is a Japan-based corporation that produces garage kit

Garage kit

A garage kit or resin kit is an assembly scale model kit most commonly cast in polyurethane resin. They are often figures portraying humans or other living creatures. In Japan, kits often depict anime characters, and in the United States depictions of movie monsters are common...

s and mecha

Mecha

A mech , is a science fiction term for a large walking bipedal tank or robot, including ones on treads and animal shapes.-Characteristics:...

 kits as well as the Dollfie

Dollfie

Dollfie is a brand of vinyl doll created by the Japanese company Volks in 1997. It is a highly-poseable 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 different heights ranging from 23–29 cm. Dollfie...

, Super Dollfie

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 resin, a porcelain-like, hard, dense plastic...

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

Dollfie

Dollfie is a brand of vinyl doll created by the Japanese company Volks in 1997. It is a highly-poseable 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 different heights ranging from 23–29 cm. Dollfie...

 dolls, and in 1999 the first Super Dollfie

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 resin, a porcelain-like, hard, dense plastic...

 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, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

.

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, for example My-HiME

My-HiME

is an anime series, created by Sunrise. Directed by Masakazu Obara and written by Hiroyuki Yoshino, the series originally premiered in Japan on TV Tokyo from September 2004 to March 2005...

, Love Hina

Love Hina

is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Ken Akamatsu. It was originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Magazine by Kodansha from October 21, 1998 to October 31, 2001 and was published in 14 tankōbon volumes by Kodansha. The series tells the story of Keitaro Urashima and his attempts to...

, Neon Genesis Evangelion

Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise

The franchise is an umbrella of Japanese media properties generally owned by the anime studio Gainax. It has grossed over 150 billion yen since 1995. The central works of the franchise feature an apocalyptic mecha action story which revolves around the efforts by the paramilitary organization...

and Oh My Goddess!

Oh My Goddess!

, also known as Ah! My Goddess!, is a Japanese seinen manga series written and illustrated by Kōsuke Fujishima. It premiered in the November 1988 issue of Afternoon where it is still being serialized. Every few months, the most recent chapters are published in tankōbon volumes by Kodansha...

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

They have also created Super Dollfie

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 resin, a porcelain-like, hard, dense plastic...

 dolls based on characters from anime and manga such as Chobits

Chobits

is a Japanese manga created by the Japanese manga collective Clamp. It was published by Kodansha in Young Magazine from February 2001 to November 2002 and collected in eight bound volumes....

, Maria-sama ga Miteru

Maria-sama ga Miteru

, often shortened to , is a series of Japanese light novels written by Oyuki Konno and illustrated by Reine Hibiki. The series focuses on a group of teenage girls attending Lillian Catholic school for girls in Tokyo, Japan. Its storyline largely revolves around the lives and close relationships of...

and Rozen Maiden

Rozen Maiden

is a manga series created by Peach-Pit. The story centers on Jun Sakurada, a young hikikomori boy that forms a bond with Shinku, a living doll of the "Rozen Maiden" series, who was created by the mysterious dollmaker Rozen hundreds of years ago...

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

Baby, The Stars Shine Bright

is the name of a Japanese clothing boutique chain created in 1988 by Akinori Isobe and his wife, Fumiyo. The original fashion house is located in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Baby, The Stars Shine Bright specializes in Lolita fashion, and like Manifesteange Metamorphose temps de fille, their main focus...

, H. Naoto

H. Naoto

Naoto Hirooka, better known as H. Naoto is a Japanese avant-garde 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 visible and successful of the labels fixated on that style."He graduated from...

, Black Peace Now and Atelier-Pierrot to create Super Dollfie outfits.

External links

• Volks Japan official site
• Volks USA official site