CPAC 2011: Asian Ball-Jointed Dolls as Visual Culture

Dolls. Is anything in real life creepier? Forget about the associated gender bias for one moment (“dolls” vs. “action figures”) and think: if you saw a random stranger talking to, animating the movements of, and interacting on a seemingly bidirectional level with any other inanimate object – a lamp, a tinfoil helmet, a severed lock of a former lover’s hair, you’d think that person insane. Yet as toys, dolls grant their owners a certain degree of amnesty from such critique so long as they fall within a certain culturally agreed upon age range and exhibit gender identity appropriateness in their choice of playthings. Even doll owners who defy those socially embedded norms are not immediately deemed insane. Why then are Ball-Jointed Dolls (BJDs) and their owners so ostracized? At the Asian Ball-Jointed Dolls as Visual Culture panel at Castle Point Anime Convention (CPAC) 2011, panelist "Tempest Strife" explained efforts required by the hobby, how those foster owner attachment to the dolls, and how physical aspects of the dolls as well as traits of their owners are exploited by the media in order to shape public opinion.

Tempest started off by setting BJDs apart from their plastic counterparts by noting how the latter is comprised of mass-manufactured, static, non-polished, semi-posable figurines: pre-made molds around which owners’ minds must build a plausible reality or personality. On the other hand, BJDs are hand-crafted and fully customizable and allow owners to make the dolls in their own image. This “doll as avatar” idea even comes across in one of the manufacturer’s (Volks) mantras of building “another yourself.” This is no understatement. BJDs can be customized to the buyer’s desire with regards to skin tone, eyes, appendages, body type, and hair in addition to the myriad outfits and accessories available to adorn the laboriously conceived mini-me. Ms. Strife also pointed out that the amount of time and number of decisions that went into the conception of each BJD added to the sense of anticipation and attachment experienced between the completion of an order and its arrival. If this wait is likened to the months parents nervously spend waiting for their own baby to be born, it is possible to see the kind of attachment BJD owners form with their other themselves.

Concerning the levels of attachment betwixt owners of regular dolls vs. BJDs, depth of feeling is further differentiated by semantics of acquisition. Whereas regular dolls are “bought,” BJDs are “brought home.” This may seem an inconsequential difference, but what follows is definitely not. It is common for BJD owners to record, via video and photographs, box openings and celebrate such arrivals as births. These “photo welcomings” aren’t the only media-based evidence used to accuse BJD owners of obsession. Pride taken by owners in their BJD customization efforts, the giving of form to secret dreams in an aesthetic representative of the owner’s own style, can only be fully realized when appreciated by others. So those involved with the hobby often attend public meets and publish their collections on the Internet in presentations that range from photo shoots to photo stories. This form of presentation is not original. Hans Bellmer, a German artist, used life-sized pubescent dolls as the subjects for his photographs, which were published in surrealist journals and arguably started the tradition of doll-based photo stories. However, one quick look at Bellmer’sWikipedia page will explain the ringing of modern society’s prude alarm.

While most of us in the USA are uncomfortable with public (and even private) nakedness, there exists a major difference when it is seen in what is perceived as a child’s hobby vs. art and an anatomically correct vs. neutered state. This nervousness is what sparks the playground-style teasing seen in Western media coverage of BJDs. Not a single news story fails to mention the presence of genitalia on BJDs, which stands in stark contrast to neutered dolls such as Barbie and G.I. Joe. Other common elements in newscasts used to persecute BJDs include removing the doll’s wig to make it seem sickly or less recognizably human; focusing on the cost per doll, which can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars; and even automating the doll’s movements, such as spinning its head or raising/lowering an appendage, to make it look possessed or unnatural. Over-exaggerated examples of BJDs are not the only focus of finger-pointing newscasters. Tempest pointed out that Western broadcasts specifically target the nervous, the fidgety, the socially awkward for on-camera shock value and the ratings that come with it (or at least to keep the news anchors entertained). This is complemented further by the portrayal of BJD owners as obsessive, which is reinforced when the fact that it is rare to find a BJD owner who only has one doll is combined with the aforementioned statements about cost and emotional attachment. BJD owners are not only interviewed in the USA (of course), however, but their treatment and the story focus tends to vary greatly.

In Japanese media, for example, news stories shows both sexes treating dolls as children. What the West perceives as an obsession translates to almost parental pride. There is a certain air of honor concerning the degree of caretaking required for BJDs, and the bestowing of names, personalities, and back stories is seen as a creative act rather than psychotic. One additional difference is in the focus on obsession, which is seen as a great joy derived from the size of the collection as opposed to a fixation on customization.

According to Tempest, dolls are seen by many as creepy to begin with, because the figures can seem so uncannily human and yet are static ... almost corpse-like. It could be said then that the juxtaposition of these concepts elicits a knee-jerk emotional reaction to the innate fear of death. Ms. Strife did an excellent job of exploring and explaining aspects of the dolls and their owners that Western society generally finds creepy. She also was quite adept at pointing out the cultural bias at work in the Western media and mindset that ostracizes BJDs and those that dare to love them. I say and wholly mean the latter because the panelist, whether knowingly or subconsciously, kept stroking her BJD’s hair or caressing its arm whenever she walked near it, and that sort of affection for an inanimate object (at least to me) is just plain creepy.

* Individual doll pictures are of Tempest Strife's BJD, which she was kind enough to share with the panel audience. Group photos were taken at AnimeNEXT 2011.

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Con Report: Castle Point Anime Convention 2011 @ Stevens Institute

April 10, 2011
Stevens Institute of Technology
Hoboken, NJ, USA

Ed. Note: My bad! Here's the (very late) Castle Point report — the lateness is all my fault, not Ink's!

Castle Point Anime Convention (CPAC) at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken was the first anime con I ever attended in my home-state of good ol’ Nieu Joisy (and perhaps the second con I ever went to outside of my first Otakon). It was also where I first met Evan Minto of Ani-Gamers fame, who launched me into this high-profile world of aniblogging. While it remains a small, one-day con, the 2011 incarnation of CPAC has experienced very clear growth as seen via its inter-building pathway traffic and increased panel attendance.

This year promised a decent selection of panels, which I generally look forward to most at any con. Spread out between 3 rooms, there was always some title of interest with which to whittle away the span of the con via one- to two-hour sessions. Immediately, however, the first panel I was looking forward to, “Otaku on a Budget,” was cancelled. CPAC staff was on the proverbial ball and made sure audiences didn’t wait around in false hope, but this event ended up foreshadowing my overall panel experience.


The substitute first panel – “Lost in Adaptation,” which addressed inter-medium inadequacies – was lacking in anime examples and focused instead on video games. This was fine given the inclusive nature of anime cons as well as the highly transitory nature of the videogame medium, but the proverbial straw that broke the panel’s back was that the host called Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within a GOOD movie ... not to mention his unreasonable assertion of its claim to the “first occurrence of a space marine.” While he tried to tackle differences of various examples with humor, redundancy made of his pre-programmed wit little more than an annoying and stuttered rant.

“Otaku Culture 101,” the second panel I attended, was definitely not what I was expecting but in a very good way. It focused on the Tohou and Vocaloid aspects of Otakudom, things with which I was and still am not very familiar. I left early, however, as watching the panelist play video games and video game videos, without relevantly linking together cultural poignancies, seemed ... well, pointless. As explained to me later, the panelist did manage to tie together some relevancies at the end.

The unexpected pinnacle of my panel-going experience was the arbitrary attendance of the most academic-sounding offering on the schedule: “Asian Ball-Jointed Dolls as Visual Culture.” Despite the panelist’s seemingly creepy and frequent doll caressing, there were offered up multiple vantages on and aspects of the appreciation of said hobby as well as a rather adept examination of external media bias towards it (review/summary forthcoming).

Trying to end the panel experience on a happy note, I attended “Jawdropping Moments in Anime.” Two words: editing needed. Even if you forgive the showing of the entire Naruto Sports Festival episode, the subsequently selected clips could’ve been shortened with no adverse effect to the intended shocking/humorous situations, which were, to the panelist’s credit, decently chosen from fairly mainstream series. The only thing that made my experience lackluster, however, was that I saw this clip-show last year and, aside from a couple of new inclusions from anime I’ve already seen, everything was regurgitated and consequently seemed neither shocking nor worth more than an inconsequential chuckle of acknowledgement.

On the whole, CPAC staff and organization were superb. Room schedule postings and amendments were clear, and there were people at every turn to help attendees get wherever it was they were going. The space allotted for the combined Dealer’s Room and Artist’s Alley, moved from one gym to another on the evidently athletically oriented Stevens campus, was more than spacious enough to accommodate the traffic without necessitating the insult of the staggered wait lines of yesteryear. Also, tabletop and electronic gaming rooms offered a decent selection given their respective allotted areas, and video rooms were offering an eclectic mix of accessible anime. Additionally, I have to say that my inner-otaku regrets not having my picture taken with a maid at the newly instituted Tenshi No Ai Maid Café! or attending Cosplay Chess, especially as this year saw a significant increase in cosplayers.

All-in-all, despite disappointing panels and my own event choices, CPAC, which attracted such voice talent as Michelle Knotz, Bill Rogers, and Mike Pollock, still managed to serve up a decent, otaku-themed Sunday getaway from the everyday. The experience would not have ended on such a copacetic note, however, if not for dinner and discussion with Alain (Hisui of the Reverse Thieves duo) at the Japanese restaurant, Robongi. That conversation seemed to fill in everything CPAC panels left out.  I think, for next year, problems with panels could be well on their way to being solved by listening to suggestions on the CPAC forum's Guest Wishlist thread and inviting Charles Dunbar as well as the aforementioned Reverse Thieves.

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