Jump ahead to 2006 and the same company is now making dolls from the current SSC TV show. The thing is, they look a million times better than any American dolls.
The SSC cartoon at the time was the 2003 version. It ran from 2003-2008, which covers both Bandai AND Playmates. And neither company nailed certain characters from the show.
The Bandai line was pretty spot on, but the problem there was that the earlier characters...were dull. I'm sorry, but I don't watch SSC to see realistic kids. I want my mostly unnaturally-colored hair from the 80s line, please. Strawberry, Huck, Orange Blossom and (now blonde) Angel Cake were part of the cast, along with Blueberry Muffin, who was now a brunette, and new Latina character, Ginger Snap. To fill the unnatural hair void, they invented Rainbow Sherbet instead of using one of the vintage characters. Why? I dunno. I never liked Rainbow for that reason. Bandai did get to two new characters near the end of their line. Despite being more realistic kids, I really like Seaberry Delight and especially Coco Calypso.
Playmates took over in 2006, after many new characters were added to the show that were closer to the original flavor of the designs. But the Playmates dolls look nothing like the show characters. They were all taller with long hair and looked older. Not that there's anything wrong with that and I do love the Playmates dolls for their character assortment and hair colors, but they were not the show designs.
So that's where Estrela comes in and succeeds with some of the cutest, best SSC dolls of all time.
Tea Blossom up in the photo there was my first and only one of these for years. I got her in 2015, NINE years after learning of her existence.
I needed this particular version, because it's one of only two toys (the other from a Happy Meal) to show her with her short buns. She got Musaed in the Playmates line and her short buns turned into long pigtails. It happened in the cartoon, too. But I far prefer this look.
I've been on a bit of an SSC kick obviously and they're a lot of what I've been buying this month.
I picked up Seaberry Delight on ebay for $35 from an American seller.
She was all it took to get me firmly back into wanting all these dolls.
The dolls in the larger boxes come with a postcard and a comb. My Little Pony fans will recognize the comb mold from the flutter ponies. I wish they varied the colors, but every doll has the same pink comb.
I love the faces on these girls and for the most part, the hair and outfits are good quality.
Love that enormous shell!
What I don't love is that Seaberry got a doll and Coco Calypso didn't. Weird. I had to buy the Bandai version of her to have one to stand with these girls.
Next up is Lemon Meringue, bought from the same US seller.
The dolls in smaller boxes come with the same pink comb and then a squishy rubber ice cream cone.
While she's not got the bright yellow hair of the vintage or 1991 Lemon, this is actually a gorgeous Lemon doll.
I love her outfit, though the top isn't a perfect fit. The little details are adorable though.
The hats are attached to their heads, so for the most part, I've left at least one spot attached. The annoying thing is they're packaged with a thin loop of plastic around their heads, so you have to cut that off and them pull it through the places where the hat is attached. Thankfully, that plastic stayed intact and didn't damage any of the dolls. The worst I've seen is some melted rubberbands holding the hairstyles and some stuck to the ice cream cone accessories.
Tangerina Torta was my next arrival, on the same day as Lemon. Another American ebay seller, though a different one from Seaberry and Lemon.
I love Tangerina. I'm such a sucker for Orange.
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The doll does have her imperfections though. Tangerina has a ton of hair, but it's quite thin and it feels like if I brush it too much, it's all going to fall out.
Her ponytail holder is also supposed to be a headband. I need to fuss with it some more to try to fix it, but I tried several times before this photoshoot and it just would not stay on her head. It kept popping off. So it became a ponytail holder.
She's so cute. I love her color scheme.
A little side shot there.
The Brazilian dolls only have a few shoe molds. This mary jane style seems to be one of the most popular. It's also the cheapest, made of very thin plastic and the dolls wearing these shoes don't stand on their own as well as the others do.
I could not believe my luck when, not long after Lemon and Tangerina arrived, a third US seller put up a lot of the dolls! I ended up buying five of them from her, including my two most wanteds!
I was so excited. They all arrived yesterday morning.
Peppermint Fizz has no other merchandise that I know of. She was the...I guess you'd say "frenemy" character in the show. I never watched a lot of it, but she was not the goody-goody type the SSC characters typically are, although she wasn't a full-on villain either.
She's a plain little doll compared to my other main favorites, but I've always wanted her. I love the red and white on the majority of her outfit and her dark blonde bob is so cute. She's just plain adorable.
SO CUTE.
I realize it's a bit hypocritical that my main complaint about the Bandai redesigns is that they're dull and too realistic in coloration compared to vintage days, yet one of my top 3 Estrela dolls is Peppermint Fizz. But I never claimed that my brain made any sense.
So I have three favorites from this line. Tea Blossom, who seems like a logical choice to be a favorite. I love that hairstyle and I frequently love Asian characters. Peppermint Fizz, who is not always a nice character, so she makes sense for me to like, too, despite her less than unique coloring. I frequently like the frenemy types in these kids shows where everyone is too sweet.
But my third? Raspberry Torte. Not only is she dominantly pink, which I don't tend to like, but she's also the sporty one, something I hardly ever like best.
And yet, here we are and she's one of my three dolls tied for favorite. (Tangerina is in 4th place behind them. Or would that really be second favorite? Who knows?)
Raspberry was one of my childhood favorites, because she could be a little...Tart. They changed her name to Torte for this series, but I guess she retained some of that personality. I haven't seen an episode with her in it to know. I should try to watch the show.
But I love this doll with her giant curly hair and great outfit. That vest is a separate piece!
She and Peppermint both have the same more sneaker-type shoe mold.
Her is Rainbow Sherbet. I never liked her in the Bandai line, but she is darling in the Estrela line. I never liked her because she got to be the colorful one and poor Blueberry became a boring brunette. (I love Blueberry and thought she needed her blue hair.)
She has quite a nice outfit and I love the tiny button on the top of her hat.
Her cuteness for me though is in her overly colorful self having big brown eyes as opposed to the more typical green or blue.
Little hat button. So cute.
And you can see the other most-often used shoe mold here. Seaberry has it up there, too. The dolls with these shoes and the type Raspberry and Peppermint have can stand pretty easily on their own.
Here's Frosty Puff, who got to have blue hair when Blueberry didn't. Yeah, I'm still annoyed about that. It's been years. It's not going away any time soon.
Frosty was the winter-themed character obviously.
While she's cute, she's probably my least favorite of the ones I have.
They did the bottom half of her outfit well, but the top is kind of a mess.
The blue gloves are completely attached to the ends of her sleeves and her sleeves...
...are exactly that. Instead of making her a full coat, she just has white furry sleeves on her pink top.
Thankfully she has long hair to hide that.
She is very cute, don't get me wrong. She just has a few things working against her, so she'll never be a big favorite.
And finally, the signature outfit version of Strawberry herself. This doll wasn't a big want, but I took the opportunity to get her for a good price.
She is darling though. Probably my favorite version of Strawberry after the vintage.
That is actually a complete shirt she has tied around her waist. Details like this make me wonder what happened to poor Frosty Puff.
Cute hat bow!
So there you have my Estrela collection so far. I'm hoping to add more to it. Blueberry and Crepes Suzette are my most wanted right now, though I also need Orange, Ginger Snap, Angel Cake, Huck, and a couple more versions of Strawberry.
PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.
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