It was during the Edo period that most of the traditional doll types known today developed. • dolls are the dolls for , the doll festival on March 3. They can be made of many materials, but the classic doll has a pyramidal body of elaborate, many-layered textiles stuffed with straw and/or wood blocks, carved wood hands (and in some cases feet) covered with , and a head of carved wood or composite molded wood covered with , with set-in glass eyes (though before about 1850, the eyes were carved into the and painted), and human or silk hair. A full set comprises at least 15 dolls, representing specific characters, with many accessories (), though the basic set is a male-female pair, often referred to as the Emperor and Empress. • dolls are offered to Japanese children during the holiday, in order to inspire in them the bravery and strength of the legendary
Kintarō. • , or warrior dolls, are usually made of materials similar to the dolls, but the construction is often more complicated, since the dolls represent men (or women) seated on camp chairs, standing, or riding horses. Armor, helmets, and weapons are made of lacquered paper, often with metal accents. There is no specified "set" of such dolls; subjects include
Emperor Jimmu,
Empress Jingū with her prime minister Takenouchi holding her newborn imperial son, Shoki the Demon-Queller,
Toyotomi Hideyoshi and his generals and tea-master, and fairy-tale figures such as
Momotarō the Peach Boy or Kintarō the Golden Boy. • dolls show fat, cute babies in a simplified form. The basic is an almost-naked sitting boy, carved all in one piece, with very white skin, though with elaborate clothing, hairstyle, and accessories, female as well as male, became popular as well. They developed as a gifts associated with the Imperial court, and could be translated "palace" or "court". • dolls () are made of wood. The ancestors of dolls are ("willow-wood") dolls, small dolls carved of willow and decorated with cloth scraps. refers to a method of making dolls. They start with a carved and/or molded base of wood, wood composite, or (in some modern dolls) plastic foam. A design of different patterned cloth scraps is planned out, and the base is grooved so that the edges of the cloth can be hidden in the grooves. The cloth is glued on and the edges tucked in. The head and hands (if any) of the doll are usually finished with ; the hair may be part of the molded head or be a separate wig. These dolls have become a very popular craft and kits with finished heads can be purchased. The method is also used by some of Japan's
avant-garde dollmakers, who adapt the old materials to new visions. • , puppets or dolls are mechanical; they include the large figures on festival floats, for festivals like Kyoto's
Gion Matsuri and smaller entertaining scenes, often with a musical element accompanying the movement. They often depict legendary heroes. • is a form of theatrical puppet theatre which rivalled and inspired the
kabuki theater, and survives today. • dolls have been made for 150 years, and are from Northern
Honshū, the main island of Japan. They were originally made as toys for children of farmers. They have no arms or legs, but a large head and cylindrical body, representing little girls. From a simple toy, it has now become a famous Japanese craft, and now an established
souvenir for tourists. • are life-sized lifelike dolls, that were popular in shows. Artists made that were novel not just for their subjects that shocked viewers—figures lying in pools of their own blood, for example—but for their influence on Japanese dolls. The works of Matsumoto Kisaburō and Yasumoto Kamehachi, in particular, contributed to form an extreme sense of realism. • dolls () represent little girls or boys, correctly proportioned and usually with flesh-colored skin and glass eyes. The original were named after an 18th-century kabuki actor, and must have represented an adult man, but since the late 19th century the term has applied to child dolls, usually made to hold in the arms, dress, and pose (either with elaborately made joints or with floppy cloth upper arms and thighs). Baby boy dolls with mischievous expressions were most popular in the late 19th and early 20th century, but in 1927 the
friendship doll exchange involved the creation of 58 dolls representing little girls, to be sent as a gift from Japan to the United States, and the aesthetic of these dolls influenced dollmakers to emulate this type of a solemn, gentle-looking little girl in elaborate kimono. • are spherical dolls with red bodies and white faces without pupils. They represent
Bodhidharma, an East Indian who founded
Zen about 1500 years ago; according to legend, he removed his own eyelids to prevent sleep from breaking his concentration, and his limbs withered after prolonged meditation. dolls are charms to bring good fortune, continued prosperity, and fortitude to accomplish goals. Usually dolls are purchased with blank eyes. One eye is filled when making a wish, the other when the wish is fulfilled. Wishes can be made throughout the year, but it is common in Japan to do it on
New Year's Day. • ("shine-shine monk") are strictly speaking not a type of doll. They are handmade of white paper or cloth, and hung from a window by a string to bring good weather and prevent rain. • dolls ("crawling child") are a soft-bodied doll given to young women of age and especially to pregnant women in Japan as a
talisman to protect both mother and unborn child. With the end of the Edo period and the advent of the modern
Meiji era in the late 1800s, the art of doll-making changed as well: • Silk-skinned or "mask-face" dolls became a popular craft in Japan in the 1920s and 1930s, allowing the individual to design elaborate kimono for dolls representing women of various periods of Japanese history, particularly the Edo period. Dolls of this type continued to be made and were a popular item for servicemen and tourists to bring back after World War II, though they also might choose dolls representing similar subjects made with faces. •
Bisque dolls are made of fired clay.
Fukuoka is a traditional center of the manufacture of bisque dolls, and are famous throughout Japan. • and (literally "big sister dolls" and "bookmark dolls," respectively) are made of
washi paper. tend to be three-dimensional, whereas are flat. often have elaborate hairstyles and costumes made of high-quality washi paper. They often lack facial features. Those from
Shimane Prefecture are especially famous. • A hybrid of and , called , has become popular in recent years. are a type of Japanese
paper dolls made with figures and scenes and are mounted on , a rectangular fancy cardboard about a square foot (about a tenth of a square meter) in size. • More recent and less traditional Japanese dolls are
ball-jointed dolls (BJDs), whose growth in popularity has spread to the US and other countries since the advent of the
Super Dollfie, first made by
Volks in 1999. BJDs can be very realistic-looking or based more on the
anime aesthetic. They are made of
polyurethane resin which makes them very durable. These dolls are highly customizable in that owners can sand them, change out their wig and eye colors, and even change their face paint. Because of this hands-on aspect of customization, they are not only popular with collectors, but also with
hobbyists. == Collectors ==