Touhou Dollfie Dream Schedule is out! [Edited]
Been paying very close attention to the Touhou Dollfie Dream Development, just caught them releasing the schedule and it's surprisingly fast with preliminary order period starting as early as the 20th of this month. Unfortunately, there been no official confirmation on whether the Touhou Dollfie Dream will be available worldwide. Have to wait and see.
![Touhou Dollfie Dream Schedule is out! [Edited]](http://www.figure.fm/cgm/ecommerce/figure/images/large/75312a05a0d18fd997f507f7088c0a1e.jpg?1284110755 "Touhou Dollfie Dream Schedule is out! [Edited]")
The schedule is also looking very rough at this point with no information regarding the payment period or even a 2nd pre-ordering period like the TTGL or White Album Dollfie Dream Project. I have heard some nasty rumor that the Touhou Dollfie Dream may be a Japan Only deal, although it's not officially confirm, the evidence to support the rumor is indeed mounting. We will have to wait and see, it would be a sad thing if this highly anticipated Dollfie Dream project becomes a Japan Only release, because making them Japan Only release doesn't do anything to keep these DDS from leaving Japan for all we know.... Anyway, will be keeping tap on this one as it develop further. However, there is a possibility that one may be able to bypass the Japan Only hurdle by employing address forwarding service such as Tenso.com and the result of my Tenso.com exercise.
![Touhou Dollfie Dream Schedule is out! [Edited]](http://www.figure.fm/cgm/ecommerce/figure/images/large/27c03eda0889c86b5c4408c5cfcfafdc.jpg?1284110878 "Touhou Dollfie Dream Schedule is out! [Edited]")
There will be a September Dress Fair held in Volks International next week.
![Touhou Dollfie Dream Schedule is out! [Edited]](http://www.figure.fm/cgm/ecommerce/figure/images/large/7c816178e82c44b75493927c7872ea8e.jpg?1284110885 "Touhou Dollfie Dream Schedule is out! [Edited]")
Volks News 40 is due to be distributed to VIP/VS members in Japan this weekend and the DD one-off from the 7th Anniversary Project is suppose to be announced as well.
brudda , ya plan on getting the Touhou DDs ?
:( I would be sad if Touhou project stays Japan Only. Kinda been looking forward for these.
That's really a shame if it stays Japan only. Lets hope it doesn't.
i would asume it would be japan only aswel but theres always other ways ^^
cute dress btw LOL
Still new to the DD world, which DDs in the past were "Japan only"?
K-on! Yui and Mio were. Not sure if there were others.
Ikki Tousen, Kanu and Ryoumu
=0= i hope not... kinda made up mind in getting a Touhou DDS orz
I'm going to assume that they're gonna stay a Japan only edition because as far as i've seen everything Touhou related stayed a Japan only market. Example, the Figmas, the nendoroids, etc (but since i'm not a big fan, i don't know much about the touhou franchise). The only way everyone else had managed to get these items are thanks to sources that are willing to sell them outside their country. Anyways i do hope that this is an international release as i want to see the DDS body structure and whether or not is it half skeleton or full skeleton, it would be a shame if it remained in Japan for a time before it's released internationally.
That sucks that it may be Japan only, but then again, it does make sense (I mean, the site doesnt have an translated version or is it on the front page for the International site) Hopefully they'll release the DDS body by itself.
I really hope we hear something one way or another from Volks about this Japan-only thing, I hate dealing with hearsay and conjecture :/
The thing is, I don't understand their choices with Japan-only dolls - I mean, the Osaka 6 girls were available internationally but the game two of them were from wasn't even well known within /Japan/! But Yui and Mio were Japan-only and K-ON! has a pretty big following, especially now. I wonder if it's related to licensing issues? Hmm...
I'm trying to stay calm until I see how the girls look. I want a DDS body but I'm not going through all that hassle if I don't want the head XD; (Strangely enough, I would probably go through the hassle for the head, however.)
I guess the only other thing I can do is hope the yen to dollar ratio balances back out to where it used to be a bit more... >_>
Well, I know that the Ikitousen DDs were Japan only due to some sort of licensing difficulty, so that's very likely linked to it. I remember reading somewhere that sometimes merchandising rights are licensed out with translation rights, and sometimes they're not, which sometimes causes issues if either the original licenseholder is worried about international appeal or if the overseas licenseholder has no authority over merchandise import. It's all apparently very complicated. ^^;
As for the DDS body, if it follows the pattern of the white body, MDD body, and DDDy body, then it'll probably have a few limited-only releases before being migrated to a standard base body. So if you don't like the head mold and have a little patience, you should be able to get just the body eventually. (And it's not at all strange that you base your priority on the head; practically everyone on Den of Angels will say "The head's the important part" when asked.)
Haha well in reality I'm sort of worried I *will* like the head molds because if there's no US release it will be pretty expensive to obtain them (although I suppose possibly not as expensive as trying to get them later on if I skip out on the pre-order -_-;) - poor yen to dollar conversion, plus fees for forwarding/shopping service (depending on the payment options) and then EMS shipping to me.
But! if I don't like the heads, then I can just sit tight and wait for a standard DDS body XD; I've no problem with that - I don't have any bodyless heads at the moment or anything ^^;
I guess it's not weird to go in for the headmold, but when I say it, it sounds weird to me XD since the head is such a (physically) small part of the package. But in reality it makes sense - when you look at a doll, what makes it stand out (especially with DDs!) is the head. That's where people tend to focus.
Didn't ZUN always say that he would only allow merchandise to be made of his characters if they agreed to do Japan-only releases? That's what happened with the figmas and Nendoroids. Does he not like foreigners? Does he think they don't "get" Touhou or something? It really makes me angry.
Out of curiosity, do you have a source for that? An interview he did, or something? I wouldn't think Touhou was the kind of doujin project that would stir up controversy outside of the country (unlike the erogames companies that pulled back access after bad publicity of other games overseas) so I'd love to know his reasoning behind it - if indeed he ever gave any reasoning (which he might not have).
ZUN doesn't hate foreigners. The reason why a lot of official Touhou merchandise is limited in quantity or simply limited to Japan is his policy to keep the franchise small in nature. He doesn't want it to become too commercial or too popular. He's stated that he doesn't mind if other people use his characters/music/etc. in their own doujin projects as long as quantities are limited and not massively commercial in order to uphold the original doujin nature of the project. Why such a strange mindset? It's because the doujin market and the commercial market are two very different things in Japan. If you start as a doujin artist and make it big and commercial, it can be seen as "selling out" for greater financial gain and the doujin world (fans and peers) may look down upon you and backlash. Another reason is that some people just want to keep their franchises smaller and more subculture as opposed to mainstream. In a strange twist, it's the fan base and the sheer amount of love for the Touhou franchise through word of mouth, fan art, and Touhou-related doujin projects that has driven up its popularity in a way no mass marketing approach could accomplish. In the end, it means there is a greater demand for the fewer products which are released.
This makes more sense - I can definitely see him not wanting to end up commercializing Touhou stuff for that reason. When individual projects become franchises, the original creators can end up losing a lot of control over their own works, even though they retain the rights legally. Thanks for the clarification!
I respect the fact that he wants to keep the doujin aspect of the community and I take back what I said about him hating foreigners. But whatever his reason, it doesn't change the fact that people not living in Japan always get the short end of the stick when it comes to Touhou merchandise. Making Touhou merchandise releases Japan-only doesn't stop foreign fans from buying them, it just means they have to pay more money because they need to use a proxy. As a non-Japanese Touhou fan, I get a little sick of having to pay more for Touhou merch than Japanese people do.
Hmm I am fine with them becoming Japan only so long as they don't do preorders till like November XD
By that time I'll be in Japan and have an address there ^^
I can vouch on ZUN saying something along those lines. Can't remember the exact reason, only something about people not realizing Touhou are first and foremost danmaku styled shmups.Wait I think that's why there is not anime.
There is always the Touhou wiki for those that want to dig up the reason.
http://touhou.wikia.com/wiki/ZUN
If it's only for Japan I will kill Volks
I think Touhou is very likely to be Japan-only release, thats the way for most Touhou goods are licensed.