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I have mixed feelings on Dollzone dolls… though it’s amazing to me how rabid some people are about them in either direction! I’m posting my thoughts in my journal rather than on DoA, that way people won’t take it as an offishul moderator statement. This is just me.
I think their 4 new dolls look original. I think Megi is rather cute. He has a look that reminds of dolls I like from some of the smaller companies, but he don’t look like a clone. His price is extremely tempting. However, I won’t buy one because I don’t trust their ethics – I don’t condone stealing other people’s work. They originally came out with dolls that were blatant ripoffs. The one that looks like a CP Woori is no longer being sold… But they still have two models on eBay (like 15 of each) that look like modded Volks MSDs to me (MSD Ken and Akira)
In particular, compare:
(Left: Volks MSD Ken, Right: Dollzone NINA. Sorry, the angles aren’t quite the same.) Crap. That sucker looks like it’s just an MSD Ken/Mika with triangles cut out of the corners of the eyes, a sanded chin and longer liplines cut deeply into the corners of the mouth! The nose is different, but only the nostrils… which could be easily modified on the original head with a bit of epoxy putty. It just doesn’t look that different. Maybe it’s just because I’ve owned a Ken in the past, and I’ve done a lot of modding.
One more comparison series to continue to beat the dead horse:
(Left to right: Dollzone NINA, MSD Ken, and then a pic that’s been overlaid 50/50.)
My former Ken had modded elf ears, but otherwise I think the ears would line up. The earlobes and jawline already do. This doll is still being sold on ebay by the official international Dollzone dealer (change8023).
And then there’s also the allegation that they use polystone intead of resin. In their posts on DoA, they specify that they use resin. But really, in a technical sense, polystone is resin. You see, it’s possible to change the qualities of your resin by adding “fillers” to it when you mix it. For example, “cold cast metal” resin things are a mixture of metal powders and resin. When it cures, it looks like and shares some of the qualities of metal. Polystone is a subtance that is added to resin to change the texture (and lower the cost). It gives the material a porcelain-like feel because in reality, the resin is half-stone or ceramic. It might make the texture of your doll nice, but most fillers make the product much cheaper and more likely to break or chip. Having never seen DZ dolls in person, and having never seen comparisons of their new dolls to their old dolls… I can’t really judge their resin.
People who own the DZ dolls give them high reviews and recommendations. Some people like the feeling of the DZ resin and think it is “different” but in a positive way. They also love the original-looking new sculpts of Xi and Yi that were released in the round prior to the new four. This is balanced with the story of one girl who got a patchwork doll who was something like 5 different colors. That situation was taken care of and she is satisfied now, but it still makes me wary of a company that would allow a product like that out the door.
I don’t know. I personally won’t deal with them… but really, doll history is fraught with weird things like this. Forever Doll did what DZ started off with, slightly modding and casting dolls from another company’s molds. I believe they were being made in Japan, though, or in a country where it was easier to trace and take legal action. So Volks shut them down. But with these dolls being produced in a huge country like China where bootlegs are produced in bulk, I think it would be very difficult to shut them down. Also, as these don’t appear to be being sold on the Japanese market, Volks may not be aware of them. From what I’ve heard, CP knows of them, but they are looking for more information. Bizarrely, from my recollection, Rasendo originally sold dolls with Volks-bootleg bodies. But they switched to their own (rather amateur) body sculpt and came back somewhat with them.
At the moment though, I am a bit concerned that people are spending a lot of money on a company or product that might be a little bit questionable. It seems like whenever a product comes out that is lower priced, it is immediately labelled as “cheap” and liking or disliking it becomes an economic elitist issue. “Oh, people only say that because they want this hobby to be just for rich people!” When really, the issues should be more along the lines of 1) are these dolls made of quality materials and 2) does it bother you to buy from a company that made money off of another company’s work in the past?
I think Dollzone might do better if they made a clean break entirely and changed their name… started afresh and really built up their reputation as a maker of original, high-quality dolls. At this point, no matter what they do they’ll have this hanging over them; I think it’ll be a long time before they’ll have to stop trying to prove they’re not “bad people.”
