Some play-line doll news

Kuu Kuu Harajuku dolls by Mattel / Gwen Stefani

I just found this promotional picture of the upcoming Kuu Kuu Harajuku dolls.  They'll be released in Spring 2017.  They're inspired by a cartoon of the same name that was produced by Gwen Stefani, about a girl band.  I think these new dolls are so cute, with their exaggerated, cartoonish look.  I like that there are different skin tones.  Gwen Stefani did a different doll line some years ago that I didn't like at all, but I'll definitely keep my eye out for these new girls.  It seems like they'll have bending elbows, wrists and knees, judging from this photo, but I can't say for sure yet.  I hope they'll come with the stands.

Bratz dolls being discontinued ... again

Apparently the new Bratz dolls didn't get quite the warm reception and mega sales that MGA Entertainment expected, so they're being discontinued again.  If you want any of the current dolls, you'd better grab them now before they disappear off the shelves.  I have no idea whether MGA will attempt to release new versions again later, or if they're discontinued for good.

Later,

More Retro Strawberry Shortcake dolls

After doing that last post, I was inspired to find the 2-packs of the new retro Strawberry Shortcake Classic Dolls that I was missing. I went to Walmart, and they had nothing. I went to Target, and was thrilled to find two out of the three 2-packs sitting on an endcap! I almost missed them, because they were above my eye level, and I'm short. LOL! Anyway, I got both sets. I'm only missing one 2-pack, now. 

 

There are also a couple of playsets that include a small house and a kitchen set. I'm not sure if I'm going to get those, since they just come with more Strawberry dolls. If they'd come with exclusive characters, I'd snap them up, but I don't really need FIVE of the same character.

Right now, this is the only way you can get Huckleberry Pie. He's so cute! With the addition of these packs, I now have a total of THREE retro Strawberrys, so one of them will have to be scalped and hopefully re-rooted with lavender hair when I find the time. 

Poor Strawberry #3.

   

The pets are fun. I always thought that yellow one was supposed to be a bear. LOL. I think I'm probably the only person in the world who didn't know it's a mouse.

 

I really like the clothes on these two girls. That pink dress is darling!

You can find my last two posts on the retro Strawberry Shortcake classic dolls here and here.

New Retro Strawberry Shortcake dolls, 2016!

Last year I reported that The Bridge Direct had released an accurate and perfect replica of the original Strawberry Shortcake doll from 1980. You can find my original post, here. This year, they gave her some friends!!! I was thrilled to see all of these in Toys R Us a couple of weeks ago, and had to buy all the ones I found. It was one 3-pack (a Toys R Us exclusive), and two individual dolls.  They're being sold under the name Strawberry Shortcake Classic Dolls.

The boxes came with a cute strawberry print background. 

   
I couldn't believe it. I always wanted these as a kid, and never had them. One of my cousins had the WHOLE LINE at the time, and I remember child-me being a little jealous of her.

I looked on The Bridge Direct web site, and apparently they've also released a few 2-packs that include the boy character Huckleberry Pie, and several of the pets, and Blueberry Muffin and Lemon Meringue in different outfits. (No Orange Blossom or Angel Cake? Awww.) I'll have to search around, since TRU didn't have 'em. 

Anyway, just wanted to show you these, and let people know they're available. They seem like the kind of thing that both adults and children would enjoy, since adults will of course like them for the nostalgia.

Click on the pictures to make them bigger.

 

Middle School Moguls

The Middle School Moguls are brand spankin' new for 2016. I first learned about these 11-inch dolls from their original Kickstarter, which raised just over $52,000 to get the line started. I liked the two original prototypes immediately. The tan-skinned, curly-haired Jada jumped into my online shopping cart. The blue-eyed blonde, McKenna, was adorable as well, but I figured I should hold off on ordering more than one. It was a new company, with a new line of toys, and I had no idea what to expect from the final production dolls.  (Sunny, the girl with the blue streaks in her hair, came later.)

The line went through a few changes while in production. McKenna got renamed McKinley when the company's owners learned Mattel already had "McKenna" trademarked. The original name of the line, iBesties, was switched to Middle School Moguls. The character Izzy, shown originally with brown hair, now has purple thanks to feedback they got from interviewing school-age kids. (Hey, who DOESN'T like purple hair?!) Six originally-planned characters were reduced to five in production.

   

The dolls are meant to encourage girls to be tech-savvy business entrepreneurs, with a mind for the S.T.E.M. fields -- science, technology, engineering and math. I think it's a nice background for the dolls, and more substantive than simply making them characters obsessed with fashion, hair and makeup. Nice.

The Moguls just debuted in some Target superstores this October.

Anyway, I wanted to give you my impressions.

 

The ones I got were Jada and Sunny. They're cute and elfin, with a quirky body shape with big, round tummies and bums, and relatively short arms. 

 

Their hair is really soft and nice.

The one issue I saw with the dolls at Target was that the positioning of the eyes is not quite uniform on every doll. Some dolls have eyes that are a tiny bit higher or lower, or closer together than others. The differences aren't extreme, but it's something I noticed. Since this is the dolls' very first run EVER from a brand new company, I expect it's a factory issue that would be fixed in later runs. 

Still extremely cute, though.

The elbows and knees bend, which is so nice! The elbows have a hinge joint that also rotates outward. They can wave hi. 

 

I had to strip Sunny so I could show you their body sculpt and legs better. They don't come with underwear; I just gave Sunny some yellow undies for modesty. The articulation is OK, but has a few limitations. The biggest issue with the articulation is that although they can sit with knees bent, they're top-heavy because of the large heads. You have to lean them against something when you sit them down, otherwise they'll topple over. So long as they're leaning against something, they can sit nicely with thighs together and look adorable, and can even cross their legs. They'd be able to sit in a doll chair, but only if the chair has a back to it for support.

They can sit with thighs together, but I was balancing her without leaning her against anything, here.

The knees can swivel to do poses like this.

The legs are pretty nicely-formed and look good. The legs have ball joints at the hips, which gives them quite a nice range of motion. The knees are on hinge joints, but also swivel like the elbows. They can actually do splits.

The heads are not on ball joints, and simply move from side-to-side.

The clothes are pretty typical play doll quality, with velcro in the back and unfinished seams, but the fabrics are decent. I'd love to redress these two, but I have no idea what clothes they'd fit into, because anything that fit them in the chest would be too small for their large rear ends. They *possibly* could fit into Barbie shirts if the shirts were stretchy, but it'd be a comical waste of effort to try to squeeze them into Barbie pants.

Each doll is packaged with a different book. I actually wasn't planning on saying much about the books, except I've discovered they have a very unique feature: each is a bit of a "choose your own adventure"-type of story, with four different possible endings per book. That was unexpected and cool. The books are paperback and around 48-to-50 pages, with each having a few full-page color illustrations.

 

Anyway, I'll be really interested to see where this line goes.  As of writing this, there are four characters available at Target right now, with a fifth (a redhead) currently in production.  Not all Targets have them, though, so you'll have to check their web site to see which ones do.  

Click on the pictures to make them bigger.

 

Later,

Hearts for Hearts are making a comeback!

My Hearts for Hearts doll Surjan, from Nepal.

I just heard that the Hearts for Hearts doll line is going to be coming back! It was discontinued for a while, but according to their Facebook page, a new company will be re-launching the line later this year. Here's the news blurb from their page:

"Good news! HFHG has been licensed to a new company, and they will be relaunching the line in time for Holiday 2016. The first four to be reintroduced will be Dell, Rahel, Nahji, and Consuelo. They will be the same high-quality dolls, with donations being made to World Vision. The website will also be coming back with stories, games and more. Exact sale date not yet available. Please stand by for more information."

I think a lot of people will be pretty happy about this. Thanks Joanne, for letting me know about it.

Update on the Ikuzi Dolls

Back in September I told you about the Ikuzi Dolls, a new line that was being debuted as a Kickstarter campaign.  Well, I happened to be doing a search for "doll" on Etsy and accidentally found a listing for them.  I just wanted to update you, because the last time I'd written about these dolls, they weren't for sale yet.  Originally there were three dolls in three different skin colors.  One of the skin colors is sold out, but the other two are available.

Here's the Etsy listing
And here's the official web site

Photograph is the property of Ikuzi Dolls. 

Review of the DC Super Hero Girls dolls

DC Super Hero Girls Poison Ivy, Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn by Mattel.

Please meet Pamela, Diana and Harleen.

Otherwise known as Poison Ivy, Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn.

The DC Super Hero Girls dolls officially debuted yesterday, February 28th, as a Target exclusive.  There were a few stores here and there that released them ahead of the official Feb. 28 shelf date, but they were few and far between.  I went to Target to see them in person, and whatdaya know ... they'd devoted a whole endcap to them. At $20 apiece, though, I didn't feel I should buy all six characters at once, so three came home with me and three stayed.

By the time I got home with them, all of the characters were sold out on Target.com online except for one. SOLD OUT. Freaking sold out on the first day they were available. I have a feeling I should have grabbed those last three characters while I had the chance. The one last holdout that didn't sell out on the first day, Bumblebee, was sold out by the following morning. 

They're Mattel dolls, though, and when Mattel finds a toy line that sells, they keep on producing it. So I'm very sure that even if the initial dolls sell out completely, there will be many more in later shipments.

So yeah ... wow. Sold out online in the first 24 hours is insane. Congrats, Mattel. 


So here are my three prizes, and my review.

 

First off, the articulation is great. Better than Monster High. They have bending elbows, wrists and knees like Monster High dolls, but the joints are a nicer quality and don't feel loose. The DC Super Hero Girls can sit up nicely with their thighs together, and stay in position wonderfully without flopping. I'm super excited about this body and give it an A+, which is a first for me for a Mattel doll.

I love that the bodies aren't too skinny, and look muscular. Love it!!! The hair is soft and fine, too, with unique details. Wonder Woman has blue streaks in her hair to reflect her comic book roots. I thought Poison Ivy's hair was solid red at first, but it's actually a rich mix of red and orange hairs.

 

Speaking of Ivy, the fabric of her dress is wonderful. It's a see-through rose leaf print fabric over solid green. I'm not so in love with her hair accessory. I think it could have been done better. I want to replace it with some fake mini-vines from a craft store.

Harley Quinn has some details that are disappointing, but overall she's great. She was obviously never meant to be redressed, as her tights are painted on, not fabric. The design on her shirt is printed, but the fabrics used for her clothing (and the clothing on all the dolls) is a much nicer quality than expected. I honestly expected cheap-quality fabrics like you see on many playline Barbie dolls, but these fabrics feel nice and are sewn well.

 

Her mask is removable. I lifted it up to see if there was any staining or marks under the mask. Nope. The mask is held onto her face with tiny plastic ties on either side of her head, but you could snip them if you wanted to, to take the mask off completely.

I can't even tell you how much I love that Harley comes with a giant mallet. LOL! Her hands grip the mallet firmly so that she can hold it nicely without the mallet falling down, but unfortunately, it means her fingers are permanently stuck in a curled claw position. It makes her hands look awkward if you take the mallet away from her. Wonder Woman has the same issue. Her hands are curled to hold her lariat, and look awkward once you take the lariat away. I wish these dolls had come with an extra set of normal hands so you can switch them out, but there are no extra hands. Mattel totally could have done it, as their hands ARE removable. You can pop the hands out of the wrists and back in again. Perhaps it was a child safety issue because of the small parts. I don't know.

Wonder Woman has some great detail on the fabric of her shirt, and the stars down each leg of her pants. Her silver cuffs have some really ornate molding detailing. I noticed the cuffs are actually not removable unless you pop her hands off first in order to slide the cuffs off. I'm totally OK with this, because it means the cuffs won't fall off accidentally and get lost. Although the hands come off, they are held in fairly tightly. They won't be sliding out of their wrist sockets unless you want them to and intentionally pull them.

 

So that was my long and enthusiastic review. It looks like Mattel has a second series of these dolls planned in which they'll be adding the characters Katana, Catwoman, Cheetah, Hal Jordan, Beast Boy, Star Sapphire and Hawkgirl. I'd love to see a future varation of Poison Ivy where she has green skin and lips, but that's not on the table yet.

By the way, I mentioned that these dolls were a Target exclusive, but I saw a rumor that they won't remain an exclusive forever, and will be sold in other stores eventually. I don't know how long they'll be Target exclusives. If I find out, I'll re-edit this post with the new information.  I did just find out that they'll be available internationally in July, but haven't discovered whether this means just overseas Target stores, or other stores as well.

EDIT:  I've discovered they're going to be in other stores besides Target in July as well, in addition to being sold internationally in July.  It looks like in July they'll be pretty much global.

Arrivederci!