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

It bothers me a lot. I just got over being stereotyped as an 'Otaku' in the negative sense of the term, and the last thing I need is to be seen as that again. I respect the connection for other people, their dolls can be whomever they choose, but if someone said it to my face I'd get extremely irritated. I don't want my dolls to be judged like that, even if the appearance is undoubtedly similar.

 

I don't watch anime much anymore. Not too into it.

Japan who had volks pretty much made their dolls anime like, much like their pvc figures. That may be one reason people refer anime and connect them to bjd's. They were a major company which had alot of influence.

Although some bjds don't have the anime or anime influenced feel to them anymore.
But they still have that asian aesthetic and anime history attached to it that could be another reason why people connect them to anime, and it doesn't help that some dolls look anime-like. I believe in another thread there was debating about an outfit dollmore made copied directly from an anime. So that tells you there, that some.. not all companies are still being influenced by anime in some way.

Most of these dolls that I see here in doa are actually made in korea, some in japan, but majority in korea. But they are linked to anime due to the style and influence of the way these dolls look. Not many of these dolls look super detailed like a minimee/person,actor, and they don't even look like porcelain doll.

Personally I understand where the persons are coming from, if they don't know anything or little about a hobby of course they'll call you an otaku, or reference the doll to anime or japanese. I don't mind as long as they are not rude.

 

Oh! I have to pop back in to add a tale. I work at a university library. I have a new supervisor who is about half my age but likes pop culture stuff too, and who was very impressed when I showed him some pictures of my dolls, even though he didn't recognize them.

So, the next day I took in my DZ tan BB Kay (portable, right?) just to give him the general idea. He thought it was very cool, checked him all over, asked me if I'd made the outfit (yeah right!) and how they are made up and all the things you generally like to tell people about.

In came the Dean and one of the high muckety-mucks -- they had an appointment with him. I told the Dean (who's known me long enough not to be surprised by any weird thing I may do) "hey, if I'd known you were coming I'd have brought one of the girls!" But the high muckety-muck said "oh! That's one of those... " obviously struggling with what to call him -- "it's like a Pokemon, right? I know that's not the right word, but it's all I can remember..."

Now rather than get distressed about it, I was absolutely *delighted* that this person would even make the connection at all, and show that much interest in him! So the new boss lost a couple of minutes of meeting time while I explained that yes, the original idea came from anime, but that you could just as easily find a bjd now that looked for all the world like a real person...

I really think it's that people don't know the terminology, so they grasp at the first anime they can think of, whether it be Pokemon or Naruto or something they've heard their kids talking about. It's not meant as offense; they just don't have the vocabulary. But they do recognize the big-eyed look

Personally? I find that really fun! The teaching moment...

 

:!! "It's like a Pokemon, right?" Yep! Sure. For YOUR purposes, Boss, yes, it's something very similar to a Pokemon.

I too am impressed that he even grokked your doll as Asian. That is a scream of a story. As much Japanese (& as much pop culture) as he knows, a Naruto is probably a Pokemon, too. For that matter, a Futon is also probably a Pokemon. So is a Sashimi.

One baby-step at a time, Boss...

 

Oh man XD That would have really pissed me off. Even though I'm not into anime much anymore, I hate when people automatically think anything that looks like a Japanese cartoon is Pokemon or Yu Gi Oh.

 

I found BJDs through my love of anime and manga, so it will never annoy me to an extreme extent if someone referred to one as an "anime doll".

It is annoying though with the stereotyping, as shown in Baakay's case.

 

I've ever had people going, 'oh~ those anime dolls, ya?' when I squealed and went high seeing a BJD photo.

Well, the first and my most memorable experience was at my very first office job. During my first day of work, the lady sharing the cubicle with me was absent. But I saw some photos of her dolls. All in frames. So I went high and was squealing about the cuteness of her dolls.

One guy came in and said, 'oh~ you like those anime dolls too?' And I was kind of stun at the term 'anime dolls' and realised he called them anime dolls as the lady was very much into anime at first, followed by figurines before she actually brought her BJDs to work.

Everyone starts off somewhere before collecting BJDs~ I started with anime figurines too. So I understand when people stereotype them as 'anime dolls'. But with some patience and information, I'm sure they'd find calling them BJDs much simpler and easier to remember.

It doesn't bother me as much as when people call them 'those creepy dolls' or 'expensive lumps of plastics'. Now those...well...makes me feel like bashing up those people... Especially the latter comment...

 

Like many people I discovered BJDs at an anime/manga/video game convention. But even though I found them there I have never thought of it as a Japanese/anime thing. It's a completely different thing.
But considering where I discovered them I can understand where people get the asumption that it is an "anime thing."

 

It doesn't bother me at all. It's more about the type of style one is going for and what attracts them

Correct me if I'm wrong, from my knowledge I'm fairly sure bjd's are founder of the Japanese and it would be obvious for others to categorized it under the foundation. Through, now a days there are different manufacturers which can be split into different categories. In my option, it's more like past vs present and you can always choose the present to have everything categorized. But, bottom line is always going to be majority over minority which I'll leave it for one to decide.

As for anime wise I do believe it is set apart in some cases between bjd and regular anime dolls. Bjd's are indeed a upscale class compared to an anime dolls. As matter of fact, bjd's mimics a lot more features to human (eyes, nose, mouth, etc...) which we all know. Still, it doesn't mean that can't be considered into the anime comic or shows category. Take jigoku shojo for example, that is a bjd character type of anime and there's a lot more of anime that are like that.

It's what one choose to believe and sometimes it's more of why struggle when you can choose to accept. Besides, fact has proven struggling ages

 

Well why not make a connection?
The most of the BJD do have something very anime-ish in their face styling, and the commoners won't understand teh difference between a BJD and an anime action figure - we can't blame them for it, right?

 

Totally agree!
It's what you think makes it important not others

 

It doesn't really bother me unless the person who says "Those anime dolls" hate anime and thing they are the same thing, and make the conclusion they are both stupid...but whatever. It's their opinion.

 

It doesn't bother me to have them called anime dolls. I kind of think that it is all interelated with my other hobbies such a Science Fiction, fantasy, and cosplay. I actually prefer the Koren Dolls, though, so most of mine look more like they are from legends, rather than from pokemon.

 

Well... It bothers me how someone says it, like, "*in a disgusting voice* Ugh, it's those anime dolls..." - that gets me utterly pissed off because they don't know one thing about them and consider us freaks - and they're the ones attending an anime convention themselves too.

But if they're casually saying, "Oh, those anime looking dolls!" then it doesn't irk me that much.

 

You know, I was slightly offended a while back, mainly because I don't watch much anime so I didn't think the dolls looked too anime-like. However, I've been noticing anime more (especially 3D anime) and I think some of the characters look exactly like our dolls. I'll mention the video game "Star Ocean: The Last Hope" because I seriously think they used BJDs as inpiration for their characters. I think it's pretty cool and, especially for people who don't know much about anime or Japanese culture, it's to be expected that they would call BJDs "those anime dolls."

 

I agree with the point that people who aren't knowledgable or "into" things tend to clump them all together. Sometimes two things that are vaguely related can be catagorized closely just because people don't know any better.

 

It doesn't annoy me in the slightest. Actually, it's the fact that it does annoy some people that annoys me more. I can totally understand feeling hurt/upset/offended if someone says 'those anime dolls' in a negative manner, but similarly people have said things to me like 'those creepy dolls' or 'ew you like BJDs that's so weird' or 'omg your dollfie isn't Volks what gives?' and that rubs me the wrong way too. Tone of voice shouldn't be enough to hate a connection entirely, just those rude people.

It actually bothers me more when people say 'OMG YOU HAVE A DOLLFIE!! *pounce*' when not a single one of my dolls is a 'dollfie' and I have to patiently explain to the person that not all BJDs are 'dollfies'. Their attempt at sounding knowledgeable annoys me more than someone saying 'that's an anime doll' because they obviously don't really know what a BJD is but are trying to take an interest.

Like anyone else, I'd be offended if someone said it in an offensive way (I'm very over-protective of my hobby) but no more or less so than if they referred to them in any other way in an offensive manner. Making the connection isn't offensive in the least, and hearing that people get offended at something so trivial is... well... surprising to me. Especially when there's an undeniable resemblance there most of the time. I mean, ok. If someone looks at one of the buff manly boys and says 'he's so anime' I'll look at them like o_O You get that how? But I wouldn't think they were being offensive Just... not that bright


Although I'll agree that when it's people at anime conventions and they say deliberately unkind things and make a negative connection between anime and BJDs that does bother me - they've paid through the nose just like me to attend this convention so they're no sadder or cooler than me - less so probably because at least I won't spend a fortune on half-naked-girl/panty-shot figurines in the dealer room because I'm saving for the next SOOM monthly

I think I went off on a tangent or rambled... sorry The point is though, it doesn't bother me

 

It doesn't bother me, because I like anime and that's why I like these dolls. I think that when people call these anime dolls it's just an innocent comment, I know for me when at a convention I think I asked ''what anime it was based on?" I really didn't know much about these dolls and that was a way for me to start a conversation.

 

I got into BJD through an anime convention so if someone makes the connection and calls them 'anime dolls' I can't really blame them that much (especially since Dolfie Dream DO look like anime characters). However if someone said to me personally 'oh you have an anime doll' I would politely try and correct them.

 

It doesn't bother me, really. Its kind of like, when I was a kiddo, my Grandma use to collect porcelain dolls... when I was a kid, I couldn't understand the point of having these dolls that were fragile that I could never play with... but seemed like a lot of older people had these dolls.... thus, I had once dubbed these as 'Granny Dolls'

keep in mind that it wasn't my hobby, I was naive and didn't know how else to categorize them!

An other example is when me and my boyfriend are out, and I see a fancy car, and I'm all like "Hey! Its like that car from Dukes of Hazard!" ... and to this he replies "Its a Muscle Car, dear" and proceeds to give me a lecture on the car... Even with the lectures, I still know near nothing about fancy cars, where my boyfriend has a slight interest in... but for me to relate to his interest, I have to put it in those kind of words XD

Its the same when others from outside the BJD community approach us with silly quotes, such as "Anime Dolls" .. they simply don't know how else to label them! They're as naive about dolls as I am about cars!

those are my two cents