some months with Mirai Smartdoll

As some of you might know I bought myself a Mirai SmartDoll some months ago, in September 2014. I unintentionally was holding back this post a little for different reasons, this post holds not much artistic value and is not supposed to be a review. In this post I feature the pictures I’ve taken with Mirai so far and talk a bit about my experiences with her.

A few years ago I wouldn’t have imagined to buy something like this, when I started collecting figures, I didn’t feel too excited about so called fashion dolls from Japan, as I once saw them, they seemed like a plaything for rich Otaku. I actually labeled them as creepy, I partially still do that today and emo dolls honestly scare me to death, but to each their own.

Over the years I developed a less critical opinion towards Dollfies, since you can take stunning pictures with them and make them look beautiful with new clothes and exchanging body parts. I already played with the idea of getting a Dollfie Dynamite, but I decided against it.

fast forward – I noticed that Danny Choo was working on his own fashion Doll line, starting with the Mirai Suenaga mascot. There was all talk about this robotic version which is under development. At the moment there is this manual version which I have bought, for me it’s the kind of a fully fledged fashion doll I imagined, even without electronics.

On the page is an elaborate description about everything concerning the progress of making the Mirai Doll. I liked the presentation of the product and Mirai herself, standing there dressed in casual clothes, like the cute girl from next door. The ‘s face looks really enchanting already with the out of factory make up (Dollfies sometimes don’t do look that lively before receiving a custom “faceup”). Her entry price also appeared rather affordable, to me.

So, with sweaty hands and a heart rate of 180 I ordered my Mirai from the second batch, I ordered her together with an optional M bust part, obviously I wanted my Doll to have some nice boobs. An L bust was also available,  but I feared it would have been too big 😀 .

Mirai comes with a t-shirt, tight fit jeans, a beanie hat, panties, short socks and shoes. All things have a nice quality, especially her jeans are impressive. There also was a telescope stand that supports the doll when standing, though Mirai is also able to stand on her own.

In the Mirai “shop” you can buy clothes exclusively made for her, but you can use nearly everything that would fit a Dollfie Dream or other 1/3 fashion dolls.

Before Mirai arrived I ordered some more clothes, rainbow striped panties, a long sweater skirt, a pink checkered skirt and several thigh highs, I already have a whole lot of these.
I also got 8000 Yen boots from an auction, Mirai is a rather spoiled lady *lol*

On 24th September I was a bit playing around with the Mirai Doll, to see what she can do. With the skeleton frame inside and a whole lot of joints she is very movable and flexible.
She can do many natural poses, if the user knows what to do ^^ Yes, the relatively soft shell of Mirai’s body looks really good with some details. With wide hips and strong thighs the doll actually has some surprisingly nice curves, a few pictures turned a little ecchi ahaha.

This Mirai s really cute, I’m really in love with those shiny eyes, it’s something I like about these dolls a general, such eyes just have a lot more depth than printed on eyes we know from figures . Also the artificial hair is amazing to see, these fine strands, I can’t really imagine how they are made. The caramel gold color has a pretty shine, as pretty as long hair is it demands a lot of care and comb maintenance during a shoot. Last month I shortened it by a quarter ;D

One day later on On 25th September I changed outfits again combining  her standard clothes (jeans and socks) with the lovely sweater, she’s really adorable with her white socks ^^ As you may imagine a 60 cm doll has a “shocking” height, I was debating if a 1/4 scale doll would have been more reasonable, but I already got used to it, Mirai has her special place next to the TV.

On one of the last days of September I took Mirai to a calm park, simply carrying her around. These fashion dolls look really nice outdoor, therefore I wanted to try that. So I was running around trying to find a place and producing poses where she won’t fall. I was somewhat clumsy, but with some more practice it should be smoother someday.

some weeks later I wanted to take pictures again, I tried the sweater dress without jeans and put the floral stockings on her together with very high heeled shoes. The next few weeks the nice autumn days ended and the weather turned ugly, so it’s indoor photography time.

I sometimes got a little annoyed with maintaining Mirai’s super long hair, never forget to comb your Dolls hair thoroughly before taking pictures! I started to display her with ponytail.
I ordered another set of stockings, The Azone shorts came together with very cool suspenders, since it are clothes designed for 50 cm AZO2 the pants are really tight, but fit Mirai. Chun from Puppy52dolls was so kind to make me this blouse below.

Yes, it is still Mirai ^^ Here I did another indoor shooting. I ordered the grey shirt together with a white one from Dolline on Etzy. The grey makes her boobs appear quite prominent, how would this look with an L bust XD Unfortunately, I really struggled with the lighting this evening and some other things as well. Doll Photography is no piece of cake, even with my experience from figure photography I am having a hard time, it’s like starting from square 1.

It’s really not that I dislike Mirai’s look, but I enjoy to modify things a lot, therefore I also ordered three pairs of different eyes 22mm fit (blue, blue, green), finding a wig took me a while, in the end I ordered a shorter, dark one with some curls. Mirai looks a little hotter and dangerous with them. At the moment she has the brighter blue eyes, I’ll change it again soon.

I was quite depressed after this shooting, even though I had so many light source equipment it didn’t work to create a decent setup and I felt totally untalented in taking pictures of Mirai
🙁

 

10 days later I tried a simple light tent (that I’ve purchased in the meantime) setup, without caring about a background, I just put a box, covered with white cloth, to create some depth. Previously I searched the web for possible poses and printed them out as reference, it’s a lot easier that way. This turned out better than the previous “disaster” and posing was really fun.

 

The last shooting in 2014 was on the 23th of December, obviously a little christmas related, I used a tripod and long exposure times. Doll Photography is more about getting “this certain shot” than having  around 30 pictures from different angles.

Even though I don’t see fashion dolls as girlfriend substitute, it’s actually more like a cute pet, it’s important to supply her with new clothes regularly. I made several accounts at doll clothes supply shops and most important auction sites. Fancier clothes can be quite expensive, but when luck is on your side, you can get something like a fancy china dress for 2500 Yen. With such tight outfits there is a certain risk it won’t fit, but it does in Mirai’s case.

Mirai again with her normal hair, but this time green eyes. I think they suit her a little better, than arctic blue, I have to try the darker blue ones one day…

STYLE CHANGE! The Mirai “shop” had some new things ready and I got the cargo pants, I love such pants. The hat is from TATA’S PARADISE, I ordered it together with a red top and a frilly skirt. this order took a little to reach me, but the friendly seller, gave me doll diving goggles for free ^^. It should go well with her “dangerous” micro bikini, which I will show soon…

Within the time I had her, Mirai has been a sturdy doll without real negative points, her joints are still sturdy enough to hold their position. I accidently derailed her elbow joints once in the early days, it was rather my fault, nothing was broken, I just had to use some force to fix it.

So that was it for now, I will obviously take more pictures this year, there are still some clothes I haven’t put on her and the spring season finally starts. I like my Mirai a lot, she’s super adorable and I’m happy whenever I look at her beautiful appearance. Dressing her up in new clothes or bending her joints to create pretty poses is a lot of fun. I’m actually on the fence of getting the L bust for her, but a more pretty dress has priority for me at the moment.

If you have any question considering Mirai or the clothes, feel free to ask ^^

I have a lot to learn about Doll photography, it should hopefully improve with more practice.