OVERVIEW: Mystikats

Talin

Playhut's Mystikats came out in 2005. They were obviously one of the many lines inspired by the Bratz right down to the pop-off feet. They basically look like Bratz heads modified around the nose and given cat ears, but with less stubby bodies.

When they first came out, Talin was the only one I wanted. I did love her for years, but having never gotten the opportunity to see the others in person, I didn't fall for them.

The dolls come with their outfit, a plush cat, two pop-on tails which double as bracelets for people, a purse, a brush, and a necklace for people that matches each girl's symbol. Each doll has a tattoo in a different place of her particular symbol. The cat ears are removable and the hair can cover the holes where they insert, but I like them in.

Years later, my Talin's hair had become a frizzy mess from brushing and I chopped it into a bob and decided to get a new one. Then I ended up with all four and fell in love with them all.

Kalani

Sadly, only one line of this particular style is readily available. There was a small prototype picture of an unknown line found on Google, but the website it linked to was down, so I never found out anything about it.

Beautiful unknown line now identified as Gems

They look like a genie theme, similar to what Bratz did with Genie Magic, but these outfits look much better. I did a little Googling just now and managed to find out that these were called Mystikats Gems. The Mystikats released in Australia had a rather different look than the American dolls and their cats were flocked figures, not plush. I cannot find any good photos of these Gems dolls, but if you Google, you'll see a small pic of Talin and a bigger one with her and a very incomplete Siva. There's a bottomless Azra in another past auction. They're sadly not nearly as pretty as this image, so I won't be trying to hunt any down.

There was also another line called "On the Prowl" that seemed to make it to shelves. I can't remember the details, because it's been many years, but I do have a picture from the back of the box that I believe came from ebay. It would have been a travel line. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the doll herself anymore. I think it was Kalani and she was being sold from Australia. Sigh. Part of the problem with me writing these overviews of long-completed lines is that I can't remember all the details. But you're welcome to leave info in the comments and I can always add it at the end of the post or in parentheses by the appropriate paragraph.

Anyway, in 2006, the Mystikats came out with Go Live, some sort of overpriced interactive system that I never bothered to learn about. The design of the dolls had become more human and, in my opinion, far less interesting. Azra did not get a doll, but the other three did. I picked up Talin on sale at some point. Possibly at Tuesday Morning.

Go Live Talin in Generation Girl Tori's dress

My doll to the right there is not wearing her stock fashion, but got Generation Girl Dance Party Tori's dress. As you can see, she's far less cute than the original dolls, although the outfits were pretty nice.

Siva

After that failure, the Mystikats disappeared, but that was not the last we heard from some of them. When Playhut began the Mystixx line in 2012, the four characters were Talin, Siva, Kalani and Azra. They were back. Sort of. As weird as some people thought the Mystikats were, Playhut went bigger and the Mystixx dolls were even weirder. They had two faces, one in the normal place and one on the back of the head. The Mystixx line didn't last long. The vampires seemed to do decently well, but the zombies shelf sat, two of the Grimm dolls didn't even make it to the shelves and those Rococo things were a mess. I never saw the outfits in my Toys R Us either.

Azra

Personally, I can't say I was sorry to see them fail, because Playhut wasn't a good company. After I bought the two Grimm dolls, I left a review on their Facebook page, saying how disappointed I was that the dolls didn't come as we'd seen them at Toy Fair and how flimsy the produced paper masks actually were. They deleted my comment and wrote me a message, saying that while they appreciated the feedback, they didn't allow negative comments on their site. Oh, you mean you don't want people to know your products are shoddy? Then don't make shoddy products.

I do love my four original Mystikats though. Talin will always be my fave and when I took the photos in this post back in 2011, Azra was my second fave, but now it's Kalani.

CGI Talin

I will leave you now with this CGI image of Talin. I have the link of the original source page on my Flickr, but I just clicked it and it no longer leads anywhere, so I can't even really say where this is from anymore. Likely some press release.

Oh, if you happen to want to buy any Mystikats, they're actually somewhat easy to find. There's an original Siva on Amazon for $16.99 and the Go Live sets for Siva and Talin for $24.99 each, plus a good deal on Kalani on ebay.




PHOTO CREDITS: Doll images are my own. Source page for the Gems prototype image was never working when I found the photo, so I don't know it. Source page for the CGI Talin image is now defunct. On the Prowl back of box image is from an Australian ebay seller many years ago.