it really unreasonable to make a connection? Even would-be Lolitas have been known to see something in a magazine and assume that it is Lolita, whether or not the item/style has a life outside the fashion.

So as much as I dislike people who are willfully ignorant even when they’re no longer, technically, ignorant at all (you know, the people who insist on calling your Elfdoll Red “Naruto” despite you explaining the connection and divergence between anime and BJD not to mention the utter lack of resemblance), I really think we should all be patient with anybody who makes connections between the hobby and other cultures.

When we expect and assume that a certain person ought to know this or that, we’re just doing the same thing we’re railing against.

 

On the lolita doll teacher tangent, I don't think it's all that shocking... I've certainly seen plenty of photos of lolitas with BJDs, and as a lolita who also has BJDs I'd say that while there's no mandatory link between the two (plenty of lolitas hate BJDs, plenty of BJD people hate lolita), there is a bit of a soft link.

And just because he's teaching about fashion and subcultures doesn't mean he knows anything about BJDs. If he's only ever seen a BJD held by a lolita in a photograph, then it's understandable that he may link the two, especially if his main interest is in other fashions and he only knows a bit about lolita because he has to. I'm doing a panel on Japanese street fashion at an upcoming convention and I'll be honest and say that I really only have a particular interest in lolita, so if someone asks a question about gyaru or cyber that falls outside of the research I did online to know enough to speak for a few minutes, then I might not be able to answer it. Not everyone is an expert on every possible subject even within their field. : /

 

i was going to mention this, even on egl some people who claim to be lolita's seem to think BJDs are very lolita related, or somehow linked - its just being slightly misinformed.

although i do agree with your sentiment kurokara-chan seems pretty adamant so i just assumed her teacher really IS supposed to know these things (street culture expert?) though id be suprised because even in japan BJD and lolita arent some hyperally-well understood thing, and as you said, he may only be teaching certain aspects because he has to

 

Of course I didn't expect him to know what the doll was, that would be totally unfair but I did expect him to have the sense to not lump things together like that.
I don't know, maybe I'm been hard on him but I just found it so irritating that he just assumed he knew what he was talking about like that. He didn't ask about it or say that he had recognised from the Lolita scene or anything like that. He just called it a Lolita doll, even after I told him what it was him what it was. Maybe this is one of those situations where you had to be there, it's hard to really explain how things were said in a classroom over a computer.

 

There's only THREE animes I've ever liked -- Sailormoon, Evangelion, and Death Note. And, I'll admit, BSSM is more of a childhood nostalgia (if I came across it for the first time today, I wouldn't like it as much as I did back then.)

My problem? People today think "likes anime = Narutard/Bleachtard." I don't know WHY it's these two that caused all the fuss; but, at least where I live, saying you're an anime fan automatically gets you the "Creepy Grimmobkadjabgdfj Fangirl" stamp. Yeah, you know who I'm talkin' 'bout!

It's like Japan has NOTHING to offer except those two shows and BJDs to some people! THAT's the kind of anime association I hate. If a person calmly and maturely asks if I enjoy other aspects of Asian culture beside the dolls, I'll be happy to tell the other stuff I like. They ARE Asian dolls, so it's logical to assume I could have gotten into them from liking Asian things in general (either that, or from liking dolls in general.)

 

Doesn't bother me at all. Besides while I have my resin dolls, I also have dollfie dreams. Dollfie dreams ARE anime styled dolls, so I'd look pretty stupid to dislike my dolls being possibly linked to anime.

No one I have ever met though automatically linked my dolls to anime.