Volks Dollfie Dream Sister Kirisame Marisa

Volks’ new Dollfie Dream body is named Dollfie Dream Sister (DDS) and it’s 50cm in height compared to Dollfie Dream Base Body II’s height of 60cm. The first two dolls release in this body is Touhou Project’s (東方Project) Hakurei Reimu (博麗霊夢) and Kirisame Marisa (霧雨魔理沙). I’ve been sportting Marisa’s DDS banner on my blog for some time now and of course I had Marisa ordered last year. The order for the Touhou DDs started on September 19, 2010 all the way to October 24, 2010. The doll is only being produced based on the orders placed. The price for the doll is ¥58,800. There’s also a short wig for Marisa at ¥5,040 and a Touhou Accessories Set at ¥4,725 available to be ordered during the ordering period. The Touhou dolls started shipping on February 25, 2011 and mine is among the first batches being shipped out. And after a week worth of waiting for the package to be delivered in Japan and then forwarded from Japan to North America, I finally got my first Dollfie Dream Sister doll.

So here it is, my quick unboxing of Touhou Project Dollfie Dream Sister Kirisame Marisa. Here’s what the box look like. Apparently the pair of ribbons that secures the doll to the cardboard carrier are both broken presumably during transport. But the doll is pretty tough. I don’t see any significant damage, so all is well.

Here’s a close-up of Marisa waiting to be awakened.

Here’s everything that came in the box. From the left, the dollfie dream sister body, wig, a Dollfie Dream booklet (still the old Dollfie Dream booklet, no DDS content) and a simple sheet listing all the items. Clothing and shoes, and to the right most is Marisa’s broom.

I’m just opening the box and taking a few quick shot, so a few quick observation with this new Dollfie Dream Sister body. A lot of the joints are much more flexible now on this new body. Arms can in fact reach to her back and her hand can touch the back of her neck, that’s pretty amazing. The double jointed elbow is a good compromise allowing more freedom in posing her without making that particular joint too ugly. After all the elbow joint is more likely to be not covered than leg joints. The new leg joints allowed much more freedom and soft vinyl still make sure the joint doesn’t look too ugly when rotated. The neck is very soft and flexible allowing you to bend with significantly increased range, but the range the neck joint will hold the pose is still somewhat limited. Overall, the doll’s joints are much stronger so she does stands better than the Dollfie Dream dolls. But her foot/ankle joint has proven to be the weakest link and she still falls due to the fact that her ankle joint is not tight enough to resist movement. Lastly, it seems that hand parts goes on and off a lot easier than Dollfie Dream dolls. I haven’t compared what the difference but I’m assuming they made the stub that hand goes on slightly smaller.

Looking at the close-up. Those double joints on the elbows are a bit uglier than those found on Dollfie Dream dolls, but a good balance between flexibility of posing and aesthetics.

And from the outside angle, the elbow joint doesn’t look all that different than the Dollfie Dream dolls.

Marisa is so sweet, don’t you think?

Now Marisa came with a set of hand that’s holding a fist. So I had to use my other hand parts purchased before for Dollfie Dream dolls for the rest of the shoot. I’m surprised that she didn’t come with a hand that can grab her broom. After all that’s her cover shot. Volks, that’s not really good packaging. I might be okay with it since I have a lot of spare hand parts from my other dolls, first time buyers will definitely be disappointed that they can’t pose Marisa with her broom without first get some additional hard parts. In fact even I would rather have the grabbing hand as the default set of hand.

Anyway, here she is with her witch’s hat and her broom.

Here’s a pose that was previously not possible with Dollfie Dream dolls. Dollfie Dream Sister’s leg can be posed sitting down flat on the ground in an “M” shape. With Dollfie Dream, you can’t do this and with Mini Dollfie Dream, you had to pull their leg joints out so significantly that I consider it being very ugly. Now, with Dollfie Dream Sister this pose is finally achievable.

Together with Marisa, I’ve also got the Touhou Accessories Set, and Marisa’s short wig.

I opened up the Touhou Accessories Set. The set consists of the sake bottle, the sake cup, the green tea cup, china cup and saucer, Marisa’s Hakkero, and a single talisman and a three talisman set. They are all very nicely done. I really like that sake bottle and the sake cup. I will definitely put them to good uses in future posts.

I conclude this quick post with a shot of Marisa together with my nendoroid Marisa.

Here’s a 2D illustration of Kirisame Marisa.