Kiwidoll mascot Kiwi-chan review!

I recently got my hands on a doll that’s quite unique, and i don’t think they have any english-language detailed reviews as of now, so I wanted to write down mine here on Dollect. It’s a Kiwidoll (by the small indie japanese brand Kiwidoll, also known as Kiwihouse, which is really just run by one individual artist, Tomonobu Kizuki, with the help of his mom who sews some of the clothes).

Kiwidoll has been around for a while, but being run by one single individual, it was hit quite severely by the pandemic lockdown and had to halt operations in 2020. Recently though, the owner has started updating his twitter again and selling old stock with the intention of getting back into business in the near future. The company doesn’t usually sell their products outside of Japan because it’s such a small operation and it would be troublesome to handle communication and potential disputes with overseas customers who don’t speak japanese, but luckily I was able to grab one through my proxy (funnily enough, the owner doesn’t usually deal with proxy services either because he was worried it would cause trouble for him in terms of potential shipping issues, but according to some of his tweets it seems like he was somewhat reassured by the proxy stating that if anything happens to the product after it arrives at the warehouse it is no longer his problem and that customers accept that risk when purchasing through a proxy service, or something along those lines lol).

Kiwidolls are unique in that they are made of soft urethane resin with an internal skeleton that gives them a pretty unique texture and poseability. Kiwidolls come in two sizes, 1/6 and roughly 1/3 scale (the latter of which also come in two different heights, 50cm and 60cm). The one i got is a 1/6 scale iteration of the brand’s main mascot, the character Kiwi-chan. The larger ones have pretty advanced articulation, including articulation for each individual finger which allows them to grip and hold various objects, while the small scale ones have a somewhat more rudimentary articulation due to the smaller scale.

The doll came in a cardboard box full of straw padding with a cute sticker with pictures of the doll as well as some official art of her printed on the box. Right off the bat, I unfortunately noticed that the little ribbon tufts on the kiwi bird-shaped buns on her head, which can be seen in her official art and product pictures, were just loose inside the box, likely because they came off during transit. I haven’t been able to glue them back on yet, but it’s a fairly minor defect, at least for me.

The doll came wearing a seifuku comprised of two separate pieces (a white shirt made of a stretchy knit fabric, somewhat similar to swimsuit material in terms of texture, with a blue sailor collar with a ribbon bow and four small buttons, and a blue pleated skirt), as well as underwear, white ankle socks with a lace trim and red plastic mary jane shoes with a golden button detail. Her hair buns are not removable, the little kiwi birds are permanently affixed to her wig.

She has light brown hair at a short bob length, a hime cut for the bangs and two longer pigtails that trail out from below the kiwi-shaped buns. Her face screening has a somewhat pixelated look within the eyes that gives them a soft look. I’m not quite sure what fiber her hair is made of, but it’s pretty stiff, and it came with a card that specifies not to heat the hair above 60/70°C to avoid the risk of damaging it permanently. The wig is removable and attaches to her head with a locking mechanism, but I haven’t tried to take it off yet because I’ve been too scared to try lol. The head is made out of a different material from the rest of the body, a kind of hard plastic that’s sort of reminiscent of nendoroid face plates. The head is also easily removable from the body by tugging it straight up and off the neck

What really stands out about this doll is definitely the texture: she’s soft and squishy somewhat like a stress toy, but still pretty heavy. The material has a smooth and pretty flesh-like feel to it, but since it’s cold it feels somewhat like holding a particularly heavy frog or toad in your hand LMAO. It’s only marginally tacky, which could also be due to this product being old stock that sat in a warehouse for the past 5 or so years. It definitely feels WEIRD to handle at first and takes a while to get used to.

Her internal structure also feels pretty peculiar, when grasping her waist in your hand if you squeeze you can feel that she has what feels like an actual ribcage in her torso, like a harder box-like structure that sits under the “skin” approximately where a ribcage would be. I’m not sure if this is present solely for the purpose of adding a touch of realism or if it does anything to help her structural integrity or articulation in any way.

Posing her is definitely interesting though and she can hit a lot of odd poses that other dolls might struggle to reach or hold. Her points of articulation are: shoulders, elbows, wrists, neck (limited; can’t tilt much but can definitely turn her head), spine (rather than having a distinct chest joint her back bends in a way that’s more similar to that of a person), hips, knees and ankles. I did not take off her outfit to show the body’s articulation without the hindrance of clothes because she is somewhat anatomically correct and I’m not really comfortable showing that or looking at all that for a character that’s likely intended to be a high school-age girl :/

Overall, handling her and unboxing her has been a very interesting experience, and I’m glad i had the privilege of purchasing this doll even though they’re currently not very easy to get a hold of. I wish the best to the artist behind Kiwidoll as he resumes the company’s operations and the production of new products.