250px, Volks Akihabara Hobby Tengoku is a Japan-based corporation that produces

garage kit A garage kit (ガレージキット) or resin kit is an assembly scale model kit most commonly cast in polyurethane resin. They are often model figures portraying humans or other living creatures. In Japan, kits often depict anime characters, and ...

s and

mecha In science fiction, or mechs are giant robots or machines, typically depicted as piloted, humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese (language), Japanese after shortening the English loanword or , but the meaning in Japan ...

kits as well as the

Dollfie is a brand of vinyl doll created by the Japanese company Volks in 1997. It is a highly pose-able hybrid of fashion doll and action figure. A Dollfie doll is about the size of a Barbie doll, 1/6 or playscale, though there are variants in diffe ...

Super Dollfie , often abbreviated SD, is a brand of ball-jointed doll, or BJD, made by the Japanese company Volks. They are made to be easy to customize and are primarily marketed to adult doll collectors and customizers. They are cast in polyurethane resi ...

and Dollfie Dream lines of dolls. The company's headquarters is in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

, with some 30 shops worldwide, and annual sales of about $50 million as of 2008.

History

Volks began as a small hobby shop in 1972. In the late 1990s they produced the first

dolls, and in 1999 the first

doll was created by Akihiro Enku. In November 2005, Volks USA opened their first American Tenshi no Sumika store in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

Corporate structure and products

Volks is organized into three different enterprises. Volks Inc. is the main umbrella company. They operate the Tenshi-no-Sato museum in Kyoto, the Volks Showrooms in Japan, and the Tenshi-no-Sumika shops in Japan, Korea, and the United States. Zoukei-Mura is Volks' sculpting, designing, and assembly department for Super Dollfie. Virginal Art is Volks' marketing and design department with a focus on the hobby market. Hideyuki Shigeta is the president of Volks Inc. Several sculptors are working under Zoukei-Mura, most notably Akihiro Enku, the creator of Super Dollfie. Artist Gentaro Araki briefly worked with Volks creating the U-noss line of dolls. There are also several designers working with the Super Dollfie line of dolls. The main designer, Mikey, is the daughter of Volks' president Shigeta. Some other notable designers are K. Mayura, Valico, Aone and Ciera. Volks regularly publish the magazine ''Volks News'' with information about new products from all of their lines. Volks have created resin kit figures of characters from a large variety of anime and manga, such as ''

My-HiME is a Japanese anime television series produced by Bandai Namco Filmworks, Sunrise. Directed by Masakazu Obara and written by Hiroyuki Yoshino (screenwriter), Hiroyuki Yoshino, it premiered in Japan on TV Tokyo from September 2004 to March 2 ...

'', ''

Love Hina is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Ken Akamatsu. It was serialized in Kodansha's ''Weekly Shōnen Magazine'' from October 1998 to October 2001, with the chapters collected into 14 volumes by Kodansha. The series tells ...

'', ''

Neon Genesis Evangelion , also known as ''Evangelion'' or ''Eva'', is a Japanese mecha anime television series produced by Gainax and Tatsunoko Production, and directed by Hideaki Anno. It was broadcast on TV Tokyo and its affiliates from October 1995 to March 1 ...

'' and ''

Oh My Goddess! , or ''Ah! My Goddess!'' in some releases, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kōsuke Fujishima. It was serialized in Kodansha's manga magazine ''Monthly Afternoon'' from September 1988 to April 2014, with its ...

'', along with video game franchises, such as

Shantae ''Shantae'' is a series of platform video games developed by American independent video game developer and publisher WayForward. The eponymous heroine of the series was created by Erin Bozon, while the games were created by her husband Matt Bo ...

. They also have their own line of figures called A-Brand. They have also created

dolls based on characters from anime and manga such as ''

Chobits is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by the Japanese manga collective Clamp. It was serialized in Kodansha's ''seinen'' manga magazine ''Weekly Young Magazine'' from September 2000 to October 2002, with its chapters collected ...

'', ''

Maria-sama ga Miteru , often shortened to , is a Japanese light novel series written by with illustrations by Reine Hibiki. Originally written as a short story in 1997, Shueisha published 37 light novel volumes from April 1998 to April 2012. The story f ...

'' Super Dollfie Catalog 1 and ''

Rozen Maiden is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Peach-Pit. It was serialized in '' Monthly Comic Birz'' between the September 2002 and July 2007 issues. The individual chapters were collected and released into eight ''tankōbon ...

''. Volks have also collaborated with Lolita fashion brands like Baby, The Stars Shine Bright,

H. Naoto Naoto Hirooka, better known as h.NAOTO (born 1977), is a Japanese imaginations-related fashion designer. H. Naoto's style of clothing and accessories could be classified under Japanese punk and Gothic Lolita, and he has been called the "most vi ...

, Black Peace Now and Atelier-Pierrot to create Super Dollfie outfits. Super Dollfie Catalog 3Nana x Black Peace Now
Angelden.net (2002-05-05). Retrieved on 2012-01-04.

Notes

References

External links

* {{official website
Volks USA
official site category:doll manufacturing companies category:manufacturing companies based in Kyoto category:toy companies of Japan

History

Corporate structure and products

Notes

References

Further reading

External links