Safe As Kittens: Dolls

Sunday, 15 February 2015

Ball Jointed Dolls

If you spend any time on Deviantart, Pinterest, We<3it, Tumblr etc you'll probably have spotted exquisite looking anime-esqe dolls. These are ball jointed dolls or BJDs (also known as Asian Ball Jointed Dolls or ABJDs).

History
Dolls with articulated limbs have been around for more than 2000 years, first appearing in Rome and Greece and made of clay or wood and from the late 19th century French and German manufacturers were creating articulated bisque porcelain dolls.

Japan has a long history of doll making stretching back thousands of years. The more modern style of BJDs first appeared in Japan in 1999 when Volks began producing the customizable Super Dollfie made of polyurethane resin.

The Super Dollfie evolved from the Barbie sized 1/6 scale Dollfie and stands up to 60cm tall. At the time of writing they cost between $400 and $2000. They are fully customisable allowing their owners to change heads, hands, feet, hair, eyes, and clothes. The owner also carries out the 'faceup', which is the application of make-up.

Anime
Some BJDs are based on generalised anime and manga characters. There has also been a crossover from BJDs to anime and manga in the form of Rozen Maiden.

Clothes
BJDs can often be seen dressed in gothic and lolita style clothes. There is another crossover here as this style can be re-created for real people with BJD style tights from Tableau.

Global Following
There's a huge following of BJDs across the World with conventions being held in a number of countries including Japan, Korea, Hong-Kong, USA and UK.

One subtle thing I picked up whilst researching this post was that there appears to be a certain amount of elitism in the BJD world, with different communities keeping to themselves to the extent that a minor variation in doll style will exclude an owner from an online forum or attendance at an event. Apparently this is quite common on Deviantart and Tumblr. It reminds me of that Life of Brian sketch (contains bad language):