Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on April 2010

Photo by Aimee Major Steinberger

As her limpid blue eyes gaze up softly at you, you realize that the precious little one’s trust in you is absolute. She sits with eternal patience, waiting as you adjust her lacy gray bow so that it falls just right. At last she seems ready, and you give her a final once-over, smoothing an errant hair into place.

Then you swing closed the cover of your violin case and lock it, sealing her safely inside.

You’re not being cruel or harsh—in fact, you are protecting your little one from the discomforts of city transit before you make the long pilgrimage to Tokyo Big Sight. You’re going to attend Doll Party 23, and it’s vital that your loved one—your doll—arrives looking her best.

Welcome to the modern world of ball-jointed doll fandom. If you’re an enthusiast or just interested in getting to know what they’re all about, then Dolls Party 23 is the place to be.

Held biannually at Tokyo Big Sight, the free, one-day event attracts more than 15,000 visitors. It’s organized by popular doll company Volks and features exclusive new dolls and accessories for sale, as well as showrooms, a customized doll contest, a “tearoom” for chatting with other doll collectors, and special classes for anything from how to paint a doll face to how to properly bathe your precious.

Put simply, a ball-jointed doll (kyutai kansetsu ningyo in Japanese, or BJD for short) is any doll articulated with ball-and-socket joints which allow for a range of motion—that is, they are fully poseable. Modern dolls are cast in polyurethane resin, a type of hard plastic that warms quickly to the touch and feels a bit like porcelain. The most common height is 40cm, but BJD can be as tall as 80cm or as small as 10cm.

Yet choosing the height of your doll is just the beginning. There are any number of skin colors, eye tints and shapes, complexion, makeup, hair and, finally, clothes.

Indeed, for thousands of enthusiasts worldwide, the attraction lies in being able to create a fully personalized doll. “Some people might not get it,” says Rikka Gallas, 29, a production assistant from Chicago and the proud mother of two BJDs. “Anyone can have a particular mold of a doll, but who you are and who you want that doll to be really shines through with your choice of hair and eyes and clothing. The possibilities are endless, and when you sit back and look at or hold your doll in your arms, you know he or she is yours.”

That kind of customizability comes with a hefty price tag. The cost for a basic BJD—a naked doll without any hair, eyes, or face paint—is anywhere from ¥30,000 to ¥80,000. Special edition sets typically start at around ¥150,000, and some fan-customized models can sell in online auctions for as much as ¥500,000. Alternatively, there are relatively affordable places to buy less-popular brands online, such as Bobobie.com, where a basic doll set can be bought for as little as ¥12,000.

The current doll boom can be traced to 1998, when Akihiro Enku, a sculptor for the popular toy company Volks, created a one-off lifelike BJD for his wife. An executive director was taken with the design, and the following year, the first set of 57cm tall Super-Dollfies was released to the public. Girls especially were taken with the more realistic design and customizability, and for the first time, females became power consumers in the anime figurine market. Today, 70 percent of BJD owners are female, but male owners are steadily on the rise, and the market is quickly adapting.

Nowadays, more than 20 different companies across Asia and the US make their own molds, and hundreds of fans have created livelihoods out of painting faces, sewing clothes, and doing modifications for other enthusiasts. The mother of it all, Volks, also operates doll museums and cafes across the country. Their original museum, Tenshi no Sato (“The Angel’s Home”), is in Kyoto, but satellite branches can be found in Akihabara, Ginza, Harajuku, Ikebukuro and Shinjuku.

Dolls Party 23
Bi-annual showcase featuring new dolls plus accessories for sale. May 4, 10am, free. Tokyo Big Sight, Odaiba. Nearest stn: Kokusai Tenjijo. www.volks.co.jp/en