The Elusive Unoa

Unoa (or U-Noa) are Japanese dolls by Gentaro Araki which are sold by the company Alchemic Laboratories. These dolls tend to have have thin but mature bodies. The dolls are usually sold as kits to be assembled and colored. Gentaro Araki is a famous artist who has worked not only as a sculptor, but also as an illustrator, writer, photographer, and painter. He designed figures in the 90’s that were displayed in the magazine S.M.H., and later designed a doll for Volks, the 60cm. U-noss.

Araki’s Unoa ball jointed dolls are different from most BJDs. There are interesting and unusual options built into the dolls. First there are optional easilly removable faceplates with different expressions. A rod runs through the sides of the faceplates that allows the eyes to be moved from side to side. Horns, cat ears, and optional busts, hands, and feet can be added. Unoas are very hard to buy. They can only be bought on rare occasions at Alchemic Laboratories, Crescent Shop (a deputy service), and at auction. Their rarity combined with their unusual and interesting design has made them a very desirable doll.

List of Unoa dolls:

Sist & Lusis girls – These 43 cm. dolls were released with both a 1.0 and 1.5 version body. There is a difference in the joints and coloring between the 2 versions. Lusis has an open mouth with teeth. Sist is closed mouth and looks more serious.

L-bi & B-el boys- Like the girls, the boys are open mouth (L-bi) and closed mouth (B-el). These boys are infamous for having some special ‘parts’ that can be swapped out. 2 different penis parts are available. They come with 1.5 bodies.

Fashion Dolls – Mocha & Cream – These girls are the 2.0 version dolls. They have a standard Unoa face and a special ‘dollybird’ face. Mocha’s Dollybird face is called the DollyHoneyFace and Cream’s face is called the DollySweetFace. The DollyBird version has 2 different head backs. One back has the mechanism to hold the default doll eyes which is the same mechanism found in the original dolls. The other head back doesn’t have a mechanism and has a place to inset any type of eye. The dolls are approximately as big as a Tyler Wentworth doll (17″) and can wear some TW clothes.

Unoa Light – These are Unoa tiny dolls. The boy, Azurite is 27 cm. tall, the girl, Flourite is 25 cm. tall. They come with only one head. Both girl and boy dolls have two hand sets, two feet sets, and the larger boy feet are tabi-toed. Both also have kitty-ear parts.

Unoa Zero – Zero is a 60 cm. doll. She somewhat resembles the Volks U-noss doll but is a little taller. She is very sexy and curvy.

Some collectors who are fortunate enough to acquire a Unoa head can create a full doll by using another company’s body. It is important to find a body not only similar in scale but also a similar resin coloring. Searching through the internet will turn up a few combinations to consider. Another important item of note about these dolls; they come in kits which means that the doll is completely unassembled. Not only does the doll need to be strung, but often there are some unsightly mold marks that will need to be removed. The instructions for assembly are in Japanese. If anyone is too faint-hearted to tackle the project, paying extra for an assembled one from a private sale or auction is a possibility, but it will usually cost extra.