The termikidoll (生人形,iki-ningyō) refers to a specific type ofJapanese traditional doll. They are life-sized lifelike dolls that were popular inmisemono during theEdo period of Japan.[1][2] Nowadays the name is mainly used to refer to shop storemannequins.[2]
Artists famous for makingiki-ningyō during the Edo period include Akiyama Heijūrō, Takedoa Nuinosuke,Matsumoto Kisaburō (松本喜三郎), andYasumoto Kamehachi (安本亀八). The dolls that they made were novel not just for their context that shocked viewers — figures lying in pools of their own blood, for example, or Akiyama Heijuro's "Development of a Fetus", a life-sized model of a pregnant woman whose abdomen opens up to reveal twelve supposed stages of development of a humanfetus in the womb — but also for their influence upon the genre ofningyō. The works of Kamehachi and Kisaburō, in particular, contributed to the emergence of an extreme sense of realism.[3]
The earliest exhibition ofiki-ningyō, as recorded in Tommori Seiichi's biography of Kamehachi, was on February 2, 1852, by Ōe Chūbei entitledRepresentations of Modern Dolls in this Year of Abundance in the Naniwashinchi brothel district ofOsaka. Chūbei's nameimayō-ningyō ("modern dolls") indicated that he considered this form of doll to be modern and new.[3]
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