Japanese Artist Offers Funerals for Love Dolls and Lets Customers Live out Fantasies as A Murder Victim, Blow-Up Doll or Dead Girl
A Japanese artist is allowing her customers to live out their darkest fantasies in her unusual photography studio.
Leiya Arata, who is in her thirties, holds funerals for sex dolls, encourages people to dress up as murder victims for photo shoots and turns people into love dolls. The photographer, who set up the fantasy studio at the start of the year in Osaka in western Japan, charges up to $800 for the funerals.
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Among the services she provides are elaborate funerals for sex dolls which are directed by a transgender porn actress turned Buddhist monk, Lay Kato.
Buddhist monk Lay Kato makes hand signs as she undertakes a ‘funeral service’ for a sex doll named Ran at a photography studio in Japan
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Leiya said: “They are all great human beings but have very low self-esteem. Their desire to change or be accepted and loved is so strong and this is the only place for many of them. I want to be there for that.”
Wearing a decoration he designed on his arm, a Japanese man named Mako plays dead in a women’s dress inside a coffin during a pretend funeral
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The ceremonies see the life-like figurines placed in coffins, wrapped in burial clothing and decorated with garlands. Other ‘mourning’ sex dolls watch on during the bizarre service which also has undertakers, candles and prayers.
Megumi Kazuki dresses up as a murder victim at the unusual laboratory where customers can fulfil their darkest fantasies
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Ai Kaneko is ‘packaged’ into a product box for a shipment, after being transformed into a sex doll at the Human Love Doll Factory
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Leiya Arata and Hiiro pray as they stand over the body of Megumi as she dresses up as a corpse covered in blood at a murder scene
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Flowers are placed next to a sex doll named Ran laying inside a coffin during her funeral service at the photography studio
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The ceremonies see the life-like figurines placed in coffins, wrapped in burial clothing and decorated with garlands
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The funerals are directed by a transgender porn actress turned Buddhist monk, Lay Kato who is pictured praying over a man dressed as a dead woman
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Tsukimi poses as she is dressed up as a French maid sex doll at the studio where customers can live out their most unusual fantasies
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Leiya takes Ai Kaneko out of a product box after Kaneko, a 39-year-old single nurse, was transformed into a sex doll
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Ai poses for a product shoot as she displays her serial number and the name Kokoro after being transformed into a doll
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Leiya says her customers at Love Doll Funeral are all looking for a place where they are loved, accepted and approved.
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Sex dolls named Sayaka and Rinne sit and welcome visitors at the entrance of the bizarre Japanese studio
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Other ‘mourning’ sex dolls watch on during the bizarre service which also has undertakers, candles and prayers
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Standing next to a makeup artist Hiiro, Mako looks on after a funeral service where he played a female corpse
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Ai Kaneko says the studio has saved from suicidal thoughts she has suffered for 15 years after finding the body of her boyfriend who had hanged himself
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Around 2,000 sex dolls, which cost from $6,000 and can come with adjustable fingers, removable head and genitals, are sold each year in Japan, according to industry insiders
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Many sex doll owners fear being shamed for leaving the figurines in the bin where they may be found by passersby
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This has even led to the police being called after people mistook the dolls for corpses, leading to the success of her unique funerals
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Leiya takes photos of Mako as he plays dead in a coffin during his funeral as a woman, while Lay Kato prays at the side
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A Japanese samurai sword, ceremonially given to the dead to protect themselves from evil spirits on their way to the afterlife world, is placed on a coffin
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Megumi Kazuki relaxes as she waits to be applied makeup for a ‘murder’ session at Shitai-Labo
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During the shoot, Leiya plays a forensic photographer alongside her makeup artist as she takes photos of the apparent victim
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Leiya Arata ties Ai Kaneko with a rope to transform her into a sex doll mimicking a bondage woman, during a photo session
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