Peri and Pearl

Hello World!

I'm back with the first siamese Mattel has ever created. Peri & Pearl are two sister sharing a body. Before I start the review, I would like to point out a few things.

1 - This type of body was originally created by Doctor Frankendesign, an artist who joined two Monster High bodies into one to create a siamese. He used to have a page where he put all his creations, but both his deviantart and webpage were deleted or closed. Still, you can find his creations around Google.
When I saw Mattel doing this, the first thing I thought was "It's that Frankendesign's body??"

2 - This is actually something that has nothing to do with MH, and it's the fact that people often call this situation "a girl with two heads". I'm sure a lot of your know about Abby and Brittany's case, and I would like to point out that this situation is not "a girl with two heads", it's "two girls sharing a body". They're two different persons.
I'm actually quite happy that Mattel made sure to make these two different from each other in the movie. There was a scene in which Peri talked with Lagoona while Pearl was asleep, which means each one has different thoughts and ideas. Peri was making sure Pearl didn't wake up because she was sure her sister didn't share her idea of helping Lagoona.

With that out of my system, lets begin. Here are, the twin sisters, Peri and Pearl:

These are, in fact, the dolls I wanted the most in this line of MH at first. I found it a concept so original I wanted to have them in my hands and see how these dolls felt and moved. So the first thing I did when I got them out of their impossible box was put them in front of me, and move their heads:

Since they're sharing a body, and their heads are quite near each other, their movement is quite limited:

If one of them is looking "outside", the other has even more limited head movement:

Which means they have to organize their head movement in order to not collide with each other.
Both of them can slightly look up and down, but is not enough to actually see it. In the next photo, one is looking up and the other is looking down. Not much difference.

If the try to see each other, their cheeks and chins collide, making it impossible to look at each other in the eyes.

Moving down is where the problems start for me. Heh, yes, this dolls has problems, like Posea.
First of all, the jewelry. Whyyyy is it everything gold?

The pearls? Gold.

The charms? Gold.

Any tiny little detail? Freaking gold.

For once the jewelry is not that bulky, and it's all in the color I would have never put in a doll like this. It's like "Hey, check this out. Blue themed doll, aquatic, kind of like a snake, all colors in cold color scheme fashion. What should be put around her? GOLD! Perfect, onwards!"
Sigh...

So the jewelry is gold...

Once we take these two pieces out, we find one of the most psychedelic things I have ever seen in life. I'm not even kidding, the first time I saw their shirt I thought I was tripping:

Whaaat is that? Posea's shirt was hard enough to look at, but this! This is a whole new level! Who thought that mixing blues with pinks, purples and yellows would be an amazing idea?
You know what? Scratch that, the gold jewelry is fine if it's hidding all this mess.


Before we go forward, I would like to talk about the earring:

Each one is one color, they have one earring each, they get tangled in the hair. Moving on.

Now that I got that out of the way, I would like to talk about something Mattel really did well with this doll: her upper body. My Godness these girls are gorgous once you take all the...you know.
Their body is all full of scales, and when I look at them, I see a snake. Good job Mattel!:

The scales run down their tail, it's really neat.

Their arms are also scaled, with some sort of...fins? I don't know the exact word in english:

Their hands are also webbed, but better done than Posea:

Now onto the tail. This is the part in which I have mixed feelings (that down there is one of my cat's hairs. How it got there is anyone's guess):

I really don't get the color choices in here. The dark blue is okay, but purple? (By the way, the purple part of the tail is the one that glows in the dark. It glows green).
I don't get it.

Those marks in their tail...I don't get them either
. I mean, in the ocean, a fish would usually have bright colors to either defend themselves or to mend with the enviroment. These girls have every single color, or almost, that exists. I don't know how that would help them for anything else than to be seen. It's like they were carrying around a sign that says "We are here, eat us".

The worst part is that the pattern runs along their back, but is not painted. So...yeah. Nature forgot one of their sides I guess:

They have a "knee" joint that barely moves. I think it serves move for the purpose of keeping them balanced rather than to allow them to sit down.

And then we have the other two joints in the tail. These are rotational, they can rotate 360º and help the dolls stand on their own without stand:

My only problem? They can't hold a lot of poses. That right there is the only way to keep the ladies on their....tail?

You can more or less extend the tail, but it looks...weird. Also, the knee joint doesn't allow them to sit properly on a hard surface:

At the end ot the tail they have a one sided, pierced fin with more jewelry. You can take it out, but I recommend not to. The pegs on those things look fragile:

You may have noticed something, and it's the fact that I didn't comment on their hair yet. Well, here it is. Their hair is amazing:

Much like Posea, Peri and Pearl's hair is soft to the touch, doesn't get tangles a lot, really, and it's easy to brush. Besides the fact that each sister has different colors:

The only problem I see is that somethimes their hairs get mixed with each other.

Bottom line?
Peri and Pearl are amazing dolls. They have their own flaws, but unlike Posea, those flaws are not enough to shadow their best qualities. However, I still see these two as a collector's doll rather than play dolls. While they look pretty and well made, it's kind of complicated to maneuver around their articulations. I'm sure some kids will love their design, but I see other dolls as more playable than these two.

Still, Peri and Pearl receive a thumbs up for sure.

Welp, next time it's Kala's turn! I have to say, these reviews allow me to see the positive and negative points of the dolls, so I hope this next review will allow me to learn more about Kala.
See ya.

Posea Reef

Hello World!

This is the first entry of a blog in which I would like to analyze dolls more than describing "how cute they are", because if anything, a doll can be cute but can also be done in a good or bad way. I decided to start with Posea Reef, my newest doll. Here she is:

 

What can I say about this lady? Well, the first time I got her out of her box (an epic battle, let me tell you), I....didn't exactly know what to do with her. I mean, look at her. The only part that's more or less free it's her head. The rest is all trapped in coral and seaweed:

Usually when I get a new doll, and manage to fight my way through her package, the first thing I do is test her extremities, how they behave, how well she can pose, etc. With Posea? I just put her in front of me while asking myself "Mkay....where do I start?":

So I started with her hair. I was kind of expecting the famous hair product Mattel loves to put everywhere but...I was surprised, honestly. Her hair has not a single drop of it, and in fact, is quite soft:

I was so mesmerized by her hair and its color, that I didn't realize I was moving her head up until her earrings started moving on their own:

So apparently, giving a doll long, nice, soft, omgoshIwannatouchit! hair with a pair of big, complicated, with a lot of holes and pointy ends earrings it's a good idea! So good I was constantly putting the little things back into their ear-sockets. Amazing.
Don't get me wrong, the earrings are...they are okay, but the ears? Those are quite amazing:

I was surprised to see ears like this, considering Mattel is more on the side "lets not complicate things way too much, lads". I like her ears, quite a lot. Sadly, that, and the hair, is pretty much all I like about her. Now you may be asking: why did you buy her?. That, my friends, is an easy question.
I'm one of those who upon discovering a collection I like, I kind of feel like I should have all of them, or at least, all of the items that come with the part of the collection I want. I already have Kala Mer'ri and Peri/Pearl, and so I felt I had to have Posea as well. And there she is.

So, back to our lady. Her face. Is it me, or does she look older than sixteen?:

I can't help but see a woman around her twenties, not a sixteen years old teen. If I have to say something about her face that I like about is both her eyes and freckles. Those are cute:

Now, lets move down and...okay, I can't just ignore this mess here. As you can see, Posea is covered in coral and seaweed (sorry for this slightly dark photo):

They're both made of soft vinyl, and I'm sorry, but I have to say this. Everytime I touch the coral in Posea's body, I feel like touching plastic minced meat. It just looks like that. Minced meat that doesn't look good to eat.

So! Once you take the mince...sorry, the coral out of her, you can see her outfit. It's a sleeveless shirt, with a creatures pattern that for some reason makes me feel uncomfortable. I don't know why.

Before we go further down, I would like to stop for a moment and talk about Posea's skin pattern. Her skin is covered in little molded dots that create a beautiful pattern all over her upper body. That's another thing I like about her...if it wasn't for the fact that they pinch like leetle needles:

I'm not even kidding. These things pinch, they actually hurt if you hold the doll without her shirt on. It's not a huge pain, but just imagine a kid holding her and pinching his/her little hands with Posea's body. Even her arms have those:

I mean, come on, this isn't something that should pass quality control. I can only imagine someone in Mattel saying "Oh, these things pinch a little bit, but in life you must teach kids everything. Sell her". I'm getting pinched by my own doll.
Sigh.
Moving on to the hands, they're webbed:

Nothing really interesting about them, moving on.
Next thing on the list...seaweed!

Now this is kind of the special part about Posea. I guess she has some sort of communication with the little critters under the sea (heh), so her tail is covered in seaweed and different creatures. Don't get me wrong, these right here look quite good. I specially like the snake that runs up her tail. My only question is....why are they all dead? I'm not kidding, all of them are the remains of those creatures.

So Posea pretty much gets creatures tangled in her seaweed, and since she has poor memory, doesn't realize they're there and poor little things die of starvation.

You know, for kids:

As you may know, each ocean Monster High doll has a part that glows in the dark. In Posea's case, what glows are her creatures. This is kind of odd to me, because the other dolls have something in their bodies glowing, but Posea doesn't. And those creatures are not attached to the seaweed, they're just held in there by clear rubber bands, so the moment you lose them, bye bye glow in the dark.

However, they glow in different colors:

Once you manage to take that out, you can see Posea's tentacles:

They're stiff, almost impossible to move, and nothing new knowing that Kala already has tentacles, four of them, with a lot more poseability:

I won't talk in deep about her articulation because it's quite the same as other Monster Highs, at least in the arms and hands, but I'll say that for some reason, Posea's articulation are quite stiff. A lot more than other dolls of this line (heck, from any line) I've seen. Why is that I'll never know.

Bottom line? I find this doll in the collector's realm more than in the child's play realm. While I was trying to pose her and test her articulations. I found myself struggling with her a bit too much for my taste. As a kid, I would have probably left her on a shelf and move onto another doll, like Kala or Peri/Pearl.

Mattel did a lot of great design choices in other dolls, but this one is not one of them. Sorry Posea, you get the thumbs down.

So! Next time I'll review Peri/Pearl! I want to leave Kala for the last of these three because she's the one I have less troubles with, and because I really want to talk about the first siamese doll in Mattel's history.
See ya.