While not the most prolific girlpla producer in the space, Volks does have its own interesting history parallel to the girlpla space that bears mentioning here.
Volks would originally open in 1972 under the watchful eye of Hideyuki Shigeta and his wife Setsu as a hobby shop in Kyoto. As of the time of this writing, Hideyuki is still president of Volks, which in the long run is pretty impressive; the Shigetas founded the company as newlyweds and have been running the place for the last 50 years. Hideyuki’s hobby store originally only sold aircraft kits, paint and tools, but having to raise a family, he’d eventually expand Volks’ repertoire to other kinds of kits and products.
In any case, by the 80s, Volks would find itself under threat not from other hobby companies like Kotobukiya or Bandai (both not having hit their stride quite yet), but from a surprising rival – a little-known small Kyoto-based company called Nintendo and their Game & Watch. (The Famicom would follow shortly in 1983.) With many of their customers getting sucked away by the nascent threat of video games, Volks adapted themselves by developing resin kits based on Godzilla, joining in on the sci-fi garage kit boom that was going on at the same time all over Japan.
This was wildly successful, and Volks was able to open a shop in Kichijoji, not far away from shops like LARK, Domu and other huge players in the boom, as well as being able to open a mail order service and even produce exhibitions in the United States, a precursor to first a shop, and then a full-on American subsidiary in 2006, based out of Los Angeles.
However, as the asset bubble exploded and the first of the Lost Decades rolled upon Japan, no few victims would succumb. Traditional modeling companies like Imai (whose models would be inherited by Aoshima), Trimaster and Nitto would join the dead. However, Volks would endure, leading the charge to switching to more modern plastic models, being among the few companies to be able to produce Five Star Stories kitsalongside Wave, the company that arose from the ashes of LARK and Mono Craft after the garage kit boom faded away.
Hideyuki would even achieve his desire of making aircraft models of his own even as the traditional scale model market took a bit of a beating, producing them through Zoukei-Mura, the sculpting part of Volks’ enterprise, founded in 1992. Hideyuki even runs a blog (in English AND Japanese!) through there to this day, while many of Volks’ major designers, such as Akihiro Enku, would work in that department.
Enku would also be responsible for the creation of Dolfies in 1998 after giving his wife a present of a ball jointed doll he’d sculpted; Setsu suggested that Volks sell the products properly and they duly did so in 1998. Fittingly, one of the lead designers for the various Dolfie lines offered by Volks, MIKEY, is a member of the Shigeta family, being Hideyuki and Setsu’s daughter.
Tying it all back to girlpla and ironically for a company that had been among the first to jump on the original girlpla boom of the 80s, Volks was third to the girlpla punch after Kotobukiya and Bandai, dropping the first VLOCKER’s FIORE kit, Primula, in 2017, after a nearly decade-long production progress starting in 2010.
As an aside, Volks is also responsible for a huge amount of hobby events, such as the annual Hobby Round that shows of huge amounts of hobby goods from various companies, such as Bandai, Kotobukiya and Hasegawa. These events also feature garage kits, notably that of Genei, who only sell their Full Action Plastic Model Series at these events after retreating from most of their other ventures.
As such, Volks is one of the most significant players in the hobby space and the little attention paid to them in this guide is not an indicator of their significance, simply that they aren’t as prolific in this specific niche of a niche.
Produced Lines:
Leave a Reply