Moé Moé Rabu

Now I see myself as a bit of a regular otaku, though my room may make it seem otherwise. But of course I don’t like to keep my otakuism to just anime, manga, and figures. I like to know about other aspects that the Japanese culture has brought to many people of the western world. One particular area of otakuism (probably not the best word to use here) is the world of dollfies. Luckily for me last Sunday, my dear friend Megami of Tenshi Asylum invited me to tag along to one of the dollfie meets that she attends to get a better look at the world of dollfies.

Now really, I’m not going to explain what dollfies are, you can pretty much guess what they are from the photos. But I can say how such beautiful dolls has perked my interest. Now I have heard of dollfies before, but I would say that Rozen Maiden is the series that probably did it. But having met Megami and knowing her her hobby was collecting such gorgeous dolls, I began to see the beauty behind them. But of course, all hobbies have a cost, and with dollfies, it is quite expensive. Just one dollfie along can cost you anything from $800-$1200 or even more, and that is just for the body. There is still the issue of buying the clothes, accessories, different wigs, different eyes, etc.

Still not convinced of why people spend so much money on such a hobby? Well check out the photos below.

Now you are probably wondering why there is a pirate flag as the first picture. Well the theme for this dollfie meet was a pirate theme, which I thought was pretty awesome. When I first found out about dollfies, I thought they centralised around the goth/punk look. Although they still do, dollfies can be dressed in different fashions and some of the things you can dress them up with are just outrageous. What I also like is how stylish some of the clothing can be and I kind of wished they had stuff like that in real life, especially some of the jackets.

Dollfies can come in all varies sorts and sizes, and each have a different personality. When I was sitting and talking to the dollfies collectors, they all referred to their dollfies like real people, and I found this to be a little odd at first, but as I talked more and snapping away with my camera, I came to see that each of the dollfies reflect their owners personality. But because of how they talk about them also give life to each and every single one of them. For me as a figure collector, it’s a bit different as I already know the personality of the character, but with dollfie collectors, they create personalities for their beloved dolls.

Now one thing I had trouble distinguishing between certain dollfies here was whether they were a boy or a girl. Some are dead obvious, but I kid you not, some of the dolls which I thought were girls, were in fact guys, despite them having long bishounen type hair and wearing girlish clothing. But still, it all comes back to the collector and it reflects who they are.

One cool thing I like about dollfies is how you can get furniture for them to sit on. For figure photography, I have trouble trying to find trinkets and such for photo shoots, but with dollfies, they make it look like a piece of cake. Though photographing dollfies and figures are two different things. Figures are more simplier to do as they are static and you can take good pictures through various angles and lighting. Dollfies on the other hand requires a little more attention to detail. Angle and lighting is important, but because of their lifelike nature, something as small as the hair is covering the eyes can ruin the photo, or their hair isn’t styled the right way, or the face doesn’t match the colour of the eyes, etc. Keep in mind, the photos here I took based on a figure photography perspective.

Most people have probably seen dollfies in pictures before, but seeing them in the flesh is totally different, but even more different when you have about 40 something dolls sitting in the one room. I was simply amazed when I arrived and saw the vast collection of dollfies sitting around the room. Megami even noted to me that the cost of everything combined here would probably be enough to buy me my dream car of an Mazda RX-8. Now that’s a shitload of money.

With this being my first dollfie meet, I also got to see something that happened for the first time within this group of dollfie collectors. A swap meet. Pretty much everyone brought their spare clothes or items that they wanted to see to others. Some of the stuff was really nice and there were definitely some things I would’ve bought if I had a dollfie. And that brings the BURNING QUESTION, will I buy a dollfie?At this point, I am considering buying a dollfie, or more specifically a Dollfie Dream. Dollfie Dream (DD) is a type of dollfie and there are anime characters that have been turned into DD. Such examples include:

Shirakawa Kotori from Da Capo

Asakura Nemu from Da Capo Second Season (Wedding Dress version)

Shirakawa Sayaka from Suika

You can probably already guess my tastes from the three examples here. The dollfies collectors asked if I have been converted, though I did mention that I’ll buy one, they told me you’ll want more than one. I can see that being very true at this point as I would definitely would like to have both Kotori and Nemu. But now that i have a source of stable income, it might not be that impossible. Whether I can find some on Yahoo Japan Auctions is another matter.

Of course, getting a dollfie at this point is low on the list, I do believe I’ll buy one. Perhaps even when I go to Japan at the end of this year, but that’s all in the planning. So for the time being, you shall continue seeing photography of figures, but if I do go to more dollfie meets, you’ll be seeing photos of dollfies as well. So I like to thank my friend Megami and her circle of dollfie collectors for inviting me, and giving me an insight into the world of dollfies.