Japan. The land of the rising sun, and cool dolly stuff galore. BJDs, Licca-chan, Jenny, Pullips… Not to mention a plethora of playsets and meticulously detailed miniatures. What collector hasn’t fantasized about unlimited access to all that great stuff?

Thanks to internet shopping and import stores, getting the goods from Japan is easier today than ever before. Even so, most hobbyists still lust after a bevy of “must-haves” which repeatedly elude capture. What to do? One answer is the use of a shopping service. Read on to learn what this is, and whether using one could fill the holes in your collection.

(more…)

I loved Strawberry Shortcake dolls when I was a kid, and I still find their little freckled faces adorable now. Sometimes a 25 year old toy can look a little the worse for wear, however, and the hair is often the first to go.

Fortunately, 80s Strawberry Shortcake dolls aren’t in short supply, so if you have one with messy hair a new ‘do is a definitely an option.  I found one with a big bald patch on ebay for a few dollars and thought I’d give mohair a go.

The first stage is to remove her head.  This is easy to do: you just take the head in one hand and the body in the other and pull.  Voila!

Secondly, you’ll need to cut her hair really short, like this:

Once the hair is short, you’ll be able to pull it out very easily with tweezers, leaving your little Shortcake with a funny bald pear-shaped head:

I then took some leftover mohair from a Blythe reroot (thanks Jade!) and used one of Rachael‘s reroot tools to push little chucks of mohair into each of the holes in Shortcake’s little head. I won’t repeat Rachael’s tutorial as it needs no further explanation. I’ll just show you the results:

A crazy soft pastel afro! And with a hat, it’s very cute:

I love it, and it’s really quite quick and easy to do. Hurrah!

Vintage Barbie clones, despite their undeniable fug, are a nifty alternative to “real” vintage Barbies.

At first glance, they look like the real thing. The Dusty Springfield-esque eye make-up, the snooty expression, and the insane bodily proportions are all present. But cheaply produced Hong Kong clones from the ’60s are made out of feather-light hollow plastic and have all sorts of quality control problems. One of mine has one leg that’s a good half-centimetre longer than the other, suggesting a stacked heel might be in order. The other has ragged plastic around her hands, and both are partially bald, making hairstyling a tricky prospect.

All that aside, they’re a heck of a lot cheaper than vintage Barbies and are not without their own idiosyncratic charms. When I went to pay for one at the vintage collectibles market where I found her, the man behind the counter exclaimed, “Oh, I love the fake Barbies! They look so mean, like they beat the other Barbies up!” I can’t disagree. There’s something amusingly off-kilter and cockeyed about them, and they have a cranky quality that Barbies lack. They might be from the wrong side of the tracks, but their underdog charms just might win you over.

This post is largely due to the fact that I have just bought my very first Licca doll, I have loved them for a while so finally decided to take the plunge…

Tokyo-born and raised and in 5th year of Shirakaba Gakuen elementary school, Licca has a French father (Pierre) and a Japanese mother (Orie), likes tennis, window-shopping and baking cookies, reads manga/comics like Doraemon and enjoys custard pudding and vanilla ice-cream. Her full name is Licca Kayama.

Her creators have modelled her personality and hobbies in such way that little Japanese girls could identify with her easily. She’s of a small frame, 142 cm (4′ 8”) tall and weighs 34 kg (75 pounds). Her two favourite books are widely-known and popular classics that girls in Japan like to read - Anne of Green Gables and A Little Princess. Licca was first released in 1967 and instantly became very popular. She had blue eyes and brown hair ending in an elegant curl. At the time she had a different headmold, the type we now call 1st generation Licca. The Licca of today is in her 4th stage and is 4th generation Licca. All the different generations have different headmolds and make-up. A good way to set the 1st gen apart from the others is to look at their eye design: the 1st gen Licca has only one white hightlight/dot in each eye, the other generations have three. The size of her body and proportions has also changed through the generations. Modern-day Licca is taller and wider at the hips and chest.

In 1972 Takara introduced 2nd gen Licca with similar dark-brown/reddish hair in an “old-fashioned” style with a curl at the end like the 1st gen had. The headmold changed a bit and “filled out”. The cheeks look fatter and give her a rounder face. The eyes now have 3 white dots in them.

In 1980 the headmold changed again and the doll became known as 3rd gen Licca. The face doesn’t look AS round anymore, it looks “flatter”, like the “baby fat” evened out. The hair is now often straight and of a lighter brown color.

In 1988 the Licca we’re familiar with now first appeared – the 4th gen Licca. The new headmold looks wider at the top, her chin is more pointed than before, shape of the nose is different, lips aren’t as puckered anymore but a bit thinner. She has wider eyes with a bit more detail. The default hairstyle is straight blond hair. This is the playline Licca and the more economical version. 4th generation introduced many, many hair style and color variations, and the prices range from $10-$20 for an off-the-shelf Licca to $100 and more for the most limited dolls.

Licca has a big family, including twin sisters Miki and Maki that are 4 years younger than her, and even younger triplet brother and sisters Kako, Gen and Mika (they’re still babies). She also has French grandparents and a French cousin.

There’s also a “future Licca” storyline that explains how Licca attends university, becomes a diplomat and goes to France where she meets Frantz, also a diplomat. They marry in a year and have a daughter named Licca in 2001.

In the storyline where she doesn’t age and is forever 11 years old, Licca is currently dating Kakeru. She has befriended a lot of other children and each Licca generation introduces new Licca friends. Same with her boyfriends.

In 1970 we first see Lady Licca which is actually not an older version of Licca from the future but her role model. Lady Licca has been very popular among collectors to this day. She has the headmold of 1st gen Licca but is much taller. Her last name is Kitahara. 
In 1988 2nd gen Lady Licca was released and this one IS an older-looking Licca Kayama and shares the 4th gen Licca headmold. She’s also taller than normal-sized Licca.

There is also an older sister on the scene, Rie (a stewardess), but Takara scratched her from the family line because at the time she was released (1972), Licca’s mother was too young to have a daughter in Rie’s age. She’s the rarest doll in the Licca family/friend line and a big favourite among many collectors.

In 2001 Takara introduced reproductions of the 1st gen Licca and Licca Club 67 has been releasing them in groups every year. The repro headmold and body are smaller than the original. Repro Licca is highly sought-after by collectors as she comes in limited numbers and is a Licca Club 67store exclusive. 
In addition, we have non-LC67 repros that were produced in greater numbers than the LC67 limiteds (several thousand of each version) and they all have a similar hairstyle (like the original 1st gen Licca) but different outfits. These were done for the Licca 25th Anniversary in 1992. 
There are at least two rare TAKARA BAKO store exclusive repros, as well. 
Repros of the 2nd gen Licca also exist, are much easier to obtain and were released in bigger numbers. They all have the brown/reddish hair in the hairstyle of the 2nd gen Licca, while the 1st gen repros by LC67 often sport more modern, trendy hairstyles the originals didn’t have. 

Neo Licca is a Licca with a 1st gen headmold but a taller body. This Licca is similar to the repros in the sense that she’s not vintage but she’s using a vintage Licca headmold. There are different very cool NEO Liccas and are pretty popular by the fans, too. The NEOs are like Liccas in teenager form. The first NEO was released in 2000.

Massive thanks to LiccaLicca.net  for all this information.

Here are some more links to Licca for your viewing pleasure…