 | |
| Founder | Hideyuki Shigeta |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | , |
| Products | Super Dollfie, Dollfie, Garage kits |
| Website | Official website  |
Volks, Inc. (ボークス) is a Japan-based corporation that produces garage kits and mecha kits as well as the Dollfie, Super Dollfie and Dollfie Dream lines of dolls. The company's headquarters is in Kyoto, with some 30 shops worldwide, and annual sales of about $50 million as of 2008. [1]
Volks began as a small hobby shop in 1972. In the late 1990s they produced the first Dollfie dolls, and in 1999 the first Super Dollfie doll was created by Akihiro Enku. In November 2005, Volks USA opened their first American Tenshi no Sumika store in Los Angeles, California. [2]
Volks is organized into three different enterprises. Volks Inc. is the main umbrella company. They operate the Tenshi-no-Sato museum in Kyoto, the Volks Showrooms in Japan, and the Tenshi-no-Sumika shops in Japan, Korea, and the United States. Zoukei-Mura is Volks' sculpting, designing, and assembly department for Super Dollfie. Virginal Art is Volks' marketing and design department with a focus on the hobby market. [3]
Hideyuki Shigeta is the president of Volks Inc. Several sculptors are working under Zoukei-Mura, most notably Akihiro Enku, the creator of Super Dollfie. Artist Gentaro Araki briefly worked with Volks creating the U-noss line of dolls. [4] There are also several designers working with the Super Dollfie line of dolls. The main designer, Mikey, is the daughter of Volks' president Shigeta. Some other notable designers are K. Mayura, Valico, Aone and Ciera. [5]
Volks regularly publish the magazine Volks News with information about new products from all of their lines.
Volks have created resin kit figures of characters from a large variety of anime and manga, such as My-HiME , Love Hina , Neon Genesis Evangelion and Oh My Goddess! , [6] along with video game franchises, such as Shantae. [7] [8] [9] [10] They also have their own line of figures called A-Brand.
They have also created Super Dollfie dolls based on characters from anime and manga such as Chobits , Maria-sama ga Miteru [11] [12] [13] [14] and Rozen Maiden . [15] [16] [17] [18] Volks have also collaborated with Lolita fashion brands like Baby, The Stars Shine Bright, H. Naoto, Black Peace Now and Atelier-Pierrot to create Super Dollfie outfits. [11] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24]
Super Dollfie, often abbreviated SD, is a brand of ball-jointed doll, or BJD, made by the Japanese company Volks. They are made to be easy to customize and are primarily marketed to adult doll collectors and customizers. They are cast in polyurethane resin, a porcelain-like, hard, dense plastic. The most common standard models are about 60 cm, or 24 inches, tall, taller and heavier than most comparable Western dolls. They are designed in a style which is both realistic and influenced by anime, and most models are anatomically correct. The various body parts have ball joints for articulation, and are strung together with a thick elastic cord.
A ball-jointed doll is any doll that is articulated with ball and socket joints. In contemporary usage when referring to modern dolls, and particularly when using the acronyms BJD or ABJD, it usually refers to modern Asian ball-jointed dolls. These are cast in polyurethane synthetic resin, a hard, dense plastic, and the parts strung together with a thick elastic. They are predominantly produced in Japan, South Korea and China. The BJD style has been described as both realistic and influenced by anime. They commonly range in size from about 60 centimetres (24 in) for the larger dolls, 40 cm (15.5 in) for the mini dolls, and down to 10 cm (4 in) for the very smallest BJDs. BJDs are primarily intended for adult collectors and customizers. They are made to be easy to customize, by painting, changing the eyes and wig, and so forth.
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