NEWS: Mermaids

Some news today from the upcoming mermaid lines. 

MGAE bragged about being able to keep a secret, which we all know is bull, but they also can't keep a release date. The Mermaze line was supposed to go up for pre-order today but it's nowhere to be seen. Supposedly, the pre-order is now in March and the release will be in April. We'll see. My Harmonique pre-order on Amazon went from March to April 6th so this seems true, but can they actually get these dolls out then? That's the "we'll see." Not impressed with how this line is being presented, MGAE. Not impressed one bit. 

Meanwhile, Spin Master's Mermaid High Spring Break has also changed dates. They went from having no estimate to saying early June. Now my Finly is March and Raynea is still June. 

REVIEW: Zombaes Forever

 
Well, it was the perfect day for these to arrive. First, we have the Monster High news and now we've got some brand new spooky girls to look at! It's also a gray, rainy day here so that fits, too. 

These little cuties are Spin Master's new Zombaes Forever line. These are two of the blind box singles. They also come in various multipacks. 

These cost $9.99 each and now that I've opened them, that is extremely fair and I'm surprised they're not more.

The best news?

THERE ARE CODES! No doubles for me. Woo.

After you unwrap the cardboard and take the purple thin plastic lid off, the checklist lies on top. 

The girls are pretty varied. Mourning Workout is an 80s aerobic zombie. Love Struck is Valentine-themed. She's Shady is a goth, complete with V-bangs. Guess which one I want most! Heh. Rock in Peace is my second fave. Love her tongue sticking out. Glitter Bomb is the rare. Miss Everlasting is a beauty queen and Strike Out a baseball player. Shop Til You Drop is my least favorite. She's pretty basic compared to the others. 

On the back are Cold Hearted, an icy zombie, and Ready to Drop, our sleepover girl. 

I'm not going completist on these, but I want most of them. I don't care about Shop Til You Drop or Love Struck. I don't think I'd seek out Miss Everlasting. But because we know very few codes, I may end up with them. (Except Love Struck. We have her code!)

Underneath the checklist is a sticker sheet that immediately reveals which doll you have. 

Strike Out! 

The rest of the box contains a flat package, a tissue-wrapped bundle, and the biggest pouch. That one's got the doll.

SO CUTE! 

Sports themes are not my favorite, but I adore the colors on this girl and love her hair. 

Back of her hair. 

And they're far bigger than I imagined. I originally only had her with the Cloudees yeti, but then thought I should add something more people might have lying around so you can get an idea of the scale. 

So yeah, they're big. 

The lower legs can be removed and even have a little bone nub sticking out. 

The wigs come off, revealing a little pink brain. 

At first I thought this was a bit much, but it's grown on me. It's a funny concept. 

So you can mix and match these girls' legs and hair. 

The flat package contains a cool character card. 

Be careful opening it. There's a perforated bit at the top but the top of the card actually comes up past that perforated line. DO NOT CUT IT OPEN! Tear gently. 

The back has each character's likes and dislikes. 

The tissue-wrapped bundle contains a stand and accessories. You have to put the stand together yourself and it requires a bit of pushing. Make sure you get the post all the way down or the doll's feet won't touch the base. 

Like this. I didn't have her post all the way down so her feet are hovering. 

There we go. 

The bat accessory is too flexible for my liking. It very quickly stops looking like a bat the second it curves. 

It is athletic day here in my apartment. 

This is Mourning Workout!

Woo! Workin' out in the 80s. 

I love the colors of this girl's hair, but it is heavier than Strike Out's, so it does move around on her head more. 

With her likes and dislikes. 

The stand stabilizes the hair, which is awesome. 

This is how I'm displaying mine. No accessories for Strike Out, just a lot of sass. 

They each have different eyes. Mourning's have a weight while Strike's have a baseball. The very pixellated eyes are the only thing on these girls that could be improved. The detailing on them is really great otherwise. Molded stitches along the leg seams and on their arms and faces. Very nice. 

These two have the same lower body mold. Not a big deal. They're really different otherwise. 

So I'm a fan. I was disappointed when they changed these because some of the art designs on the original listing looked fantastic, but these girls are adorable regardless. I've immediately caved and ordered 10 more, as the best way to avoid doubles is just order a bunch at once and return any you don't need. Thank you for existing, codes. 

Speaking of codes, here we go. These are located on the bottom of the package underneath the barcode. It is not the number above the barcode. For the moment, we only have this one batch number (6063727), so I'm just going to record the two final digits that seem to be the individual codes (after the 201361). If we get more batches with different numbers, I'll edit this post to reflect that. If you have any codes to contribute, please do!

MOURNING WORKOUT: 82, 21

LOVE STRUCK: 81, 20

SHE'S SHADY: 77, 16

ROCK IN PEACE: 79, 18

GLITTER BOMB: 76, 19 (76 could be either Glitter Bomb or Miss Everlasting. No way to tell.)

MISS EVERLASTING: 76, 15 

STRIKE OUT: 74, 13

SHOP TIL YOU DROP: 73, 12

COLD HEARTED: 78, 17

READY TO DROP: 75, 14

NEWS: Monster High

Monster High dolls with the original characters are officially back. This photo was dropped on their Facebook today. Each of these will be $75 and Frankie is available on Mattel Creations tomorrow with the rest to follow. 

I will be passing on this line. I don't see $80 worth of product here. The outfits are nicely detailed and they have rooted lashes and a lot of accessories, but we used to get similar quality for far less. It's a nice idea but the price tag is $10 less than the Skullector 2-packs and that's TWO dolls. 

Now if they do Cleo, which apparently they will along with Lagoona, I will spend the $80 for her. It's Cleo. I have to. It's written in glyphs somewhere. 

If MH really wants a comeback and to be a strong contender against Rainbow High, which let's face it is the only real competition out there, they need to get affordable dolls equal to RH's detailing, quality and poseability on the shelves for kids as fast as they can. I hope they're prepared for that, since I'd love to see some spooky girls out there again. And I'm not talking Shadow High. MGAE is already being bitchy and saying they can "keep a secret" too. HA! The world's most leaked doll company? Nice one. But I am curious about their Shadow High. I did love Bratzillaz, even though they were very weak compared to MH. I'm imagining Shadow High as Bratzillaz meets RH so I'm hoping they do more than that. It's going to take much more than that to beat a fully-resurrected MH playline. 

So let's bring it on, spooky dolls. I'm way pickier about where my money goes now. Impress me.

NEWS: Mermaze Mermaidz

Finally, we've got all five of these revealed. 

Staggering the promos was not a good idea. It completely backfired on me and I'm less interested in this line than ever. I honestly don't know if I'll even get one. 

So Harmonique is the inevitable singing one. She's actually really cool. I love her tail and they did a great job on her outfit and hairstyle. She's a pink singer, but she's actually an interesting pink singer for once. 

Still disappointed these all have the same face. Still disappointed they're not nearly as articulated as they should be for that price point. 

We'll see what my mood is when they actually finally release. I have the Harmonique pre-order that was briefly up on Amazon and they just changed my estimated delivery from March to April. Could be a while! I was going to cancel the pre-order when I saw what the doll looked like, but for now, I'm going to keep it. Maybe I'll still try one of these and it will be Harmonique. Skip Riviera and her nightmare hair and Jordie with her creepy laced tail. 

PHOTO CREDITS: Official Mermaze Facebook.

REVIEW: Simon Toys Rooyie Spirit Beast Series

I saw this figure in a Facebook ad, likely because I've taken their bait and visited the KikaGoods website multiple times. I always buy my figures from ebay and Mercari though. I have yet to buy from Kika. Anyway, this lovely lady caught my eye and I found a case of 8 figures on ebay, sold by AmiAmi. I bought them, knowing I'd get the full set in the box. I love that these are full set guaranteed. The only way you're not getting the entire set of basic figures is if one is replaced by the super rare hidden figure, and in that case, it's worth it to track down a missing common. 

This series is called Spirit Beast. 

The names aren't written in English anywhere on the boxes or the cards, so I have to take KikaGoods' translations. 

So this is Ghost Fox. On ebay, a seller has it as Fantasy Fox, but Ghost Fox is way cooler. 

I absolutely love her colors. She's my favorite hands down. 

This is Flower Fairy, one of my other two faves. I have three total because I can. 

I love that her dress is translucent. 

From the back. 

My third fave: Deep Sea Naga. On ebay, a seller has it as Deep Sea Mermaid. Probably a little more accurate. 

Another translucent clothing one and the pearls on her head are way pearlier than they photographed. 

The little details! Love.

I'm just going to do the rest in alphabetical order. 

This is Little Sheep Fairy. 

She's the only one with a separate accessory, which I'm really glad I noticed in the separate baggie with the stand. 

This  girl has the cumbersome name of Moon Shadow Jade Rabbit. 

Love the pose. 

Adorable detail. 

Here is Mysterious Bird. This one might be my next fave after my main three. 

Lovely. 

Night Cat. 

The other contender for fourth fave. Mysterious Bird is more intricate, but this pose and the bare feet. 

So cute!

Last, we have Nine-Colored Deer. Sadly, mine had one broken antler. Must have happened during the packaging of the toy, not my case being sent to me, because there's no way that kind of damage could happen the way these are packed. It glued back on nicely though. 

One more shot of Ghost Fox with a little twinkle in her eye.

I really love these and treated myself to the other series of them. I'll post them when they arrive and try to include a picture of the boxes next time. I was too excited to open these to think about taking boxed pics. It's been a long weekend!

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine. 

REVIEW: Rainbow High Pacific Coast Margot de Perla

MARGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT. 

Finally. 

As we saw more of her, this was my most wanted from this set. Her face does not disappoint, although...well, I'll get to the hair. 

I ordered two of them to choose the best face and got two different girls. 

This one went heavy on the lower eyeliner. 

While this one is more what I was imagining. 

It's like she's Day Margot and the first one is Night Margot. 

I heavily debated keeping both. 

Margot comes with a pearly stand and comb. She has her heeled feet on with pearl shoes. Her flat feet are separate. Her beach towel's colors make it look like it has an iridescent sheen but it's an illusion. Her bag is a disappointment. Phaedra had a shiny bag so why is Margot's so plain? It's the only one of the PC bags I'm not displaying. The head wrap is a nice shiny material but I hate it so it stays off. Her bikini is cute, but I'm not a fan of the cover-up. You'll see why. 

Okay, now the first thing you may notice about Margot is that her hair is not white. 

I'm still not over this disappointment. I thought her hair would be white with Abbey-like iridescent tinsel and maybe a few color streaks to indicate iridescence. Nope. Her hair is almost entirely not white at all. It's honestly such a mystery to me, because in photos, some of the streaks look white, but in person, they're the pale pink or pale green ones. And then in the sunlight, some of them looked white. 

Even after looking at her in a few types of light, I cannot say if she has white in her hair or not. 

Her face is so beautiful. I love it. 

Her sheer gorgeousness makes up for the hair disappointment a little. 

Her hair is multiple colors. The lavender is the darkest, but there are some blue chunks that are pretty bright. The pink and green streaks are quite pale. They're the ones that I get mixed up with the white, if there are even any white at all. 

In this photo here, it looks like her hair is white, purple, blue and pink. The green lightens up in pics. 

She's like a human Abbey. 

Not a fan of the cover-up skirt. I just don't like the cut of it. 

I wish they'd given her palazzo pants. That would have looked nicely elegant. 

Her sunglasses are cute. 

Aside from her hair, my other big disappointment is that she's a jewelry focus without a scrap of jewelry. Why is it so hard to give these girls jewelry? How do you put out a character that designs jewelry without earrings or a bracelet?! Take one of the stupid gold bits that hang off her bikini and give her a bracelet instead. The gold clashes with her pastel hair anyway. 

"Hey, Margot, what's your theme color? Yeah, I dunno either."

I adore Margot. I still think she's beautiful. But I'm sad they made her hair so dominantly other colors and not white with a thin layer of streaks. I feel like it takes away from her identity a lot. She struggled with representing pearl anyway. The only bit that really does is the shoes. The hair would have helped a lot, but not if it's an array of pastel colors. She's still in my list of top faves, but it's sad to see her diminished a bit.

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.