#truebjdcounterfeits

Today I learned: The “Night Lolita” dolls found on AliExpress and Taobao are -not- recasts. They are also not BJDs. They are something else.

“YeLoli” is a 3D animated series (can you even call that an anime?) in China. They started in 2013 so the first-gen characters all look kinda derpy. They’ve since mostly improved. The “Night Lolita” is a translation of the series during the first season but since then, the series was renamed “Leaf Loli(ta)” instead. These two names have the same pronunciation in Chinese which adds to the confusion. The series is a combination of the Magical Girl genre and Rosen Maiden, and has an aesthetic like a good number of Barbie movies. The main characters started out as grade six students (about 12 yo) and that’s the main target audience, too.

For more information, here: https://baike.baidu.hk/item/%E7%B2%BE%E9%9D%88%E5%A4%A2%E8%91%89%E7%BE%85%E9%BA%97/12740112

As for the dolls, they are considered a tie-in from the series; so they are basically “merch.” The jointed dolls are made from ABS + PVC. They are hinge-jointed with elastic stringing for the torso. They come in 1/3, 1/4 and 1/6 and a special edition 1/6 body. They’re uniformly priced, too. All 1/3 dolls cost $260 RMB (about $41 USD), the 1/4 are $200 (about $31.54 USD) and the 1/6 are $90-100 ($14.13-$15.77). The limited 1/6 usually run for $158 ($24.91). There are some “Royal Edition” dolls that run about $2000 ($315.34 USD) but they are not very common. Other merch items include accessories (like magic wands) from the show as well as other figurines, collectors’ cards, blind boxes, etc. Basically, the Leaf Lolita is an IP that’s similar to Barbie’s movies or Disney’s Fairies. They have a similar aesthetic, a similar production method and a similar target audience.

Just like BJDs, you can switch out their eyes, wigs and faceups. Their clothes are interchangeable. It’s easy for overseas collectors to confuse them with BJDs. With a much lower price point and language barriers, it’s easy for people to think they’re getting a BJD at a bargain price. It’s also easy for people to think they are recasts, too. But they aren’t recasts at all.

Thank you for your input and healthy discussion, warms my nerdy lil heart!! 🥹

Regarding e-commerce sites, I’m speaking purely in terms of maximizing efficiency for buying and selling on the second hand market. Far easier to sort through items on eBay than the #bjdsales IG hashtag for example. Also that’s why so many (Western people at least) end up buying recasts entering the hobby as there aren’t very many luxury goods today that you can’t buy legit off of e-commerce sites. You aren’t wrong as to the “why” knowledgable legit BJD buyers don’t list/search those sites but the result is still an overall hindrance to legitimate secondhand market transactions. 

Regarding unknown buyers/sellers, this originally started back in the early 2000s when there were little to no recasts. The concern was overwhelmingly getting scammed and having someone run off with your money. Even now it’s rarely an issue an informed buyer is being sold a recast or being tricked into buying one. Most transaction issues with unknowns revolve around sale scams for legit dolls and items. I’d say recasts are part of the concern now, but that can usually be assuaged with a CoA verification . But overall even without recasts not selling/buying to/from unknowns would still be standard. 

Great comments regarding IP issues and price. Although I will say what you mean by “inflexible” actually means more flexible or more elastic in economic terms.  Lol it is a bit confusing but basically what’s considered “flexible” isn’t based on whether the price of an item ever increases or decreases or the frequency it does, its based on people’s willingness to buy when it does change. We are essentially saying the same thing though!  Companies that raise their prices will be generally unsuccessful.  

According to them, because they sell dolls cheaper, make dolls faster, quickly answer to their beck and call, and offer customization with colors, that makes them a “better” doll company than artists supposedly who overcharge, take forever to ship and steal your money, don’t have good customer service, and supposedly don’t offer customization.

And I’m just like, yeah, because they have a fucking factory stupid. They have the space, resources, multiple employees to handle every part of their business from casting, social media, shipping, customer service, painting, and can charge much less because they’re charging you to cast the doll not because they created it vs the artists that they steal from are usually a one-man team or a handful of artists doing all those same roles all while making time to create dolls and expecting the same from a small business is asinine. If Fairyland, the hobby’s popular company right now with multiple employees, can take hundreds, possibly even thousands of orders a month, and they still take a few months to ship out orders, why are you expecting it from one person.

There is a reason why artists charge as much as they do for their work, and it doesn’t have to do with being “greedy”, it’s because running a business is hard fucking work that I’m very sure many of these anti-artists wouldn’t be able to handle if they were to take on this business. Artists are not fucking Amazon, they’re small businesses, and anyone who thinks like that anon, even if those who try to distance themselves by calling themselves neutral, you’re anti-small business, period.

Being deserving of something is incredibly subjective, and not an argument in this debate at all, because it's not an isolated topic either. You can say you deserve something, but the moment it hurts others, or affects others, or any of that, then it's just plain old entitlement all around without a doubt. Why is entitled the right word? Because by asking that question, you're making it all about "one person" without care for others. You turn "deserving" into meaning "this person should get something, regardless of how it might affect others in a negative way."

People clearly say they're being affected by recasts, and that it does mess with their livelihood. Last week someone mentioned how their friend has their art stolen, and sold, and can't keep up, and losing sales. Saying you "deserve" something, but then also arguing that people creating certain art don't deserve full credit and monetary compensation, turns "deserving" into plain old entitlement. Obvs I'm talking to the choir here, but ehhh, whatever.

It was maybe a couple years later on eBay that I saw all these 'FairyLand' dolls for under $100 so I bought a lot of these cheap brand FairyLand dolls, they looked a lot like the expensive dolls that I kept trying to find out about, but these were affordable. I later found out about recasts, but at the time FairyLand seemed like a cheap alternative doll company compared to that $2,000+ doll I had been linked to previously. I don't buy recast once I learned the difference. I know honestly, if these 'exclusive' collectors on LiveJournal would have spent just a little time telling me about these dolls, even pointed me at Resinsoul, I would have never bought the recasts, as it was, I was completely uninformed. I would have been so happy with an affordable Resinsoul, but instead they pointed me at a $2,000+ doll, and laughed when I finally agreed I couldn't afford to be 'in the hobby'.

People have become so much nicer now to newbies, and I think that is a wonderful thing. I see new people come into the hobby, and BJD collectors happily tell them about the dangers of recasts, and where they can find the less expensive dolls, or encourage people to save up for a doll they really like. I don't see people pointing at the most expensive doll that they can find, and then laughing when a teenager decides they can't join the hobby yet, because they aren't wealthy enough.

I do understand where the 'elitist snob legit owners' come from, because I had to deal with them. I think they are a thing of the past. I hope that they are. I do feel they are partially to blame for some people having turned to recast, or people buying recasts uninformed in the past. I think maybe people that still think Pro Artists are snobs, came into the hobby when it was 'kool' to be super elitist in the hobby and laugh at the poor who couldn't afford these grand expensive and exclusive dolls. To the people that couldn't take the time to help and inform newbies, you might point your finger at the recast owners, but all the rest of the fingers on your hand are pointing back at you. This isn't a pro recast post, this is a what it happened to me post.

This right here is why scammers and bad companies are NEVER going to be gone from this hobby. R@p1993 is doing a collab with culor. One big name artist collabing with a very well known scammer who got her start in this hobby selling modded recasts as legit then later turned even worse scammer with the doll she created and all the drama from it. All the time I see posts asking about Dollshe wait time and wanting to order their new sculpts, then other posts about people waiting 2+ years for their dolls that they're lucky to even receive in the end of things. There are near daily posts on IG about wanting to buy culor dolls for literal thousands. It never ends. This is what's wrong with the hobby. This is why these terrible things keep happening. Because too many hobbyists allow this to continue. Even artists are allowing this to continue. How much must these scammers and bad companies do before enough is enough?