The Toy Zeigeist

fourteenwings

DapperMan's back you nerds.

Well, not in the same sense. This thread isn't primarily (or even secondari...ly) for toy reviews, but I generally always have things to say about toys new and old. This is where I'll put such thoughts.

To reiterate a few things I've said before; I'm always apprehensive about starting new threads on here, but I think my track record so far has actually been pretty good! I might not continue them in infinite perpetuity, but they last long and I manage to break second pages often!

In addition, I have always wanted to make sure that one day, I'll look back and find that I've collected nearly all of something really cool. That's how I feel about my retro Bakugan collection. When I buy stuff myself, I'll mention it here, but I'll try and make pictures baie few and far between.

*baie means very in Afrikaans and it's creeping into my day to day language very quickly
*I'll probably add a thread header to either this post or the next when I come up with a good idea for it

fourteenwings

Yay~

So you guys all know I follow the L.O.L. Surprise franchise pretty closely, and a few important things are happening with it right now.

It's currently the #Remix season, and pre-sales of the three main Remix series started a few days ago, with the prequisite YouTube video event coming up on the 26th. This time around, there'll be 360 degree video for some reason. I don't get the point of that but sure!

So the three main Remix series are the main Tots, the Pets, and the O.M.G. dolls. I don't understand how L.O.L. Pets continue to exist, in the same vein that I don't understand why Hasbro's long-running Littlest Pet Shop line of toys still exists. With L.O.L., you expect that kids like the humanoid(ish, I mean, the eyes) dolls and so they'd collect those.

In fact, L.O.L. pets have always felt throwaway to me. It's almost always cats, dogs, unrecognizable birds and hamsters, sometimes fitted with terrible, tiny patches of rooted hair and obviously the signature soulless eyes. The eyes look 73% more soulless on the Pets than any other L.O.L. product.

This series of L.O.L. Surprise Pets includes a weird number of pets with outfits that have false hands. That creeps me out quite a bit.



I find it funny that as soon as L.O.L. Surprise worked out a recycling deal with Terracycle and started using paper packaging on most of their products, they decide to pump the Remix packaging full of electronics so it can "play music".

Thanks to our friends the toy influencers, we now know that these musical tidbits are less than ten seconds long on each product, so that's not even worth it.

There are 12 (mini? I guess) dolls in the main L.O.L. Remix line, and there's no hint of a second wave. It seems L.O.L. has given up on second waves for the main series after #Hairvibes bombed, but other lines will still have more waves obviously, like Boys and the All Stars line.

I don't have much to say about the Outrageous Millennial Girls dolls. It's funny, because I'm not very interested in the Tots, but the O.M.G.s interest me even less, yet doll collectors go ga-ga for them. Funnily enough, as soon as Remix was on pre-order the
next Winter line was "leaked".

The O.M.G. Remix dolls are the first line to come with two outfits (but one pair of shoes because millennials are suddenly very economical?), and the advertising gimmick is that you can "Remix" one of the four dolls with her BFF (one of the other dolls) to create her "complete looks", ie probably the best way I've seen to make kids buy at least two.

Remix is probably the height of prices in terms of O.M.G., aside from the main four dolls, there's a four doll megapack that's going for in excess off $140 dollars. I understand a Christmas big hitter, but that just seems mean-spirited.

More interestingly, O.M.G. dolls all come with underwear because you're meant to dress them yourself, and Lonestar's underwear is kind of taking overt theming to the next level;

fourteenwings

I wanted to talk about non-MGAE products today, but there's quite an important aspect of their recent stuff I need to get through.

MGA seemed to have a good go of introducing new IPs this decade, such as L.O.L. and Na!Na!Na! Surprise (plush dolls), so I found it weird when I noticed that two of their brands new for this year were very inspired by old product.

In one case, it's just similar art. Rainbow High, which is a spinoff of Rainbow Surprise, which itself is a spinoff of Poopsie Slime Surprise (you can see why they'd want to separate the success from such a name) is a new fashion doll line.

It features girls with Instagram-ready dewy faces and the worst knee joints known to man (a problem that also plagues Barbie Made to Move dolls -I'll discuss BMR1959 specifically later-).

The line itself is pretty new and fresh, using MGA's hard-won ability to steal copyrighted fashion styles "parody" popular brands to create what I think are some of the best looks in the newly developing fashion doll zeitgeist (Barbie, L.O.L. O.M.G., Hairmazing, #FailFix, and Rainbow High itself).

But the art is very familiar to me. When I first saw it, I thought "I didn't realize the Moxie Girlz artist still worked at MGA."



On the left and in the centre is Moxie Girls concept art featuring the four main characters Avery, Sophina, Briam and Lexa. On the right; Rainbow High concept art for Avery Styles.

Though the eyes have received a major upgrade and the bodies are tinier, the noses and lip styles are almost identical. I wonder if this designer has been working on the Poopsie line this whole time. I feel like going from dolls, however basic Moxie Girlz was, to Pooping Llamas is a major step down.



A better image I made up featuring higher res images of the Moxie Girlz, but with less of the "stylization" applied to them. The art featured on boxes featured much more stylization.

As you might have noticed, there was an "Avery" in Moxie Girlz and now there's one in Rainbow High. Rainbow High also features a doll called Jade, which is a moniker of one of MGA's most famous doll characters ever; the Bratz doll.

Similarly, MGA recently debuted their cutesy, sweet-themed line of collectible "surprise" blind-packaged dolls called Secret Crush.



Though this one isn't as obvious, really, I have a distinct feeling that Secret Crush was very inspired by Lalaloopsy. Lalaloopsy was MGA's last attempt at cutesy dolls in both mini and mega sizes, and they were very popular. Secret Crush also features mini and mega sized dolls, with the mega sized dolls creepily enough having parts of their associated mini doll inside of their hair.

There's a lot I still have to say about Rainbow High and a bit more about Secret Crush, but I think this post is already long enough for now.

fourteenwings

I'm getting this weird feeling that Mattel is now using the wheelchair Barbie Fashionistas as the only way to "launder" fully articulated MtM bodies into the playline/children's doll lines.

It's very strange that the only dolls that are well articulated and aimed at children now come in wheelchairs. Especially since the ones that come standing aren't very well articulated at all.

----

So, Rainbow High. I was going to say lots of words, but instead I ended up making these photo collages.

Most obviously, Ruby Anderson borrows a shirt from the second wave Poopsie Llama, which itself is "inspired" by the signature Supreme T-shirt.



Funny thing is, the Llama is wearing a Sparkle "Supreme" T-shirt and Pooey Puitton "Louis Vuitton" diaper, and Supreme and Louis Vuitton did end up doing a collection together with clothing that looks exactly like what the Llama would look like if it were a hoodie.

Meanwhile, anti-establishment but actually super-establishment dowdily dressed Jade Hunter wears an Anti-Sparkle Sparkle Club Anti-Social Social Club T-shirt (more obviously inspired by the second hoodie which was part of a collaboration with some brand with "pink" in the name), and takes inspiration from "musician" Billie Eilish.



I personally didn't think Billie Eilish did shorts even though I barely know anything about her, so I was surprised to find shorts on her official merchandise store that were also in Jade's exact neon greens.

In all honesty, I quite like the print on Jade's second shirt but all her clothing seems like stuff right from the back of a very sad closet.

Her face kind of reminds me of Sabrina Carpenter, but then again ever doll with a giant head and faux ringlets reminds me of Sabrina Carpenter.

fourteenwings

I do not want this to become "14w is obsessed with L.O.L. Surprise!", so for now I'll mention in passing that the new Winter Series of L.O.L. O.M.G. has already been teased literally the release date of the four #Remix dolls.

Unrelated, but still in dolls; I wonder if Elza's dolls somehow always taking on a more purple tinge versus the blue in Frozen 2 is a marketing thing. I haven't seen Frozen 2, I barely saw Frozen, but purple didn't seem to feature much.

I don't want to be "dolls, dolls, dolls" all the time, because my main focus really is mini-dolls and assorted collectables, so before I discuss Barbie BMR and the new Extra line, let's do some speculation.

For a few years now, I've thought that Hasbro has absolutely bombed the Disney Channel part of their Disney Masterlicense. Clearly, Disney thinks the same, since the latest line of Z-O-M-B-I-E-S 2 dolls was made by Mattel.

In fact, I see a big re-jiggering of the girl's licenses in the Disney brand if Mattel tries hard enough.

Anyways, I've always thought that the Disney Channel compendium is so full of characters people (mostly little girls, those who used to be little girls, and gay men) like, so why is there no big tent line of either dolls or collectibles that emcompasses things from High School Musical (or even Zenon, which was big before I myself became invested in the Disney Channel brand), through Hannah Montana and Good Luck Charlie, all the way to Descendants and Upside Down Magic.

There has been one attempt to create such a line; a doll line called Disney VIP made by Jakks Pacific Mattel??? (I'm very surprised it was them considering they were so spindly) about 10 years ago. The line only covered characters popular at the time.



That meant villainess Sharpay from the High School Musical franchise but marketed as from her spin-off movie, but no protagonist Gabriella. It included basically everybody who was cool and I liked at the time; except Teddy from Good Luck Charlie, who I didn't really like for reasons I can't remember.

I totally forgot Sonny was in this line. She looks great.

So, yeah, that's a giant untapped market. With surprise collectibles being so big, I wonder why nothing's been done on that front.

Oh I almost forgot; Spin Master, high on their DC playline license, have nabbed the master toy license for the League of Legends video game, with products expected next Fall. I quite like an out of the box action figure, so I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with!

fourteenwings

Funny story; I've been calling the male Hairdorables Hairdudables, rather than Hairdudeables.

I've been around the usual places and wondering why Harumika playsets keep popping up in my searches. As far as I'm concerned. Harumika came and went like 8 11??? years ago.

Harumika was a "fashion design" mannequin brand of activity kits made by Bandai, which involved creating "outfits" by laying bits of fabric on a miniature mannequin and then poking them into a hole in the back so they stayed on.

I thought it was cool and cute but it never capture my imagination. In fact, I'd forgotten it existed.

Well, now it seems they're back! With new packaging in darker colors (I preferred the original hot pinks).

the award-winning fashion toy which proved a popular choice with noughties children.

...

Yeah, suuuure.

Personally, I think whoever runs Bandai's international divisions always seems to be really bad at whatever it is they're doing. I think sometimes it's because of the obvious differences in markets. Japan doesn't have a big fashion doll market, and even the action figure market for children pales to the role-play market, whereas elsewhere the reverse is true.

But then there's issues like how the Power Rangers action figures always featured muscle-man body molds rather than just importing some of the better Japanese Sentai toys, which were always show-accurate.

As per course, one of the new Harumika fashion sets is called Neon Beast, like marketing mixed up the cutesy fashion line and some futuristic Naruto action figure.

fourteenwings

Hairdorables

Just Play used to be one of these B-list toy companies that mostly made licensed toys for others. Their main business seemed to be making toys tangentially related to Barbie that Mattel themselves weren't too concerned with, such as the Large-Scale/Child-Sized My Best Friend Barbies for various Barbie projects as well as the Barbie Pets line of flocked little animals.

I'd have never guessed that, one day, Just Play would release their own extremely successful line of dolls.



Hairdorables came onto the market during the part of the surprise toy boom that was close to the decline we see now, but was still squarely in the "blind-pack it=success" era. The first line -packaged in cardboard boxes- came in three variations of twelve characters. I thought there were only eight, but if there are twelve my frequent confusing of one of the girls for another makes a lot more sense.

Despite being blind-packaged and quite tiny, these are indeed dolls. When somebody says "doll" to me, I always think "hair and removable fabric clothing" and if I were to push I'd say at least 5 points of articulation (neck joint, two arm joints at the shoulder and two leg joints at the hips). L.O.L. dolls are cute, but they really aren't dolls.

To be fair, I do consider Fashion Polly! Polly Pocket dolls, and they usually have gummy plastic clothing and plastic hair (not always, but usually). I probably shouldn't.

One thing I always found annoying about Hairdorables was the ridiculous number of dolls in each line. The first line included a whopping 36 dolls across the same wave.



The initial lines of L.O.L. Surprise! included 24 or so dolls but split across two waves. Nowadays the lines are 10-12 dolls. The first collection of Hairdorables was 36 dolls, and -as dolls- they are packed in cases of six rather than how L.O.L. dolls are packed in cases of 20 or so. Granted, they are much smaller.

Anyways, the initial run of Hairdorables faced a lot of duplicates because boxes were run to a set pattern and so if a store happened to have 4 copies of one box, that's 4 copies of 6 dolls across them and buying multiples becomes a nightmare.

This seems to have been fixed, with boxes now being randomized, but I still don't think something as big and relatively expensive (they're in the Premium L.O.L. price-range) should have a spread that's so wide. The second series, which was possibly rushed, dropped from 36 to 26, but the third series climbed up to 39 and the fourth which introduced the two variant boxes also has 39 dolls.

I don't know if the variant boxes actually include different dolls so you can at least try not to get duplicates after a while, but I'll assume so.

The backstory behind Hairdorables is that they (being tiny girls with an insane amount of hair) posted hair tutorial videos on main character Noah's (blonde/blue hair one) YouTube channel and so they became like... YouTube famous. Nobody really cares. We're here for the dolls man!

The Hairdorables line started out with random variations of each doll, but starting with the third series they started to have a few themes per line:

• Series 3: A School Dance Line (always a favorite of mine), a "Glamping" line (Glam Camping, which was once an actual thing when it started out 10 years ago in the UK but now it's just embarrassingly done as a concept), and a Slumber Party line
• Series 4: a "Carnival" line (which included both performer-style outfits and spectator looks), a Garden Party line, and a Beach Party line (another favorite)
• Series 5: Another Smaller Line with only 26 dolls, so two variations for most characters (some only got one) Masquerade Dance Through The Ages (a school dance but with costumey looks from throughout history), and After School looks

Series 3 was also the "Hair Play" series, where each doll came with a clip-on extension that you could style with a plastic "tool" (a form of play that I hear is always disappointing). Series 4 was the "Scented Series" where the dolls hair was treated with various (unknown) chemicals to make it smell like sweet things, whilst series 5 featured clip-on extensions with "Hair Art" on them (I've heard the screen printing makes this hair really stiff).

Series 4 also introduced three new characters; Emily, Phoebe, and Saige. Emily is yet another "artist" (I think the other artist one is uh... Sallee?), but she's more "graphic" (ie lots of geometric shapes). Phoebe is a filmmaker, and Saige is a woo-woo hippy girl.

One thing that really stopped me getting into Hairdorables initially is that I hated their face sculpts with the thin lips. The closed mouth mold creeped me out, and the open mouth mold belongs in a horror movie about serial killers.

However, Series 3 really redeemed the line with the duckface mold, which I personally quite love. It seems the open-mouth mold was also softened at some point, making it much less serial killer inspired.



The faces left-to-right; open-mouth (Cinema/Carnival Phoebe), duckface (Garden Party Saige), and thin-lips (Beach Party Bella).

Case in point about the thin lips, Saige with the closed mouth just does not look right;



Aside from the main line of Hairdorables dolls, there's a line of "little sisters" (how do all these doll characters always have little sisters?) called Hairdorables Shortcuts who look even more deranged than the most open-mouth serial-killer, and a Pets line. Both have lasted two lines, and frankly I hope they never see the light of day ever again.

There's also Hairdudeables, who are the boy Hairdorables. The first two lines of Hairdudeables, which frankly should really not be a word that exists, came in double packs with the girls, but the latest Series 3 comes in individual packs.

And, as I've mentioned before, there's Just Play's direct hit on the Barbie line, Hairmazing dolls. Hairmazing so far has released two lines.



The first line was a typical "Here are the Hairdorables all grown up!" line. That is confusing in itself because the Hairdorables, as far as I can see, were already teenagers?

I guess somebody at Just Play must have thought that there was some sort of "hook" missing with these dolls, a concern that I do not share. You see, I love dolls with giant heads and spindly bodies. To me, they were perfect right out the gate.

But frankly I do not dislike the giant earrings they all have. More than Hairdorables itself, Hairmazing seems to just be fully ridiculous in every concept it decides to take on. For example, Harmony's multicolored leggings, or Bella's whole... "outfit".

I find it odd, at times. I think that Hairdorables art is regularly let down by the execution of the dolls, especially when it comes to shoes and hair pieces.



Now, with this new scale to play with, and the arched feet, somehow nobody can figure out how to make killer outfits? The outfits the Hairmazing girls have are super "fun", but fun in an exclusively kitschy way. I'd like to see them do really cool outfits sometime instead.

The second Hairmazing line is a school dance line called "Prom Perfect".



Out of the Hairmazing dolls from the second series, I think Dee-Dee and Willow look most cohesive. I love Bella, but that's because she's got some Glam Disco Madonna EAH C.A.Cupid thing going on. Frankly, the rest just don't look right.

Similarly, I think Noah is supposed to represent SoCal Style, but there have just been too many dolls of her in both scales now that they're segwaying her into some sort of Hawaiian theme instead. Either way, the plastic flower cage is not a good idea.



This series also included the first ever Hairmazing boy alongside the Hairmazified Neila. Everybody should take a second and marvel at whatever is going on wth Neila's shoes. Those don't look comfortable in the slightest.

I don't like the Hairdudemazing face very much, it's very angular and full. Slightly disturbing.

So, Hairdorables keeps going from strength to strength. The real question will be the lines future longevity. Will I soon enough be discussing Hairdorables Series 9, the Hair Bath-Bomb series? Will more than seven Hairdorables get to the Hairmazifier in time? Only time will tell.

Oh wow spoiler alert Hairdorables was turned into a budget line.

Stormtroper

there's a line of "little sisters" (how do all these doll characters always have little sisters?) called Hairdorables Shortcuts who look even more deranged than the most open-mouth serial-killer,

Like this?:

fourteenwings

They're worse, I assure you;



Now for a small image dump because there isn't much to say.

Before there was Cuties, there was the Bratz Babyz Milk Carton reboot;



It's fitting that these came with their faces plastered on milk cartons because that's the fate of genuine children who creepy adults would fantasize about in this fashion.

In fact I'm not wholly convinced I'm not distributing inflammatory images right now.

The Bratz Babyz lines from before this ill-thought-out reboot weren't much better, but this was taking things to a very bad extreme.

Are you a male Hasbro doll? Would you like removable fabric pants instead of molded on perma-pants, even if you're the hero of the story?



Well, all you need to do is come in a giant multi-pack that runs upwards of $69 dollars!



And sometimes they can't help you even then! Poor Will Smith Genie...

The new Rainbow High animated web-series started!, and it's quite the ambitious project. First up was showing off the first-floor prefects, who make life for our six protagonists a waking nightmare: the "A"s (Aisnley, Avery -ie the doll up there somewhere- and Aidan).



I particularly like Aidan's horrid sparkly see-through shirt. All boys in these shows should dress like this.



Ainsley is meant to be the "goth" girl of the group, but I guess her eye make-up didn't get the memo. I know Avery's hair is meant to be fabulous and tinsel-tastic, but the CG of it looks quite something.

fourteenwings

There's a lot I want to cover, but I guess I'll start with the most recent thing that caught my attention.

Gwen Stefani is a pop star who used to be in No Doubt and released a whole bunch of great songs from the early 00s, but she isn't exactly who you'd expect a doll line from.

Though there were early signs; her music video for Rich Girl (2004) featured several Bratz dolls. MGA responded to in kind with the pirate-inspired Bratz Treasurez collection (2005, yes I checked).

Despite that, she managed to get two whole doll lines off the ground!

The former I probably heard about at the time it was released, but then immediately forgot about.

It was the Love... Angel... Music... Baby... (ie L.A.M.B.) collection, exclusively available at Target stores across America. Stefani's fashion brand, L.A.M.B., was also a thing at the time (I have no idea if it was a success or not), and these dolls seemed to be an extension of that.

L.A.M.B. seems to stand for a lot of things in the Stefani world. It's the name of her first album, as well as the monikers of her beloved Harajuku Girl dancers. The backstory is that they're a squad of dancing girls from Japan, and after five seconds of Wikipedia research this mostly checks out. "Angel" ie Jennifer Kita, is of Japanese descent, but is American.



Here is a collage of the various L.A.M.B. collection dolls, most of which are Gwen herself, whilst four are the L.A.M.B. girls. The Gwen dolls look to me like Bratz if they were Courtney Love after a wild night of ehh... Playmobil Sugar, whereas the faces on the Harajuku girls are pretty cute.

The line, like many celebrity projects that strike whilst the iron is hot, came and went. It' wasn't popular or notable in any real regard, I'd say.

Yet Gwen (or her management team) still didn't give up. She leveraged her brand to create Kuu Kuu Harajuku, a typically wacky cartoon that Nickelodeon (being masters of this sort of thing) immediately shafted to weekend airings exclusively in Australia.

The premise of the cartoon was that a girl who was not Gwen Stefani named G was the leader of a girl group called HJ5 in a fictional Japanese city called Harajuku. The other girls in the group were "based" on the Harajuku Girls in that they kept the L.A.M.B.-based monikers.



You see, much like LEGO Friends after it* -but to a more extreme degree-, only one of the Harajuku girls (Love) remained Japanese (or just more generally Asian I guess). I mean, it's possible Angel is Okinawan, but she seems more Native American or something.

*In case you forgot Olivia became Hispanic after the reboot.

These dolls were much higher profile and much better quality. Coming after Mattel's fiasco with destroying whatever remained of the goodwill with Ever After High*, they were on my radar immediately. They had good articulation and super adorable faces as well as the best sort of spindly bodies.

*I don't actually want to write about the Monster High and Ever After High era of Mattel but I guess I could sometime?

A major USP for these was the massive hair decorations "For You!" that they came with. These could be fitted with charms (image on the far-right) that could be mixed and matched between the doll's headpiece and the one for the child unfortunate enough to be stuck with a giant plastic bow accessory.

Personally, I always think this sort of thing is dumb and pointless, and it probably drove the costs up despite being unnecessary. Maybe kids like it, iunno.

As you can see, the Gwen doll is very much inspired by Tick-Tock Gwen. In addition, despite them wearing school uniforms, I don't think they ever went to school.

I did watch one episode of Kuu Kuu Harajuku, and it was pretty funny too. It involved them being sent to Not North Korea for a concert by their incompetent manager and half the group being hypnotized by state propaganda (I'm not kidding).



In addition to the main line of full-scale dolls and fashion packs and hair accessory charm pack things, there was a line of mini-dolls that used snap-on fashions and the same charm mechanic.

Personally, as a miniature doll enthusiast, I was pleasantly surprised to rediscover these recently. They're very cute and I always love decent customization options at this scale. Some are still available, so my trigger finger has been itching for a few hours now...

And there you have it, a brief history of Gwen Stefani's two forays into the fashion doll market. Needless to say, Kuu Kuu Harajuku's slow death by poisoned ratings thanks to Nickelodeon did not do wonders for the brand, and it shuttered after a year or so. However, I don't think it would have done much better otherwise. It was a bad time for dolls, just before the end of Monster High and Ever After High and the birth of the monster that was L.O.L. Surprise, and the concept was kind of clunky overall.

Still, the product was good, and so it should be remembered.

fourteenwings

I recently acquired Bratz Babyz Hair Flair Yasmin, as well as Cave Club Slate. Yasmin is not of the milk carton variety, but her outfit is pretty tiny despite her also tiny body.

What struck me about both dolls is the immense size of their heads, especially Slate. Slate's head is probably just the same size as my Ever After High dolls, but after collecting smaller scale things for quite a while now it seems gimongous.

And surprisingly enough, despite only being a third as tall, Babyz Yasmin's head is bigger!

I always thought the Bratz Babyz Hair Flair line was originally in the pipeline as the Bratz Babyz Princess line, but the name was changed at some point.



Regardless, I'm quite blown away by the quality of her packaging (and her hair, it looks great). MGA has always really been Grade A when it comes to packaging.

I'd like to get Cloe or Meygan from this series too, but that's quite the tall order. That's not even starting on the various other Bratz Babyz or just Bratz in general things that I'd like.

The only other doll in any feasible reach in terms of Hair Flair is Fianna, and she's sort of just Yasmin in pink.

I may take pictures when I open her. This is one really big part of toys from the 2000s, so I feel it should be better documented.

Slate is part of the Cave Club, Mattel's new doll line for this year. It seems to have wowed buyers a bit more that Wild Hearts Crew, which came and went in the span of months and never left the US.



From left to right; Tella (Slate's twin sister, the one who likes astronomy), Fernessa (the earth-huggy one), Emberly (the inventor one), Roarlai (the animal lover one), and Slate (the artist one).

I think Mattel did really well with this line. Great faces, crimped hair for almost half of them*, and good articulation. I don't quite get the no-shoes, even if they are cavemen, but I bet it keeps production costs way lower than usua.

*Everybody with curled hair rather than crimped seems to have very bad quality hair, though for now that's just the two incarnations of Fernessa.

From this line, I'd really like to get both incarnations of Roaralai (her signature and her playset look) and maybe the signature Emberly. Though unlike with Bratz, I'm quite happy with just Slate.

I think that, like with Mattel's other "under-the-radar" doll line Enchantimals, these will be around quite a while. Though I see a "stripped of articulation" budget release somewhere along the line too.

I should also mention that whilst Cave Club typically has very cute art, whoever is drawing the comics needs to be fired immediately:



They look like parodies of themselves.

In other news, the second series of Rainbow High minidolls is being teased, and just like with the first there's a boy I would love to own, Xavier Scarab.



He's rightmost second row from the top.

However, I'm not going to pay for a blind-packaged 1/16 chance of getting him, and that's without accounting for the rarities. He's gold, so he might even be the highest rarity.

Other highlights in this doll line For Kids include Dahlia Noir (leftmost middle row, named after this) and a purple Japanese-themed one named "Obi Willow".

There's also yet another "Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz" themed one from an MGA line named "Dorothy Petal" (second left, fourth row from the top). I think L.O.L. Surprise has already done basically every character from The Wizard of Oz at this point. Popular shortpacked character Bhaddie is even based on Griselda the Wicked Witch of the West, and has one of the most packed families in L.O.L. Surprise despite only debuting in Series 5.

I don't actually want to write about the Monster High and Ever After High era of Mattel but I guess I could sometime?

I was almost spurred on to speed this up for a few hours when I heart chatter about a new Monster High line coming out next year, but it was just typical Mattel PR responses on instagram under a post about Barbie, so who even cares.

Otherwise, writing about Monster High isn't really a priority for me. After Bratz and before Ever After High, I was slightly ambivalent towards dolls and didn't follow things as much as I used to. Nowadays I'm probably following things even more closely though.

fourteenwings

Of all the toy makers out there, Spin Master is currently my favorite. Based in Canada, they produce lots of smaller scale fun stuff that I can turn my brain off to obsess over. They first caught my attention with Bakugan, but the reasons I like them are far removed from that series nowadays, even with the reboot.

Since it's coming to an end in it's main form, I should cover their last major franchise; Hatchimals. The franchise recently celebrated it's 5th Anniversary by... ceding it's channel to a new brand! Fun!

Hatchimals, like most toy brands that hit it big, started out with a Christmas hit. The first ever Hatchimals toys were interactive animatronic toys disguised as plush animals that came in eggs. By "playing" with the egg, the Hatchimal inside would "hatch" out (a process that was quite hit or miss if parents reviews on Amazon, year after year, are to be believed). Once hatched, the Hatchimals -like FurReal* before them- were like any other interactive pet.

*FurReal is Hasbro's long-running animatronic faux-plush toy brand that also releases new pets every Christmas season.

But that "hatch" process caught kid's attention, and Hatchimals became the massive hit of Christmas 2016.

These types of toys don't interest me, so I basically never paid attention and I honestly won't go through the animatronic toys in detail. Frankly, the first ever Hatchimals look kind of stupid:



But kids really really liked the hatching, I guess.

What I will say (from memory) is that every year, new Hatchimals were released around Christmas season (ie usually starting around now in October). The packaging for each egg featured two different looks for one Hatchimal species, usually with one or two sets being store exclusives.

Hatchimals weren't normal animals or typical mystical creatures. It's main market rival/Goliath in the corner FurReal has experimented with dinosaurs and dragons but they stick to like, puppies and bears mainly.

Hatchimals all come from a magical land called "Hatchtopia", where all animals have sparkly wings and are almost all mixes of normal animals and birds. There's also weird species like Draggles (Dragons and who knows what) and Unikeets (Unicorn parakeets).

So, as Hatchimals dominated year after year (well, in 2016 and 2017 really), Spin Master leveraged the brand and the Hatchtopia universe into... well, a lot.

First came Hatchimals CollEGGtibles, which were miniature (and I mean miniature) variations of the mainline Hatchimals, and this is where the brand expanded exponentially in terms of characters and lore. They come in tiny eggs that have a special sort of paper?/plastic?/iunno over them that you can crush beneath your fingers to "hatch" the mal inside.

The faces of the eggs were also printed with a special color-change ink that changed from purple to pink with heat. Therefore, you "needed" to rub the heart till it turned pink before "hatching" it with your fingers. Obviously, you didn't need to, and for goodness sakes the paint was very stubborn about changing colors, but it seemed fun enough.

The Hatchimals CollEGGtibles line was a hit, because it brought the series pricepoint from $60ish to $2-10 (depending on the set), and they sold like hotcakes.

At first.

The first two series, along with their various special editions, sold right off the shelves.


Season 3 came along to introduce Hatchimals Twins (who had bobble-heads and came in one egg) and Hatchimals BFFs (who came in separate eggs but could be fitted together for a BFF pose). That was also a success.

So much of a success that Spin Master really, really overproduced Season 4: Hatch Bright.


Season 4 was a tropical line where almost all the Hatchimals were translucent, so translucent that you could pass light through them to make them seem like they were shining. It featured 80 CollEGGtibles and over 19 locations in Hatchtopia.

This was also when Spin Master's social media machine poured a whole bunch of money into the line, creating at least three separate webseries featuring a whole cast of influencer-type girls.

So Season 4 sat on shelves, and continues to till this day. Even selling masses to discount stores in giant packaging doesn't seem to be helping alleviate the planet of this massive overproduction of tiny plastic figurines.



Of course, Spin Master didn't course correct right away, which meant that somehow, Season 5: Mermal Magic, was the most overhyped series the line had seen yet.

Mermal Magic featured the typical Hatchimals as mermaids, with various color change and water surprise features. It had many professional unboxing videos paid for by Spin Master's in house marketing (there were even seperate videos for separate playsets).

However, after Season 5's glut and Season 4's insistence on shelfwarming, they seemed to finally get it.

I should mention that Season 5 is also when yet another subseries was introduced; Hatchimals Pixies.

Hatchimals Pixies was born to compete with competitor collectible doll brands like the one I think everybody knows by now so won't bother mentioning.

They came in GIANT packaging and GIANT eggs and were still remarkably tiny.



The Pixies also lived in Hatchtopia and came from the same places as the Hatchimals.

I think Hatchimals Pixies is a pretty interesting evolution. The second series of Pixies, which was poorly distributed everywhere except somehow here (because Spin Master loves us for reasons unknown), featured the doe-eyed 50s inspired Pixies shunning their simplistic way of not wearing shoes and generally being One With Nature and donning royal regalia to celebrate themselves as being super pretty.

They coincided with Season 6 of the Hatchimals CollEGGtibles, which was the Royal Snow Ball collection. The Royal Snow Ball collection, trying to avoid the fate of Series 4, split itself across two waves; the Royal Hatch and then the Royal Snow Ball. Aside from packaging and the shifting of how limited editions were determined via egg color, there was no reason for the split aside from trying to convince store buyers that yes, they were buying two products that would shelfwarm, and not just one, and that would look better to some degree.

Few Pixies survived the transition from tree-hugger to monarchy; Wishing Star Willow (gold hair), Crystal Cassie (dark purple hair, gained a gold highlight in the second series), Piper (rightmost in the top row of the first series image), and Gracie (leftmost in the bottom row of the first series image, gains a giant yellow highlight in the second).

Wishing Star Willow came from Wishing Star Waterfall, Cyrstal Cassie from Crystal Canyon, Polar Piper from Polar somethingorother, Glittering Gracie came from Glittering Garden. Despite the brand being so big, cross-reference information ie the names of Pixies from season to season as well as where they're from is extremely hard to come by.

Somehow, these didn't appeal to children. I mean, who would have guessed with those vaguely baby/vaguely 50s bombshell faces.

So it was time for a revamp.



Here, we have the Hatchimals Pixies Vacay Style collection, which coincided with the Hatchimals CollEGGtibles Season 7, Pet Obsessed. In both series, the Hatchimals, having realized how irrelevant their brand homeland of Hatchtopia had become, visit Earth.

The Pixies go on Vacation, and the Hatchimals rip off Littlest Pet Shop.

Yes, despite the Hatchimals being animals themselves, they make Earth animals subservient to them (to be fair, the Hatchimals do have sentience). This series featured Hatchy 'Hearts' rather than Eggs, so both Hatchimal and it's pet could inhabit one Hatching Pod.



And now, I realize why I've been putting this post off for so long! It's way too much ground to cover at once.

For now, I think this is a good stopping point.

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Before I go on, I should mention that at some point between the Pixies revamp and CollEGGtibles season 7, Hatchimals released a plush collection of toys known as Hatchtopia Life.

These were mini plush toys, about a hair taller than the Pixies. Because if there's one thing Spin Master can sell, it's empty space inside packaging.



In addition, there was a separate collectible card-game toyline that combined the hatching eggs experience of the CollEGGtibles and Pixies with the new Bakugan card game, that was called Dragamonz, and it lasted two series before it retired.


Pictured; Hatchimals for your cousin who thinks farts are a real joke.

Hatchtopia Life plush toys came with a mystery code for the newly-introduced Hatchtopia Life mobile game. An additional code was included for your "Best Hatch Friend Forever", so that they could ensure maximum peer pressure as soon as one kid in a friend group got one. Later on, other toys in the Hatchimals line also started coming with a similar thing.

As far as I can see, the Hatchtopia Life toys may be done, but the game rakes in cash via microtransactions and so it'll probably continue with codes being inserted into toys for quite a while.

Anyways, Spin Master had poured a bunch of money into Hatchimals (and even Dragamonz) at this point, creating animated webseries that had gone on for two seasons.

But the main product of the series, the big Hatching animatronics, were flagging in sales, so they decided to go big.

Enter the Llamacorn.



I mean, do I need to explain what this thing did? It seems quite obvious; it had a giant springy neck that stretched out an insane amount, and Spin Master hoped kids would love it.

Well, last year was also the year of the L.O.L. Surprise Amazing Surprise, which was so hyped up that it's commercial just featured little girls yelling in excitement for 30 seconds rather than prominently featuring any product.

So yeah, it bombed. So bad that entering another Christmas season it's not rare to see it still available from primary online retailers, and at a 50%+ discount.

So the brand needed a rework. After shuttering the major production department for their social media videos (something they probably wished they'd waited on until March so they could blame certain circumstances), Spin Master released very few new Hatchimals products.

In fact, the Vacay Style Pixies were split into two collections; Pink and Purple Passport. Pink Passport Pixies (such positively passionate alliteration!) visited various parts of the globe, whilst the Purple Passport Pixies visited America. The five Purple Passport Pixies came out after the Pink Passport ones are practically impossible to find outside of Amazon's exclusive Pixie 2-Packs.

Finally, as we hit the end of the first half of the year, Spin Master finally started promoting a new series for the CollEGGtibles and their Pixies. Notably missing is any new animatronic Hatchimals.

The Pixies and CollEGGtibles came out with Cosmic Candy collections, where they went to space because I guess that's what you do when you're an irrelevant magical creature. Notably, no Pixies returned from the previous collections.

For both Hatchimals and Pixies, this series marked the first where the majority of the eggs did not "Hatch", but were keepsakes instead, for storage purposes.



In addition to the Cosmic Candy collection, Hatchimals Pixies has a new "Riders" collection, featuring giant Hatchimals and some mythology that is poorly explained in a new commercial.

As far as I'm concerned, after the Pixies decided to give the royalty thing a break and headed to Earth, two factions broke out. The ones who saw Hatchtopia as a lost cause, and the ones who loved their home... realm and wished to return. Those factions are Cosmic Candy and Riders.

Clearly the Riders are winning the war because they got articulated legs (and I mean giant wild beasts and their beck and call). You'd think the ones who won the space race would be in the lead but nope.



There's also a somewhat "secret" collection of Hatchimals Pixies that came out recently. Featuring real hair and magical tails, there's the Hatchimals Pixies Mermaids. It seems these were meant to come out earlier (to coincide with Season 5 maybe?), or their coming out was a production glitch, because they were only released to like one store in Australia and possibly the UK.

There's a similar thing with a Vacay Style playset, but the Mermaids are more limited.

And what about the animatronic toys? Well, Spin Master officially unveiled a whole new brand called Present Pets.



Whilst, again, I don't care about robot stuffed animals, I look forward to the inevitable mini collectible puppy toys (and maybe their dog groomer friends who also happen to be highly marketable dolls).

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Lately I've been really taken with a number of action figures, but I don't know if I should invest (heh, "invest") in that direction.

Some random stuff.



I was unaware that Kuu Kuu Harajuku came out with even more spindly basic dolls with much less articulation. They're very cute.



Similarly, I didn't know Bratz dolls with elaborate boxes (see the Princess picture higher in the thread) came out with simpler more standard Bratz styled boxes. There were similar ones for Genie Magic.

And as was talking about Hatchimals CollEGGtibles earlier, I need to mention the best of said mini-Hatchimals; the Aligoo (yes that's the actual name);

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I finally got round to taking those pictures of Bratz Babyz Yasmin!



It's just the outer shots of the box, but I think they're worth noting. I like that the handle to her box features her "icon" (a frog) and also a little guide of what Bratz Babyz products were available so you immediately forget about what you have in your hands to daydream about what could be...

The art is really weird with these Hair Flair dolls, and a lot of the later Bratz Babyz releases share it, but the art on the booklet -the original art- is pretty good.

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For some reason I only recently watched Polly Pocket: 2 Cool at the Pocket Plaza, which is the only animated Polly Pocket original video animation before the Pollyworld! movie. That movie is still one of my top 10 animated movies based on a fashion doll line.

I wonder if I should write out that top 10 sometime.

Archiving post from IJBMU;

For old times sake I happened upon two Playmobil Boys Series 18 figures and grabbed them. The first one I got was a rocker guy!



He looks like the sort who plays black metal and cuts chicken's throats as performance art.



I like that his bald head easily alternates to "old aging rocker".

The other was just a typical pilot guy.

I have just finished watching Polly Pocket: 2 Cool at the Pocket Plaza on a nostalgic lark. It is the first ever animated Polly Pocket special, which introduces her cousin Pia Pocket.

Finding out that My Scene is just a TV show in the Polly Pocket universe is quite disturbing.

I also updated my Hairdorables post somewhat, and I'm considering doing the same for my Kuu Kuu Harajuku post.

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Polly Pocket is a franchise that spans several iterations and variations, but the two main lines have always been the miniature Polly Pocket playsets that fit inside your pocket and the Fashion Polly! dolls that were introduced by Mattel in the late 90s.

I've never had much interest in the miniature sets. By the time the inital run ended, I was probably too young to care about toys. However, I quickly took an interest in Fashion Polly after my rides on other Mattel trains such as Barbie and My Scene waned.

Like My Scene, Fashion Polly remains close to my heart, and I'm quite glad it's remained in production till this day. Also like My Scene, Fashion Polly dolls seem to do well for Mattel in markets outside the US, and so it's hard to get information on what lines are in and out at the moment.


An early Fashion Polly set.

Fashion Polly dolls have a long winding history that is filled with reboot after reboot starting around 2006. The first years were simple enough, here's Polly and her ever-growing catalogue of friends (and cousins, and at one point a sister who thankfully never appeared again), buy their toys.

Polly Pocket is quite the mini-doll, and she can still indeed fit in your pocket at Fashion size. However, good luck trying to fit one of her playsets and cars with her.

She's usually dressed in plastic "Polly Stretch'' clothing, and this is one of my favorite things about her. Fabric clothing has no shape or personality when it isn't draped on a doll, but Polly Stretch clothing can strike it's own poses and make a statement in your imagination. It makes it fun to just look at them.

Sure, there are dark ages when the Polly Stretch is abandoned for Quik-Clik pieces that are hard plastic and snap together. Those can be nice to look at, but they end up being boxy or just outright strange. They also just don't feel as nice as Polly Stretch material.



Quik-Clik Lila smiles through the embarrassment.

Polly's hair is usually hard-plastic, but sometimes an overzealous Mattel executive gets the idea to give her 'real' hair and at her scale it's never that great. Worse still are the boys who get hair, they look quite weird after years of wear and tear.

Fashion Polly's first ever friends were Lila and Shani, and the current 2018 iteration maintains those namesakes. Though Lila has undergone a makeover and now looks like Lea, whilst keeping her original fashion-obsessed personality. Shani also kept her love of music, but gained a pair of glasses and some STEM interests since that's what's in nowadays.


Lila... you look... different...

Polly's never fail male companion was once a blond boy who vaguely looked like her brother due to everybody's sameface named Rick.


Flower Power Rick, who actually existed.

Nevertheless, they were romantically paired at points in a vague way, though Polly briefly broke up with him to date 'Drew'. Much like Barbie broke up with Ken to date Blaine.On the bright side, at least Drew was a brunette, both Ken and Blaine are practically the same shade of blonde.


Drew was also a victim of the "Real Hair!" craze.

I'm assuming Rick sought solace in the fact that the new boy shared a name with a Barbie Fashion Fever friend.


The one and only Drew is not amused.

One thing that began to differentiate Polly from her more popular successful peers such as Barbie and My Scene's Kennedy was her love of adventure. Around 2006/7, just before the first reboot, Polly was portrayed in her various media as being fun-loving and adventurous.


At this time, Polly had dumped short-term friend Ana ("Nobody ever liked her anyways," says Beth, probably.) and was hanging out with quite the large crew consisting of Lila, Shani, Crissy, Lea, Rick and Rick's only male friend as well as Lila's sometimes boyfriend Todd. At some point, there was also another Ana/Lila/Crissy look alike called Kerstie. She lasted longer than Ana, but not by long.

In both the 2 Cool at the Pocket Plaza special DVD and Pollyworld! movie, Polly had a rival named Beth who was unfortunately never made into a doll.


Beth (centre) and her two friends.

The Barbie Diaries movie got Raquelle made into a doll and then she became a Barbie mainstay for at least a decade and a half (albeit after a reboot that made her vaguely Italian or Asian depending on the year), why couldn't Beth get the same amount of love?

Polly's friends frequently came off as samey and I spent a lot of my youth confusing Lila for Crissy and vice-versa because they were both brunettes. It didn't even get better once Crissy became Hispanic.

The first real Polly Pocket reboot, I'd say, was when it all became about Sparklin' Pets in 2007/8. Of course, pet lines were a mainstay in Pollyla-world before, but Sparklin' Pets took it to another level. Polly herself seemed to be taking a sidestep (with her rooted hair, yes it was one of those times) to the pets, and whole waves of tiny pet toys were released that didn't come with dolls.



There were even blind-bags that just came with pets as if Mattel genuinely though copying Littlest Pet Shop was a good idea! I actually don't know how popular Littlest Pet Shop was back then, because I've never been a fan (though I did get a bit engrossed after the G6 reboot and finding this site) but maybe this was some sort of follow-the-leader type deal.


Pictured: No Polly at all.

After that brief period that we should all forget, Mattel released a limited number of sets under the Polly Pocket Pop n Swap banner in 2009. They acted like Off the Hook dolls, with body parts being switchable across the line. These seemed to have been pulled for some reason, rather than allowed to fail on the market.



Shame, because I'd even forgive the miniature rooted hair for these. They were pretty cute.

Polly came back in late 2010 with a whole new face and vibrant 3DCG look and world. However, they hadn't abandoned the pets concept yet.

The 2010 reboot featured Polly and her gaggle of makes (minus poor Todd who hasn't been seen since) traversing magical lands they had access to in some unknown manner. The worlds were:

• 'Electropop World', a music themed affair
• 'Goodie World', a somewhat typical candyland
• 'Splashtopia', apparently not a world? Anyways, they all became mermaids there, usually
• 'Garden World', quite obvious, except I think they were all Thumbelina sized or something
• And obviously, 'Pollyworld' for all the miscellaneous non-other-world toy releases for that year

Pollyworld, Goodie World, and Splashtopia.

Each world was inhabited by animal/object hybrids known as Cutants, most of which looked like they came right out of your nightmares.

Still, they trucked on releasing Cutants, even going as far as to release them in solo packs without Polly. Most are still available ten years later, which tells you exactly why they should have never existed in the first place.



The Polly In The Worlds years spanned several 3DCG cartoons and faces, most of which were fine except for the most-often used one (pictured above) that made everybody in the Polly Pocket universe look like they had been crying their eyes out for days.

I hated this face with a passion, and I also disliked what happened to Polly in these years. She was treated, along with her action-adventure theming, like an action figure. Dolls frequently didn't come with separate clothing as they opted for painted on looks, there were a disturbing number of color change features in every other line, and my goodness have I mentioned the face?


We all must endure the face.

After a while, the Cutants were dropped, but the line remained stale outside of a few releases where the team at Mattel regained their sanity and released a cute doll with Polly Stretch clothing. Around 2016, everything I loved about Polly Pocket came back wholesale with a really great face, but interest in the line seemed dead (outside of Japan for some reason).


Pictured: A super great set. And is that... Todd, in the background???

As the line started to fizzle, Mattel decided it was time for yet another reboot around 2018. This one is mainly focused on the 20 year old concept of the playsets that fit in your pocket, but thankfully still includes Fashion Polly dolls.

In the 2018 reboot, Rick was replaced with a boy called Nicholas, whilst Lea and Crissy were dropped entirely.


Lila, Nicholas, Polly, and Shani.

As much as I loved Rick, Nicholas is a pretty solid addition to the Polly Pocket world too. If only he and Rick could coexist...



The 2018 reboot has been quite bountiful in releases for Fashion Polly dolls, but the actual releases are hard to come by online and collect information on unless the product just reaches where you are physically.

As much as I like the reboot lineup, I think the return of Crissy or a similar brunette would be greatly appreciated to the Fashion Polly world. Collecting the same four dolls over and over can get a bit much.

But half the fun of this hobby is the chase, and the information that's just out there somewhere that you have to find. Most of all, I'm glad that the line goes on!

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I've been up to my old habits lately, trawling the internet for pictures of old toys.

I have a number of doozies to file under Bratz.

This box looks fine and dandy with not much to comment on until you notice Dylan's pose in the artwork!



Is he actually trying to preserve his modesty or something? It's super cute. Too bad actual Dylan isn't articulated enough to replicate it.



The first year of Bratz Boyz saw a slew of fashion packs released to go along with them, and this was Cade's.

I'm not exactly sure why Cade wants to look slammin' (it's a Bratz word I assure you) for his 'Boyz' at like 11:30PM or whatever, and why are teenage boys visiting each other regularly at this hour anyways (enough for Cade to even start dressing up)?

Plus, in the artwork, is Cade trying to pickpocket Koby? What's going on guys?

In even more inappropriate Bratz content;



I have absolutely no idea how a line about the Bratz moving to Las Vegas to become Pussycat Dolls or burlesque dancers of another sort (or I mean, streetwalkers) got approval but it did.

I mean, the art alone is a lot. When I was a kid, I did genuinely think people who talked about Bratz being "inappropriate" were just "uncool" but now I really do see it.

Not that I wouldn't buy this doll if she didn't cost like $100 nowadays.



I'll finish off with a Bratz doll that really captured my imagination as a kid (and is now wildly expensive); Sweet Dreamz Pajama Party Kumi. I was really into light blue back then. And she was Japanese too. Just like in the animes!

I think oddly enough the only Kumi made aside from this was from the Ooh La La Paris line, and I've probably mentioned before that the deluxe doll from the Tokyo A-Go-Go line was Chinese rather than Japanese.

I have no idea why she's wearing a scarf to a sleepover.

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Yeah, I don't know either.

This seems to be a new direction for the Disney Princess minis. No more Royal Clips, which I'm glad about despite the line's short run when compared to Little Kingdom. I think I'll try to get my hands on this after the rush of the Christmas season.

You've probably guessed by now that this isn't a massive motorized Cinderella cake.



It opens up into a playset! I'm pretty sure that this is her Royal Clips face, but the body seems different. She even has separate shoes now which seems iffy considering how tiny those would be.

As always; I like the doll and fashions but could do without the massively weird playset.

Stormtroper

For a minute I thought that skirt was supposed to be some kind of bird cage.

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That would be a cool idea for a music video or something.

Since Cinderella is only the first, it's possible that Belle's set will be centered around a rose and that might sort of look like a birdcage.

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So when I'm looking through stuff, I usually come across a new, stupid form of Monopoly. Hasbro has been milking Monopoly constantly with new editions, but it's usually not a big enough deal to gawk at for more than two moments.

Until I found something new on Hasbro's site; Monopoly merchandise that costs a fortune!



Putting together this outfit that barely looks Monopoly related costs almost $500.

I'm not sure who this is aimed at, because I've seen less expensive lounge sets that are a million times more stylish than this green/orange/pink nightmare on Saks Fifth Avenue's site for at least $200 less, and those were like, designer. Ralph Lauren, sure, but still more designer than the Monopoly guy.

There's also drawstring lounge pants;



And a $500+ set of snowboards?



In terms of regular Monopoly ridiculousness, there's quite a bit.



BLACKPINK Monopoly, for when you want to convince your teen daughter to play Monopoly because it's cool but she's not buying it unless K-pop is involved.

Possibly also a reference to how Korean Business Empires that own showbusiness companies that own (quite literally contractually own) groups like BLACKPINK operate.



My Hero Academia Monopoly, because nothing says justice like screwing all your fellow players over.



Unicorns vs Llamas Monopoly, when you want to destroy a young child's fascination with stupid candy-colored things promoted heavily by marketers by associating them with a game in which morality is malleable.



In which Hasbro decides the only way to show women how #bossgirl they are is by preemptively and severely nerfing male players.



Yeah, I was also confused by this one. It's apparently quite anti-socialist (and anti-vegan and so on).

It sounds harder (if not outright impossible) to win than normal.

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Back to Cinderella; this line is called, Disney Princess Secret Styles. Cinderella's set is called the Cinderella Story Skirt.

Which should not be confused with Hasbro's other Cinderella's Story Skirt;



This doll had a skirt that changed color when water was applied to the white bit, showing off a scene from the movie.



The packaging seems weird, as if Hasbro's commitment to eco-friendliness has led them into a bunch of bad decisions. I'm assuming that kids really like to see what they're getting in the box (which makes the popularity of something like L.O.L. Surprise confusing) but it'd be unwieldy if it were all included in the skirt, so there's a separate box of stuff to the side.

I'd really prefer it if Cinderella were encased in a plastic shell to protect her as is typically done. I mean, she's already made of plastic and Hasbro's whole business model is expending our limited hydrocarbon supply to sell us hunks of plastic so a bit more won't really concern me (in fact I'd much prefer it). Plus, the protective shell would basically be the equivalent of a disposable plastic lunch or fruit tray, which we expend daily.

If they keep insisting on mostly cardboard packaging, then just stick Cinderella in there too with a picture of her on the outer box.

I guess since these days things are mostly online she'll just be shipped in a protective outer box but it makes getting her at retail a much less appealing, not to mention finding her in mint condition in 10 years time will be impossible.

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Unbox 7! Surprises including exclusive but credible rumors of slave labor!

glennmagusharvey

5040 surprises is a lot

[/math joke]

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For some reason I felt like doing this.

My Top 10 Bratz dolls

Now, Bratz was a big part of my childhood and teen years. I loved Bratz dolls, and I ended up eventually having quite a bit (though I missed a lot of the early stuff). There were lots of Bratz dolls over the years, and I thought it would be fun to go through all of them to see which ones were my absolute favorites.

If you don't know what Bratz is, they were a series of teen dolls made by the upstart (now juggernaut) MGA Entertainment. The line followed Cloe, Yasmin, Jade and Sasha (as well as their about 200 other friends, including Boyz) and their adventures in their hometown of Stilesville and beyond.

Without further ado, let's begin in reverse order!

10. Bratz Party Jade

There was no way I would do this list without including something from the post-2010 reboot from when MGAE regained the license from the brief period during which Mattel owned it. When these dolls came out, I was in a bit of a nippy phase and so I just basically hated everything.

There were legitimate reasons to hate the stuff that came out later. The hair quality was bad, outfit quality was questionable and there was a missing "spark" that is also present here. Similarly, the dolls were very conservatively dressed and covered up, as if this was a Moxie Girlz line that had been repurposed for Bratz.

However, the Party dolls did still make an impression on me, and I liked several. I really love Jade's jacket with the East-Asian inspired closures and her poofy pink skirt, though her second outfit leaves a lot to be desired. She even comes with that detestable high-heeled sneaker mold that became prominent in later years (here in pink).

I think this line was designed by Youngsin Kwon, a half-Korean designer/creative director who is basically the explanation for why MGAE's doll lines from later years had oddly K-Pop theme songs (like Novi Stars). MGAE CEO Isaac Larian may be a typical square with a foul mouth on LinkedIn, but he's good at picking winners in the cultural market. MGAE basically predicted the coming of mainstream K-Pop in a way.

9. Bratz Forever Diamondz Sharidan

I hope there isn't an obvious pattern to my choices in terms of characters, but here's yet another raven-haired character. I actually don't like the Bratz Forever Diamondz line much, and this isn't even because I never owned any of them (if I owned a doll, I'll mention it, most of these I never owned). Something about everybody having the same repetitive look in Bratz didn't fly as well as it does in a line like My Scene.

But there's something about the color combination on Sharidan that really elevates her look. I'll even forgive the dangly earrings and random inclusion of a pair of bare feet, which was also a big trend with Bratz at the time.

8. Bratz Genie Magic Meygan

When I started out thinking this through, I certainly never thought any Meygan dolls would make the list. I was never a big fan of her, she just seemed wishy-washy in terms of being a character since she was the first one introduced after the main four but never attained main character status.

I also don't really love the Genie Magic line that much, but the color combination for her first outfit is just pretty stunning to me. I love the teal skirt a lot. What really makes her "Top 10" material for me are those giant knee-high boots that come with her second outfit. They're epic, and I don't think any other iteration of them works as well as this one.

7. Bratz Fashion Stylitz Leah

Several options on this list are actually characters who weren't my favorite from the line initially, but after much thought actually turned out to be the best. Funnily enough, if this is the case I'll tend to gravitate towards a dirty blonde character.

Here we have Leah, who is a Bratz character I did actually like (mainly because I owned her Play Sportz Skateboarding doll, otherwise I wouldn't even actually remember her name). Fashion Stylitz was an epic line overall, not just in the final looks but also the super-cute utility belts each doll came with. I would have picked Yasmin, but her head-scarf is somehow off-putting. I'd initially picked Cloe from this line, but whilst her look is great, it's somehow vaguely simple.

I think Leah's skirt length and bustier really make her the best of the bunch. There's something really cool and glamorous about being behind-the-scenes of fashion, and I think this line captures that whole concept perfectly.

6. Bratz Ooh La La Dana

I knew this list wouldn't be complete without an Ooh La La doll, specifically Kumi!

Oh uh, wait.

Well yeah, after examining the two dolls closely, I found that I preferred the Ooh La La Dana doll. Her dirty blonde hair and somewhat muted outfit really sold the look to me. I like the concept of this line a lot; a trip to France (where everybody is dressed like they're about to shout "Ma Cherie!" at the top of their lungs for no reason).

It really captured my imagination as a kid, and it actually still does today (albeit with a concern for that jarringly high skirt length).

5. Bratz Sweet Dreamz Pajama Party Yasmin

I knew this list wouldn't be complete without a Sweet Dreamz Pajama Party doll, specifically Kumi!

Wait, no way. Again?

Well, yeah. In general, Bratz didn't do pink very well, but when it worked, it was always on Yasmin. Whilst the Kumi from this line is pretty great, Yasmin has a great color combination with the green detailing, and that blonde/brunette subterfuge makes her a standout Yasmin.

Bratz was chock full of sleepover lines, and whilst many people have fond memories of the lines where they have a bit more clothing like Sleepover or Nighty Nite, I find that the PJs of this line are very indicative of the time. You could totally see a character from The Clique rocking one of these outfits.

4. Bratz Rock Angelz Jade

This list wasn't going to be complete without at least one of the Bratz Rock Angelz. This was the first time, I think, that Bratz proved it was truly versatile and could be a doll line that could adapt to any concept. As a fan of the Avril/scene aesthetic, this line really spoke to me. Not just in doll form, but with all the amazing artwork that came with it.

So why Jade? I think her white hair is what really puts her over the top. Her pseudo-monochrome look just works very well.

3. Bratz Passion 4 Fashion (Wave 4) Yasmin

The only Bratz foll on this line from the later years before the 2010 'reboot'. All I know is the first time I saw this Yasmin, I knew she was an epic doll. The flowy pink babydoll combined with all that lace was basically an unbeatable combo for me. I know it's basically a rework of several things, including the original Moxie Girlz Sophina top, but on Yasmin it just works.

Her second riding outfit, once again, left much to be desired being a later on release.

I'd venture to say that this wave of Passion 4 Fashion, which was basically a mish-mash of lots of different lines (including three new characters) was probably it's best ever incarnation.

2. Bratz Girlz Really Rock Jade

A doll from right before the 'later' years took hold, it's yet another Rock-themed Jade? What's not to love? The black/pink combo, the little space buns, the stripey socks? She's basically perfect right down to the little plastic zippers on her skirt and those cool chunky boots.

I didn't really mention accessories for a lot of these dolls, but Jade's guitar here has to be the coolest possible Bratz accessory. Her keyboards not too bad to have around either.

Once again, her second outfit is something I'd rather not have. I actually had this doll, and the mesh on her first look (which I love) made it very hard to get that top on and off with her finicky, rubberized-plastic fingers.

1. Bratz Princess Yasmin

Whilst Bratz Rock Angelz is a seminal line for the Bratz series, I have no qualms in saying that the best ever overall Bratz doll line was Bratz Princess. The way that it combined the playful, out there style that Bratz had come to encapsulate with the softer looks of the princess aesthetic was absolutely perfect.

And of this most perfect of lines, Yasmin was the most brilliant of them all. Her color combos with the pink/purples and her black, diamond studded shoes just made it impossible to pick anybody else. Funnily enough, this Yasmin was also one of my first ever Bratz dolls.

fourteenwings

September Toys

So last month I kind of blew all my toy budget right at the start of the month because there were a bunch of L.O.L. Surprise! tots in stock at my usual toy tore. I got two Remix sets and two of the Series 6 All Star Sports series.

That's four L.O.L.s cost a whole bunch more than you'd expect (basically as much as two standard Rainbow High dolls and Rainbow High is the most expensive doll line out right now) because MGAE products around here always cost about 70% more than what they cost otherwise. Even if I'd just had them shipped from elsewhere it'd be cheaper but they were right there which is what I always get in trouble with when it comes to toys.

Aside from that, I got this He-Man and Skeletor 2-Pack from the new Netflix cartoon.



I'm... not sure why I got this, maybe just because it was there?. I like them both well enough and I really like their torso articulation but this isn't really my thing overall. Probably won't keep either of them.

A few months ago I saw somebody post on instagram about this new 4" Fortnite Solo Mode figure; Summer Drift.



It seems like it's the "Summer Wear" version of this more iconic character. I have been checking all the places I usually get stuff from but he hasn't popped up yet (I don't really do Amazon US anymore for toys because the shipping cost gets quite out of hand). The only place he seems to be online is Target US which is another no-go for me.

However when looking him up for the sixteenth time I saw some other Fortnite Solo Mode figures I liked, and I was buying some books online anyways, so I got UnPeely (Summer ver.) and Raz (Glyph Master). I have no idea who these characters are in game-context but I like them as figures. For four inches, they're pretty articulated.

I find that these action figures were all sort of uh... not the best use of money. At least the LOLs I talked about and took pictures of (not very good pictures) but the action figures ended up in my drawer within an hour of getting out of the box. I thought I'd like them more.

Up till last month I still had this thing where I wasn't going to get proper 10-12" dolls, but I was also avoiding buying LEGO.l I think that might be why I got all these random action figures. However from now on I think that typical dolls be the majority of my purchases. I have severe FOMO that has lasted about 3-5 years doll-wise so hopefully I'll be able to control my spending.

At the end of last month there were these Chelsea mini sets that I just couldn't bring myself to justify buying because I'd already gotten everything else, and this month I've been pretty good so far (no spoilers for next months post).

I almost jumped the gun on some Barbie Extra Minis (purple on the bottom right and blonde/brunette on the bottom left, if it was the blonde in the metallic pink on the top there's no way I could have resisted) but managed to stop myself at the last minute.

fourteenwings

Today I got the L.O.L. O.M.G. Remix Honeylicious doll.

I kind of feel like I only did so because if I didn't I'd think about it forever.

Nowadays I feel like I watch dolltubers more to just watch them than because I actually want to buy any of the stuff they review.

I also specifically don't like LOL OMG that much at all but then if I never own even one of them ever then it means I'll never own one of them ever.

Anyways, it turns out that out of the four Remix girls, she is probably the one I actually should get even if I don't like her the most.


LtR: Pop B.B., Kitty K, Honeylicious and Lonestar.

Kitty K has the whole "It's Ariana Grande!!" thing that was big in dolls for a while (L.O.L. has even done it twice, at least so far). I was charmed by the novelty at first but now I feel like it's too popular a trend and so I don't like it. Her first outfit also has her in that shawl thing that looks like she should be a sleepover doll instead.

Pop B.B. is literally Madonna but as much as I like the doll her outfit is possibly the worst, and Lonestar isn't even worth mentioning at all. Who actually likes these Western dolls because she isn't the only one they've put out.

I guess Honeylicious (this name is atrocious and also not a rarity amongst O.M.G.s ie "Neonlicious) is at least the one with the least number of hang-ups. I don't really like dolls with braids instead of hair but I don't even like O.M.G.s anyways.

EDIT: nvm this is cope I wish they'd had Kitty K instead.

I should probably do an October compilation of stuff I got but maybe later.

fourteenwings

I feel lazy but this is a good place to put my recent purchases anyways. If I don't I'll be back here in six months staring and thinking "October 2022 compilation?" to myself.

Okay so here's what I got recently;



These three Ken dolls! They're actually Fashionistas #162, #183 and #203, all from different waves (waves are usually 10-12 dolls, plus the 3 wheelchair MtMs, so 15ish).

I always thought #162 one would be very popular, to "#15/Hip Hoodie" levels of popular, but it seems nobody really cares for these anymore since there are "better" doll lines out there (Rainbow High and etc).

#183 I knew wouldn't be popular, and I got him basically because he was like... there. I've actually already had one of him, but I got rid of him, and then earlier this month I felt oddly sad about that so I'm glad I found him again.

Plus, he looks pretty cohesive next to #184, who I already got late last year (soon after my last post).



#203 is the newest of that batch, from the current (nvm the Smiling Kens* are out already) almost current wave. He was one of the most interesting Kens to me because I though #183 was probably the darkest they were ever going to go in terms of skin-tone, but they went even further I guess!

In terms of outfits, #162's is bad, but the base doll is amazing. #183 looks kind of like a theater geek on his day off (the pudgy "broad" body is not working for that head mold, and it's honestly a waste of that amazing head-mold), and I want to like #203's outfit a lot but there are hitches here and there. The cut of that shirt is not flattering, and the arrow pattern should have probably just been a stripe.

Again, the base doll is pretty good.

I'm betting that at least one of you is wondering "why are they all black guys". Well, the toy store I usually go to is not an official distributor of toys so they don't get whole assortments in. I think their business model is to get failed stock from other countries and bring it here. The intersection of "black" and "Ken" is surprisingly*** not popular in Africa (and probably elsewhere, considering even Brooklyn Barbie's one male friend is Latino).

Speaking of unpopular dolls, I practically had a meltdown outside the store when I saw;



Rainbow High Junior High Skyler! All the way from Series 1 of JH, and like 7 of her (they're packed 3 characters to a box, so imagine all the Jades and Violets selling and her specifically just... not).

I know Skyler is unpopular in terms of the main six RHes but it was kind of a lot to just see just her.

I probably knew this at some point but all Rainbow High dolls have real eyelashes, as well as plastic eyes meant to mimic premium glass eyes.

I still don't 100% get why people l-o-v-e this brand but I like them well enough. I'll definitely get another Skyler and put her in my JH Krystal Bailey's outfit

JH Krystal being a doll I've had for over a year that I have not even opened but I only got her because she was a Junior High doll and my first ever Rainbow High doll. She's honestly my least favorite character and I think I've discussed why before.

She's not Karma Nichols (who is green themed and not purple and I like and this is dumb but I liked that she was like half-Indian or whatever and didn't have a super giant "I'm Indian!!!"* outfit) or Jett Dawson (who she replaced in the S2 line-up initially, who was then released as a Limited Edition "Art of Fashion" doll.)

I like this iteration of Skyler a lot, and there was a lot of variation in the ones they had so I picked the one with the softest make-up (and the most crushed box, sadly). I like her transparent plastic backpack, as well as her shoes which actually say cute stuff attached to the copyright on the side which is for some reason not shown in this picture.



I also saw these two Career dolls, and re:unpopularity of certain dolls, they had a billion of the one on the right (Pet Photographer) whereas they only had literally one of the Make-Up Artist. Personally, when I first saw promos of the Pet Photographer, I thought she was super cute and worth owning, but again collectors don't care for static Barbies (I need to do a post on articulation) so lucky me I guess?

Maybe this is just that thing where I have a penchant for picking the least popular X by instinct.

These dolls are also not actually the same size. The one on the left is a normal-size doll whereas Pet Photographer is a petite (about 3-5cm shorter). They just look like that due to me stitching two pictures together.

*I'll discuss this later. Hope I remember.

**saddish, since I get cool dolls anyways.

***not actually surprising.

I feel like I need to get you guys up to date on all the reasons I'm not buying X brand of dolls because X.

fourteenwings

Somebody mentioned how people played bootleg video games when they were younger due to availability, and it reminded me that whilst I mostly played all my bootlegs on a computer (GBA mostly, thank you VisualBoy), I did have a similar analogue in my childhood.

I remember when I was a kid, it was very rare to get like... "original" dolls that weren't Barbie (and even with Barbie there was a good 3/4 years when you couldn't get real ones either), so during my childhood we had lots of really random almost fake doll lines, but not really.

ie in the vein of like, Bratz if it was Mary-Kate and Ashley



There was...



For some reason as a child it never occurred to me that her name was "Eunice" (like a person) so I always called her "E-U"(like the regional grouping)"Nice"(like the place in France).

The logo for her "Wild Life" line is literally the same as the font Bratz used for a lot of stuff.

Maybe I secretly knew inside she was a fake so it was to make her seem cooler?

Though if you were a kid, it'd be hard to tell she was a fake. Even now she's not technically a "fake".

This is one of the two Eunices I had:



Apparently she was called "Vacation!! Yeah..." Eunice which is a name I can get behind, though personally I would have put the exclamation marks at the end.

The other was ladybug themed and she came with a dog, but I can't find her online anywhere. The other resources I found on a site called "ToyLeader", which seems to be a catalogue site for toys shipping straight from Hong Kong, or toys that shipped straight from Hong Kong when I was a kid like literally 18 years ago.


I vaguely remember wanting the pink version of this set so bad... Either that, or actually had it. I definitely remember having some of those accessories.


These I remember seeing, but I never owned any. Imagine the variety of having both blonde and red-headed Eunice! I might faint at the excitement.


There were also "Vivid Fairy" Eunices, these I'd never seen before but I'd like one for posterity.

According to ToyLeader website, they did make more obvious Barbie ripoffs, though decidedly more racy for no real reason.





Secret Agent Katie looks like either a Nazi or an Illuminati conspiracy thing. She also makes real shooting sounds! I wonder why she didn't catch on.

The internet makes nostalgia for old knockoff toys oddly easy.

I remember having a much more obvious Bratz knockoff from a line called "[Something] Teenz" who had bendy limbs, but I've never been able to find anything about her online.

Other nostalgic toys from my youth include the Passport Friends dolls. Honestly I never had even one of these but this commercial made me want them so bad.

Nowadays in terms of these "Well, they are actually dolls with their own brands but like come on not really", we have Sparkle Girlz, who have limbs like toothpicks but are actually kind of almost cute, and Hairmazing.

Wait, Hairmazing you ask, you mean like Hairmazing Hairdorables? Eyup, Just Play revived their own fashion doll brand as a bad knockoff of itself that's basically a Walmart exclusive. I saw one IRL the other day, but she didn't make me curious enough to pick her up to see what the quality is like.

With like, actually well-made dolls having exploded in presence once again the last few years, these sort of dolls aren't really on anyone's radar, including mine most of the time.

However the fact that the basic fantasy Sparkle Girlz and Hairmazing both have full fabric outfits whereas Barbie herself can't manage it is kind of impressive.

fourteenwings

I saw some of the budget LOL OMG dolls at the mall in this area, they're 2x the cost of the previous standard/deluxe OMGs I've bought before.

Surprisingly enough we got the box with the most dark skinned one, rather than the EU box which had her replaced or sometimes even just outright removed and not replaced.

Original set:



EU ver.:



When I was a kid MGAE never risked it with dark-skinned dolls (ie Sasha), and even nowadays I notice that the Disney Princess who gets left on the shelf most often here is Tiana.