Manga Kodama: Affordably Priced Anime Fandom

• Author: Borealis Capps

• Editor: Samantha Ferreira

Anime fans have come a long way from the days of wonky-looking Sailor Moon dolls with limited releases. For better or worse, we have entered the era of Funko Pops, Nendoroids, Cu-Poche, and a wide variety of other figurines being made available across the globe. Even those with the emptiest pockets among us can now scrounge up $1.25 to show off our love of anime and manga, thanks to a fashion doll line released at Dollar Tree: Manga Kodama!

The package describes them as:

“Since ancient times the Japanese have admired and respected their eldest trees. That may sound silly to you, but many believe their tree trunks are home to loving spirits with great power to do good. The air they breath (sic) and the rainwater they drink had become increasingly polluted, and many of the mightiest had grown weak and frail. So the Council Of Elders, made up of the oldest and wisest trees, put their thoughts to a vote. They decided that the mightiest would leave the forest and transform themselves to humans. They would use their incredible powers to convince the world to stop harming them. Welcome to the exciting world of KODAMA, where legendary spirits are born from the trees. Meet the first of our peaceful spirits, and let the adventure begin!”

Sure, the designers of the dolls clearly just shoved the words “manga” and “anime” into a vaguely Japanese-art-inspired doll, but… 

Okay, there’s no defending it, that’s exactly what happened. These are what a person would expect if someone saw Pinky:st. dolls, then proceeded to file the serial numbers off.  

To put it bluntly, the Manga Kodama dolls are cheap, and won’t be getting stellar reviews from fashion doll collectors. Even so, they enjoy a small, dedicated fanbase who love them for their strange looking grossness. While information on the dolls’ designers is shrouded in mystery, doll collectors speculate that they were worked on by the folks behind the fashion doll line colloquially known as “Poupée Mode” due to their alternate “Poupée Animée” name on the packaging. Poupée Mode dolls tend to maintain a level of respect from fashion doll collectors, due to their low prices and the way their outfits and accessories fit on Mattel’s iconic Barbie dolls.

Currently, the three characters Bashira, Aiko, and Noriko with their potentially swappable wigs and accessories are the only released items in the doll line. And, while their boxes promise future characters, the Manga Kodama dolls have not proven to be as prolific as the Forever Friends Club, a similar Dollar Tree line particularly appreciated by fashion doll fans that has multiple outfits, a closet to store them in, wigs, and potentially more on the horizon. 

Sadly, we will almost certainly never see what a Dollar Tree-priced manga with the characters or an extremely cheap ONA series released online might look like.

Having grown up in an era where people asked me why I read “those weird backwards books,” I cannot imagine how excited I would have felt to walk through a Dollar Tree and see something like the Manga Kodama dolls on the shelf. It feels good, knowing even poorer fans of anime and manga checking out anything they can get their hands on from the local library just like I did in my younger days can have an affordable way to show off the media they love on their shelves, just like anyone else. 

These days, we can walk into Hot Topic or Wal-Mart and easily buy anime t-shirts, dolls, and even Gunpla. We can stream countless shows from the convenience of our home — with some legally available free on YouTube — instead of paying $30-$40 for a VHS tape with a single episode or paying shipping for a VHS trade. We have become such a powerhouse that even budget fashion doll makers have taken notice of us. While it’s easy to joke that Bashira is “we already have Hatsune Miku at home” levels of quality, the Manga Kodama line of dolls is proof of just how far the anime fandom has come.