I've been waiting for this guy to show up for a long time! Eiji was a Volks preorder doll, which means everyone who wanted one could get one but that also means a lot of dolls had to be made to be delivered so it's been... about 8 months since I ordered him.
Let's see how he measures up!
TBH I expected something a little more on the lines of a Smart Doll Boy. Not necessarily in height, but erm, a little more boy-shaped?
I should probably explain that better. There are certain aesthetic ideals to male/female bodies that tends to follow sex differentiation but in dolls is a bit more exaggerated than you'd find IRL. The obvious one is bust/waist/hip ratio, but girls also tend to have a slightly different center of gravity so you'll generally see girls depicted with exaggerated legs length-wise, while boys tend to have a longer torso. Another one is shoulder width. Guys tend to have broader shoulders and girls narrower, which is again, usually exaggerated quite a bit more than the average difference.
The Smart Doll boy has these characteristics, but the Volks boy does not. He has a bigger face/head shape, which has the opposite effect on the shoulders: it makes him look like he has even narrower shoulders proportionately than the girl. The overall effect is that he has a less mature body and looks more like a little brother than someone of the same age as a Dollfie Dream girl. And since they already have a little brother boy in the Dollfie Dream Sister size, that's kind of an odd design choice?
Let's give another example: Here's the new DDB next to a Smart Guy with a DDB head, and next to the DDB enlarged to be the same size as the Smart guy:
The Kaito head looks very natural on the Smart Doll Boy body, IMO better than the Eiji head! But if you enlarge them to be the same size so the height doesn't give the impression of a more mature age, you still get the impression that Kaito is a lot younger, development-wise.
That's not to say it's bad, just not what I expected. But maybe I should have.
When doll companies roll out boy dolls, they go one of two routes: they modify the least possible amount of body parts (usually torso) to make the body more masculine but reduce production costs for the body since boy dolls sell at a much lower rate than girl dolls. For the same reason they make the boy doll with the same proportions as the girl doll so that they can share clothes, again reducing production costs.
That's not to say it's bad, just not what I expected. But maybe I should have.
When doll companies roll out boy dolls, they go one of two routes: they modify the least possible amount of body parts (usually torso) to make the body more masculine but reduce production costs for the body since boy dolls sell at a much lower rate than girl dolls. For the same reason they make the boy doll with the same proportions as the girl doll so that they can share clothes, again reducing production costs.
The other route is to make a boy body that is a true boy body, which costs a lot more and... well that's why Smart Doll doesn't make boy dolls except as character dolls once every few years.
As a consumer, I prefer the second route but I understand it's just not feasable for most doll companies, which is why Volks Dollfie Dreams have been around for like, 20 years before they came out with a boy body.
I think if I was on the Volks design team I would have done something a little more in between the two. Knowing how the volks skeleton comes together, having a different upper body joint piece would be just 1 part different, and make the torso a little longer and broader with more muscular arms (one part of the arms is different from the girls' to make them slightly longer but they are just as slim and I cannot for the life of me understand why they'd bother with the production costs for something that is less than .5cm difference). That would yield a boy that more on par with the DD girls in age but use the same amount of different mold parts just +1 for the torso skeleton joint. The result would be a distinctly male body that is slimmer than the Smart Guy but still shares a lot of parts with the Dollfie Dream girls.
As for clothes, here's the thing I don't really get: Volks already makes boy doll clothes for their resin line. Which fit the Smart Doll boy body MUCH better than they fit the Dollfie Dream boy. Since they already make clothes for a bigger/more mature male body, they don't have the clothing manufacture constraint.
As for clothes, here's the thing I don't really get: Volks already makes boy doll clothes for their resin line. Which fit the Smart Doll boy body MUCH better than they fit the Dollfie Dream boy. Since they already make clothes for a bigger/more mature male body, they don't have the clothing manufacture constraint.
BUT AGAIN THIS IS ALL MY PERSONAL PREFERENCE!
There is nothing wrong with Kaito, he is well sculpted and good quality. If I wanted a boy doll of about 14 years, he would be perfect.
Back to clothes, because that's what I do: What kind of clothes does he need?
Girl clothes. He needs girl clothes.
His measurements are pretty much the same as a small bust girl. Clothed, you really can't tell the difference. He fills out the dress pattern, there's a little bit of looseness in the bust area as it was made for a medium bust girl, but you can only tell if you poke him there. There isn't as much of a difference that you get a collapse/wrinkles like you do if you put a boy shirt on him (left)
You get the best result with unisex girl doll patterns (center).
You get the best result with unisex girl doll patterns (center).
You get the worst result with boy clothes. I pictured clothes I've made from my 1/3 boy patterns but the fit of Volks made boy clothes that are supposed to fit Kaito according to the website is *WORSE* as these clothes tend to be a bit loose even on a Smart Doll boy.
Let's zoom in because I don't think you can quite see how oversized the boy clothes are zoomed out:
Yeah. Super gappy around the neck, very loose, and hang off the hips, which are slightly narrower than Dollfie Dream girl hips.
Don't buy/make him boy clothes, use girl clothes.