A tiny troublemaker has arrived!
I was tempted by Arle’s initial release, but I didn’t jump on it right away due to the unknowns of tariffs and the possibility that the Chimikko body would get released as a standard item with DD Fest in August. That didn’t happen, so I braved the tariffs and got myself a mini-Arle to join the gang.
Arle comes with a slightly different version of the outfit from the MDD release as well as a gang of Puyo buddies. I was pretty underwhelmed with the quality of her fullset, in my case the collar is sewn poorly and won’t stand straight, and her wig arrived a bit mussed. It’s not something I plan to use much anyway but for the price of almost a full size DD release I expected better.
She’s a cutie but I mostly wanted to steal the Chimikko body so she didn’t stay as Arle for long.
My original plan was to mod a DDH-32 head and make a cute Chimikko oni, but seeing the combo in person it didn’t gel. This head sits high on the MDD neck so much that it bugs me, and I see the same issue with Chimikko, so maybe it’s just not the right one for me. The Chimikko body itself arrived with loose joints. Arms and legs come off easily, and the head tends to tip with a heavier wig. I tightened some screws but eventually things loosened up again, so I’m thinking this is a higher-maintenance body than regular MDD (at least this v1 version of Chimikko). Otherwise posing seems more limited than MDD as the waist joint does very little, but it’s still a fun body to pose with the usual DD ease.
So I decided to try some experiments! I found that my modded DDH-27 head looked very cute with this body. I tried some SDM and MDD outfits with mixed results. Shoes fit fine, socks are mostly good too, but the clothing fits leave a lot to be desired. In this pic she’s wearing an SDM outfit and trying out some Imomodoll hands. MDD hands work fine too, but you can use Imomo as well if you don’t mind a slight color mis-match.
Frustrated with clothing, I made a quick stab at sewing my own. She got some strawberry roomwear to relax in while I pondered my next move. In this pic she’s using MDD large (deka) hands which makes for a cute chibi look.
Eventually I ordered one of Volks official Chimi-sized outfits, which coordinates with the bear ears sets for MDD and DD. Here you can also see the size difference between Chimi and MDD bodies.
One more cute experiment I tried is using MDD Ribbon’s head on the Chimikko body. This combo really clicked for me, it’s like it was meant to be. As far as what heads work for Chimikko, it’s really a matter of taste since any DD head can fit and Arle’s head is quite big itself. Besides Ribbon, DDH-19/20/21 also look good on this body, so I think most heads meant for MDD will work fine.
And one last note on the tariffs – I ended up ordering Arle through a proxy so I could get Fedex shipping and avoid ridiculous fees from DHL. It worked out well in this case, and as more proxies add pre-pay options for tariffs it’s getting easier to avoid surprise bills. Even with tariffs, proxy fees and shipping, Chimikko Arle came out less expensive than the $650 price tag on Volks USA website.
