Let’s start with the whole domestic BJD market. I divide these forces that profit from BJD into three types.
- Business Studio: Commercial companies that have an R & D team of 10+ people, ชอบ Loong Soul, AS, AE, DZ, RD.
- Individual studio: Who owns a core character and handmade all by oneself, such as echo town, LLT
- Individual artist. Create new characters, hold exhibitions and teaching, mostly taught by Yoshida Ryo よしだ りょう and other Japanese human figure masters, such as Koji.
We mainly look at the classification of type 1.
Doll Zone
The first studio to do BJD in China. Its design and Develop level belong to the forefront. At the very beginning, they designed a specific body for each doll character. Doll style is European style and fantasy.
They develop new characters quite fast, so the old products sold poorly will be shut down after a few years. May occasionally come out with some popular characters, but it seems that recently are not.
DZ’s Tinyfox dolls (1/4 head + 1/6 body with the soft rubber skeleton) are worth changing the makeup to make it quite cute ~
DZ’s DollChateau, the style is more fantastical than DZ. Body stylized, modeling on the artistic side.
Angel Studio
Also known as ”Copy Studio“. They are good at ancient-style modeling, and many face models look like volks. Often use the Photoshop liquefied tool to modify their own product pictures, which makes the goods are not right like in the pictures. The only popular product line is ShanHaiJing.
Loong Soul
Big ancient style Studio, occasionally make casual looks. AS’s deadly rival. The 73cm uncle doll is the main product. The product line has isochronous scrolls and so on. The current sales are very good, but makeup quality is not that satisfied. The most recent popular character’s head might copy the Distant Memory.
The official pictures are usually photoshopped too much, which makes them like movie posters, attractive but not real. Recently the quality and the public review both exploded: arguing with customers, delayed work, poor quality, and poor official makeup. Only those who have bought it can understand that.
Dragon Soul also has CharmDoll, the main European style.
Ring Doll
Founder Huang Shan. The body is stiff, the face is subtle already stereotypes, and I do not know why customers do not like them.
The official pictures are very heartfelt, the videos are also good. Before buying it is recommended to look more at the vegetarian head and review pictures. They worked quite well on social media and marketing, got a lot of big IP licenses. I think this is the advantage of RD.
Asleep Eidolon
AE is also considered a relatively old brand. Their styles are fairy beauty, and the vegetarian heads are just OK. Their main products are 1/3 girls, most of which are easy to raise. Original design bing them a good reputation. Popular products are Mermaid, Elf. Before they worked on the victoria style, now also began to do the ancient style.
They also developed rubber, vinyl, special body, and other dolls to further expand the market segmentation.
Spirit Doll
They made many large size dolls before. I just went around the official website, it seems that they have made a lot of attempts in the past few years. More dolls of giant baby size (RD), DD cartoon faces, and developed the size of 1/2.
Spirit Doll to my impression is that the body is thin, but not skinny. The outline is obvious, the body shape is beautiful and fits well for other brands’ heads. But the faces are too much similar. European ghost style mainly.
GRANADO DOLL
Completely focusing on muscular style, realistic and European style. Prototype artists are good at the knowledge of muscle. ที่ 1/3 and above size dolls are good-looking.
It seems that they were reported copying the real person’s faces. But the bodies are really good. If you like the sense of muscle you should not miss it. In recent years, they also developed DD dolls and soft bodies of enamel dolls. There are also dynamic bodies that are in 3D model files, which can be printed in any size.
ISLAND DOLL
Not much presence now, but also did not close down. Their doll bodies are quite popular in the fandom. Now they seem to focus on small pet dolls.
Beyours
Focusing on realistic face style, also known as one of the early BJD doll studios. Amber, Color Star, Tin are quite good-looking. It’s quite a pity they haven’t grown big. The new heads are not as durable as the previous ones.
The above is only a personal opinion, which might be a little biased. If you have more accurate information, welcome to comment below~
