Around 2007, I got interested in visual kei. I spent my days dreaming of Miyavi and Gackt, drawing gaybies, and searching deviantArt and other online art communities for whatever inspired me. I wrote in 2008 that I discovered BJD through a club on a deviantArt rip off site called MangaBullet. I don't remember this at all but my memory is hard to trust. Perhaps I discovered them there first, but this photo of DoD Ducan was the first to capture my attention. According to the creation date of that file on my HDD, July 23, 2008 was the day I discovered DoD Ducan and the beginning of the end.
I spent the next few years mopping floors, collecting Christmas and birthday money, and doing anything I could for spare change to buy dolls. I was lucky to be in a good situation where after a few months I was able to afford my first doll. My mom was supportive of me getting cute girl dolls (not so much the boys) and helped me a lot. Not everyone is so lucky!
Deciding on a doll is hard! Do you choose to go cheap? Start off expensive? Is it worth saving $50 to try to paint the doll yourself? What if you don't even like it when you get it? I looked at so many dolls and saved tons of photos! Once in a while, I started to try to convince myself that this very inexpensive doll would be good because it meant almost immediate gratification. I'd still have to wait months for the doll to be made, but I wouldn't need to wait to save up any longer. I luckily never went through with those ideas. I was obsessed with the idea of owning a limited doll. In these days, tan resin and alternate sculpts with elf ears were generally only offered on a limited basis. Even if I didn't care for these traits, this made the dolls that much more attractive.
The first doll I attempted to order was KDF Bory. My mother didn't have a Paypal yet and the site was insecure. I decided to not order this doll to avoid sending her credit card info in plain text. A few weeks (or even days) later, DoD released their holiday limited Black Elf Sha. I rather impulsively decided this was the doll for me! I wanted a limited DoD doll so bad so he would be extra special. My mom still didn't have Paypal, so we had to fax her credit card and ID to South Korea. We couldn't figure out how to connect to their fax machine so we kept trying and trying sending her info into the abyss. It was very silly of me after deciding against Bory over an insecure site! After a lot of tries and emails back and forth between us and a very annoyed DoD employee, we made a Paypal and sent the funds. I was likely the last to get my order in after the end of the sales date.
Someone on DoA had linked a y!j auction listing of the first doll to pop up. He was RED instead of tan. I was really nervous to get mine! He didn't match the promo photos at all! Slowly, more started coming in and the resin color started to match the prototype. I finally recieved mine! Interestingly, they sent him to the billing address rather than the shipping address. He unexpectedly arrived on a Saturday to my home. His color was close to the prototype, but he came with many flaws. Looking back, he was a terrible buy for the amount of money I spent on him. I believe he was $740 after shipping.
I went to my first and second meetup before Rio even arrived. My future friend had brought a tan Bambicrony tiny to our second meetup, which I thought was way too cute! About a week later, I ordered a limited tan Bambicrony tiny. She arrived before Rio did. Before the end of the year, I bought a secondhand non-limited floating head for $150 and another big limited tan boy! My floating head sat in a box for 13 years before getting his body. I obviously wasn't as enamoured as I thought. Money was burning a hole in my pocket around the Christmas holiday events on each site. I had decided on an Iplehouse boy after considering my options. I had accumulated 4 BJD in 2009.
I really wanted a Minifee girl but FL didn't offer any faces I liked. I kept waiting and waiting and in 2010, I ordered a limited fullset LittleFee instead. She had all the impressive engineering of a Minifee and my mom and I both liked her sweet baby face. If you've never seen hiritai's Hayden, you need to look right now!! I fell in love with this beautiful boy the year before, but Migidoll only sold doll heads in limited periods through email with the information being on her blog in Korean. I wasn't brave enough to ever order one from her. While perusing the DoA marketplace, I found a boy with a similar faceup, already had a body, and was $550 with none of the pain of ordering from Migi or hybriding! I bought him and he arrived after getting stuck in Texas for a few days.
My meetup friends had an obsession with BlueFairy dolls. I never really understood it until I came across a photo of a Sarang on DoA. She was so sweet! So cute and happy! I kept her in my mind, not sure if I wanted to buy one. My friend was buying tons of BF dolls and was selling a few she didn't need. She had bought a secondhand blossom sarang for the body to swap with her BF Xiao. She put the Sarang with the original body up on DoA a week or so before a meetup and I messaged her and was like BRING THAT DOLL. She brought the doll, in pieces, in a plain cardboard box to the meetup at my home. I strung her and then asked my friend how much I owed her. I asked my mom to write her a check for $270.
A couple years later in 2011, I decided it would be really fun to make a visual kei boy. I needed a doll that I wasn't going to fear destroying. I found a Bobobie Espree on Denver Doll Emporium and put all my creative energy into making this doll fun. I had a good time, but the base sculpt of the face and body left much to be desired. This is the only doll I've sold. The same BF loving friend messaged me alerting me to a blank SF Hana on the marketplace for $150! What a steal! I messaged the seller and committed, but the seller messaged me and said she made a mistake, and the doll was a boy. I took her offer of a $50 discount and I recieved my cheapest doll. About a year later, my same friend said she wished her Hana had a natural looking faceup but didn't want to wipe it, and traded me for the Hana head that I had painted myself.
I started college after this doll. I did not take any of my dolls to the dorms and didn't feel connected to them anymore. College was awful so I didn't come back after the first year.
Once I was home, I tried to convince myself I only wanted girl dolls. Dollfie Dreams started to become cute around this time so I had my eyes on a few of those as well. I had no source of income and only what I had saved up earlier. I decided to list my boys for sale for funds to buy girls. I priced them emotionally, so none of them sold. I'm happy I still have them and I love them dearly.
I discovered SD Lieselotte during her 2013 release. I fell in love, lost her lottery, and looked bleakly into my already empty wallet. Sites like Mandarake and Dollyteria became known to Western collectors around this year, making secondhand Japanese dolls more affordable than ever before! I scrounged up enough to order an unassembled kit Unoa Lusis, who was a fever dream just a few years before. It was then after putting my 3 minis next to each other, I decided it was time for my Bobobie to go. I sold him on DoA to an owner who listed him for sale again upon arrival.
VolksUSA had a storefront closing sale and I was able to purchase my DD for around $350 for everything. I made a doll friend who ghosted me, but it was fun while it lasted.
I transfered to a college that was not a party school and took only my DD with me. During my time there, I asked my mom to buy me a Kikipop for my birthday and she actually did it! I was so happy to have a Kinoko Juice doll. After I got kicked out, I transferred back to my original party school and moved in with Ryan. I had my DD, Kikipop, Sochi, and Unoa with me until I graduated, although I didn't play with them much.
Graduating was great because now I had time and money for dolls with my first job. I decided that with some disposable income, I was going to buy a doll! I was dead set on it! I just had to wait to find the right one. I made a list of Dollfie Dreams I wanted but the right doll and time just hadn't happened. Then something very wild happened. Volks announced an open preorder for SD Lieselotte. I thought, I panicked, I considered, and then finally decided and put in my order at midnight of opening of the preorder period! Many many months passed and I slowly snuck my dolls from my mom's house into my home under Ryan's radar. Did he ever notice?? (He did)
My Hina finally arrived! It was the best dolly day ever! I took her out to play every day for over a month after recieving her. While doing my eBay perusing, I found a KJ Kiki mislabeled as a Kikipop. I used my best haggling skills and bought myself a blank resin Kiki.
I had a wonderful meet up group called Inland Northwest Resin (INWR)! We had a facebook page and our own forum! We had so many fun meetups and it was just about the first time in my life my mom would let me go off and do things without her.
It was so fun to gush over the new dolls coming out and try out other dolls and see if I like them enough to want to own them myself. Most of us got into a weird obsession with Bluefairy together and probably had the largest number of BlueFairy dolls per capita back in the day. Together we went to gardens, cafes, restaurants, and had dolly "spa" meets.
I got to attend multiple RadCons with these girls as well as Uncanny Dream 2011, PNW BJD Expo 2013 and 2014.
thank you to all my doll comm for spending time with me over the first years! Rei, Jenn, Bri, I miss you all so much! and thank you to Amanda for listening to me obsess over them for more than a couple years! also sorry for getting you into an expensive hobby :p
Newest on top!
All of these dolls were planned to be purchased at one point. They are better left in my memories than in my house. I don't think I would purchase any of these now.
Petsha was my first doll love! I never pulled the trigger on her because I always would rather have SD sized dolls. Lately, I've looked back on her and I realized I never loved her face. I only loved her fullset. One of the girls in my comm even had her and her fullset and even seeing her IRL, I never felt like I needed to buy her right that instant. I looked recently at her and realized I don't even like her face. I'm glad I never got her, I don't think I would have been happy with her.
She is quite pretty, but the more I look at her she looks like a bootleg volks doll. Is that a bad thing? At least the DG61 body looks nicer than the SD16.
This little grumpy dude was almost my first doll until I saw Luts' site wasn't secure during checkout.
Actually, she is pretty cute after all. In general, I like Angell Studio's faces.
This dude probably wouldn't have been a bad choice.
I got my hopes up too much once and now I dont even like looking at her. Obviously it wasnt true love.
The first Chloe and the best Chloe. I saw one at Uncanny Dreams (2011) and she was just stunning! She has elf ears though so I'll skip her.
She's just classic at this point, okay? I may think she makes a very good tiny boy.
When I'm on the other side of the state, I often stop by a consignment shop in the same mini-mall as a goodwill. There's a ton of booth so you always seem some fun things and some dumb things. My weirdest find there was two BJDs on July 9th, 2018.
A vendor had an SD sized boy I do not recognize (1 2 3) and a DC Elizabeth (1 2) up for sale. The boy was $149.99 and the Elizabeth was $299.99. Neither had a box and for these prices, I assume these are both recasts. They're still a crazy find! I would have picked up the boy to investigate but if I were to break him, I would be very upset to have to pay for a $150 recast!!
A Redditor found one of them too and made a post. I'm still laughing at all the users telling her it was a great deal and to run back to buy her. She didn't seem to have seen the boy though! I never saw the boy again, but I kept seeing Elizabeth for a while. She's gone now but I always check this booth to see if the vendor put up any more crazy cr*p up for sale.
Because of these photos and links (and also one more link elsewhere), I could be banned from DoA if I linked my website. It really is too bad, since I would love to share this site.
