Lady Saiyuki Copying Dolls?

A comparison of the DoC fist hands and Serenity’s fist hands.

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A helpful Den of Demons poster provided images of the new-type DOC girl body compared to Lady Saiyuki’s doll’s arms and torso, speculating that Lady Saiyuki’s doll uses a modified (breasts removed, parts sanded) DOC type 2 torso, arms, and feet. The poster notes that details such as the collarbones appear to be a perfect match.

LS Kodomo Elbow
DOC Type 2 Elbow

LS Kodomo Sitting
DOC Type 2 Sitting

LS Kodomo Hip Piece
DOC Type 2 Hip Piece

LS Kodomo Unstrung Torso
DOC Type 2 Unstrung Torso

In unrelated housekeeping news, the template has been changed because the old one broke commenting. Commenting should now work.

In response to Mint on Card’s announcement that Asleep Eidolon had found Lady Saiyuki had modified a Pear head and claimed it as her original creation, Lady Saiyuki posted an explanation/slagged Mint on Card’s customer service on her homepage/blog:

New update: Thanks to the many many people that have contacted me in support, you are all a treasure to me and I promise to answer each and everyone of you back soon, I hope you understand and will be patient *hugs*
also…it’s very true I did order from moc…but what Lindsey from moc totally failed to mention was this… here is a word for word quote from the email I sent to moc as soon as the dolls arrived to me:

Quote:

to“Mint On Card, Inc” <email address redacted> dateThu, Oct 22, 2009 at 9:30 PMsubjectRe: Your Order has Shipped!mailed-bygmail.com hide details 10/22/09 Hi there Lindsey, I wanted to let you know, that I received the dolls…but sadly I’m pretty disappointed… all 4 fruit sister heads that I received do not actually match the bodies…all 4 heads were obviously cast at different times than the bodies…I know this is not your fault as you do not cast these dolls…you are just a dealer… but the heads are much paler and have a yellow tint to the resin and the bodies are darker than the heads and have a Pinkish tint to the resin…so the tints don’t even match…I know this can be “covered up” with a slightly heavily blushed faceup…but I really think you should let the caster/AE know that it’s not really acceptable to send dolls out like this… especially after having quite the setback on top of sending out dolls like this… This is the first time I’ve ordered an AE doll and I not only ordered 1 but 2 and got 2 heads as well… and if the company thinks it’s ok to send out mismatched dolls than I don’t think I’ll be ordering any more AE dolls… but you as a dealer have been wonderful to work with…I’ll definitely buy from you again…I just really think you should let AE know what they did was not very professional…

a person named Jim chan answered my email saying Lindsey was out of town but that she would get back to me…Lindsey never got back to me on the mismatched resin problem with the dolls that were sent to me (as she obviously did not care that I was unsatisfied with the quality I was sent)…but she did get back to me on another question I had…but she completely ignored the fact that I had a problem with my order…
ae also never got back to me even though Jim chan said he was going to forward my “concerns” to ae…but obviously they did not care enough about the complaint to even acknowledge it…

and for anyone who knows me…mismatching dolls really kind of piss me off and I end up never keep them (only made the exception like once)(hence why 90% of my personal dolls are Volks or mine…as their aren’t very many companies that seem to care about the quality they send out, like AE)…so I passed off all of them to people I’ve met at conventions as they did not care or mind that they were mismatched and I sold them for less than I paid for them due to the mismatching…I even gave one away to a dear friend of mine as a small thanks for watching my house for over 2 and 1/2 months while I was gone…
but I have contacted one of the people I sold the dolls to and she has agreed to send me a head for comparison pics with my prototype (I will have up as soon as I have both heads in my possession)…so I will have side by side comparisons to shove in the faces of the slimball accusers and I will demand an public apology for the False slanders and attempts to WRONGFULLY defame my name…

(Screencap)

When informed of this post, Mint on Card sent the following response:

Hi Nicolle,

Thanks for the additional info.

> Also LadySayuki posted this on her front page:<snip>

I was out of town when she emailed her complaint + question. I was away dealing with a family issue which I posted about on our News page, (without any details, I’m a private person). Jim was answering emails at the time. Here was his reply to her:
————————————————————————————-
From: Mint On Card, Inc <email address redacted>
To: Natalie Wood <email address redacted>
Sent: Oct 26 ’09 16:46
Subject: Re: Your Order has Shipped!

Hello Natalie,

Lindsey is currently out of town. When she gets back she will be able to answer your Dragon Doll question. Meanwhile I will forward your concerns to AE.

Thanks,

Jim Chan
Mint On Card, Inc.
—————————————————————————————-

I replied to Natalie once I was back in town answering her question about DragonDdoll. I had the understanding that she simply wanted AE to know her disappointment, and since Jim had already told her that he was forwarding what she said to AE I didn’t realize that I needed to also tell her the same thing. I personally packed her order and I did not see a difference in resin color. My office does not have the best lighting, so it’s entirely possible that the resin was slightly off and I simply couldn’t see it. No one else who received dolls from that shipment had issues with the resin though, in fact, we’ve never received an AE resin complaint before, (or after), Natalie’s. Natalie did not supply any pictures of the resin, and did not make any requests, (such as new heads, a refund, etc.), had she I would have gladly discussed it with her. After I replied to her DragonDoll question I did not hear from her again.

The post that was left on the MoC News page was at the request of Asleep Eidolon, we mentioned LadySaiyuki’s purchase of the Pear doll from us because it was relevant. As stated on the News post, her order was placed in July, but it did not ship until October, (it was a pre-order). The production time was unusually long for AE, they were surprised by response to the Free Head Event and were not prepared for so many orders. Natalie placed her order on July 22nd, on July 31st I submitted it to AE, we received her order on October 13th, and after receiving the remainder of her payment we shipped her order out on October 16th.

After we posted AE’s announcement we fully expected an email from LadySaiyuki claiming the legitimacy of her doll, which we would have translated into Chinese and emailed to AE, but we haven’t been directly contacted by her. Instead she decided to leave a nasty post on her website, which she certainly has the right to do, but it was not constructive or professional. As of right now LadySaiyuki has decided not to plead her case directly to Asleep Eidolon, and ultimately that will be the only possible way that AE will revoke their accusation. Despite the things she has said about MoC, we are still willing to forward anything she may like to say to Asleep Eidolon.

You are welcome to post any of the above publicly. If you need any additional info from me, (I have all of the emails related to the AE order + the order statements), please feel free to contact me.

-Lindsey

Email addresses in the above have been redacted to protect the privacy of those concerned (and to keep the spambots away).

One of the major inconsistencies in Lady Saiyuki’s story since she’s started to produce “progress photos” of the sculpting in progress (as of January 7, 2010) is the fact that the EXIF data on the photos either does not match the date the photos were supposedly taken, or have other major inconsistencies.

A Den of Demons user noted that in the EXIF data for one of the supposed in-progress sculpt photos the date was listed as January 7, 2010, the day the photo was posted — not mid-2009 when Lady Saiyuki claimed to have been working on the sculpting. As the date indicates when the photo was taken, this indicates that the photo was not in fact taken until January 7, 2010. This was true of all the progress photos posted, with the exceptions of photos of the original sketch. Unfortunately I only have screencaps for one image.

Screenshot of EXIF data. Another Den of Demons user managed to save a few of the photos, and screen captures of the news post on ladysaiyuki.com.

I posted on Lady Saiyuki’s forum asking why the EXIF data on the progress photos indicated that they were taken that day. My post was deleted, my account was banned, and LadySaiyuki pulled down all the photos and reuploaded them with the EXIF data stripped.

Lady Saiyuki later replaced these with photos with EXIF data showing that they were taken May 28, 2009. However, the EXIF data for these photos also indicates that they were taken with an iPhone running version 3.1.2 of the iPhone OS. This version of the iPhone OS was not released until October 8, 2009, over four months AFTER the photos claim to be taken.

Screencaps of conflicting EXIF data in these photos: [1] [2]

After this was revealed the photos once again vanished temporarily, and are once again uploaded with their EXIF data stripped as of this posting.

The Den of Angels news post on the subject, posted January 6, 2010:

We have been notified by Asleep Eidolon via their US distributor, Mint on Card, that this doll’s head is a modified Asleep Eidolon Pear. For more information, please see the following postings on Mint on Card and Asleep Eidolon:

http://www.mintoncardinc.com/dolls/info.php?toys=news
http://www.aedoll.cn/news/news_detail.asp?id=54

In light of this information, this doll has been banned from Den of Angels and may not be bought, sold, or traded in the Marketplaces; it may not be pictured in the galleries (even with other on-topic dolls) or advertised anywhere on the forum..

Due to this situation, LadySaiyuki has also been banned from Den of Angels. The originality of her previous dolls has not been questioned, so they are still permitted on Den of Angels. However, it is forum policy that we do not allow linking or advertising for banned members, so group orders for ANY Lady Saiyuki dolls will no longer be allowed on Den of Angels. In order to purchase her previous sculpts, you would have to go through her personal website.

The issue is between LadySaiyuki and Asleep Eidolon; there is to be no discussion or debate of the originality of this doll on Den of Angels.

Thank you for your understanding.

A news post from Mint on Card, posted January 6, 2010:

- Announcement from Asleep Eidolon:

“Important announcement to our customers:

We have recently discovered a doll company in the United States has copied the head sculpt of our 1/4 size doll Pear. The company’s name is LadySaiyuki, (www.ladysaiyuki.com), and the doll using the Pear sculpt is called Serenity. The Serenity  head design is a almost direct copy of Pear, it has minimal modifications from our original design. We condemn LadySaiyuki’s actions. We urge our customers to inform their friends in the BJD community of this fact and avoid purchasing this pirated version our beloved Pear. Thank you for your support!

Sincerely,

The Asleep Eidolon Team”

This is very upsetting news. LadySaiyuki ordered a Pear doll from us in July 2009, and received a free Pear head as part of the Fruit Sisters promotion at the time. Had we known that the doll was going to be used to create a ‘new’ doll we would not have completed the transaction. We have a close working relationship with Asleep Eidolon, and we support their decision to go public with this discovery.
Below are pictures of Pear and Serenity with an overlay of both dolls, (warm thanks to the person who took the time to overlay these images).

The news post includes the following images: [1] [2]

From Asleep Eidolon’s website, posted January 6, 2010:

Important announcement to our customers2010年1月6日

We have recently discovered a doll company in the United States has copied the head sculpt of our 1/4 size doll Pear. The company’s name is LadySaiyuki, (www.ladysaiyuki.com), and the doll using the Pear sculpt is called Serenity. The Serenity  head design is a almost direct copy of Pear, it has minimal modifications from our original design. We condemn LadySaiyuki’s actions. We urge our customers to inform their friends in the BJD community of this fact and avoid purchasing this pirated version our beloved Pear. Thank you for your support!

Sincerely,

The Asleep Eidolon Team

http://www.mintoncardinc.com/tmp/SerenityIsPear1.png

http://www.mintoncardinc.com/tmp/PearVsSerenity.png

Asleep Eidolon

2010.1.6

Comparison of the DOD DOC type 2 body and the Serenity body torso, as always, after the jump:

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Comparison between Serenity legs and Dollmore legs after the jump:

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Overlays of the Serenity head vs. Asleep Eidolon Pear head, after the jump:

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