Adventures of the Ghoul Squad

I've heard the usual whiners complaining about this new series. The animation is bad. It's not the original. They're keeping the wahmbulance in business.

The animation is another new style. No, I don't think it's good as the original, but it is way better than the first type of CGI. The new CGI is really good, but they can't afford to animate everything that way.

The storyline goes that Draculaura, Frankie, Cleo, Clawdeen and Lagoona have formed the Ghoul Squad, and their mission is to locate other monsters around the world and invite them to Monster High.

Already, this has two major good points.

First, we're guaranteed to meet new characters.

Second, we are free from high school drama for the most part. No Fearleading silliness. No speed dating. No random couples shoved together without a little plot first. (I hope.)

New episodes air every Friday on Youtube and so far they have not disappointed. Each of the three existing episodes has introduced a new character.

In episode 1, we meet Fangelica. And no, she isn't really related to Draculaura.

Episode 2 brings Gil back and he doesn't have that stupid fish tank on his head anymore! Let's hope they also don't bring back the relationship drama with him and Lagoona.

And the best one...the most exciting...

ABBEY IS BACK. Today's episode reintroduced us to Abbey Bominable.

Her former voice actress did mention that she had a not so nice break with Mattel, so it's not quite the voice we're used to, but it's really not far off. Stuff like that hasn't ever kept me from watching a show I enjoy though. Things change. That's life.

In the video for the theme song, Rochelle can also be seen, so I think this new series is going to bring back some old favorites, as well as introduce new ones. Content like this is what I've been waiting for. Fun adventures. No silly high school drama. I only hope Mattel has the smarts to make the dolls to match these new designs. I'd still love a Sylvi in her regular look, plus Abbey and Rochelle in their new outfits.

Don't shun this series just because it's something new and something that came from the reboot. Give it a try at least.

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REVIEW: Monster High Garden Ghouls Winged Critters Lumina

I've been stalking Target looking for these girls and Pharrah de Nile, but I managed to miss the bugs except for this one! I knew I should have gone yesterday.

Anyway, I'm glad I found Lumina at least.

The Winged Critters are much smaller and more delicate than I was expecting. The detailing on them is really awesome.

I know people are rejecting these because they're little and not articulated. (Though I seriously cannot imagine articulation on something with limbs this small. You'd be asking for trouble.) But open your minds and take a good look at these three. I don't have the other two yet, but I'm impressed enough by Lumina that I imagine they'll be just as great.

Yes, she's got a plastic top and skirt. No, she can't bend her elbow. But she's super tiny and still look at this:

She has great body detailing even though she's that little!

I love her tiny face and her pretty hair colors. I just wish somewhere online would get these in stock so I could order the other two. I'm about to be staycationing, so this was my last store trip until next week.

Here she is with Abbey to show just how small she is.

I'm very, very impressed with her. And you guys know I don't normally gush over pink things, so this makes two in one day! (Sara being the other.)

The bug girls run $6.99, which is a very fair price for something that has that much detail.

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.

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REVIEW: DC Superhero Girls SDCC 2017 Exclusive

I got my set from an awesome friend and it arrived today! I've been looking forward to this since we first saw the pictures.

The packaging on this thing is fantastic, but as I started taking pics, my battery died, so I decided to get this shot here to the left and then debox while the battery charged. It's not like you guys haven't seen the packaging anyway!

Cheetah wanted to be free and would not wait any longer.

Except I made her wait, because I deboxed Wondy first.

This doll is basically a slightly amped up Themyscira Wonder Woman. Same outfit design, same shoes, belt, shoulder piece, bracelets. The materials are a bit better quality and she has that excellent cape.

I like the actual fabric lasso because there's a lot of fun possibility there, and the little shield is cute. I'm not an expert in ancient Greek shields, but I think they were bigger than this. However, this is Wonder Woman. She stops bullets with her bracelets. How big a shield does she really need if she's used to deflecting with something much smaller?

Wondy's hair is nice, although I prefer the style of the Themyscira doll.

What makes her amazing though is her side glance. She is so freakin' CUTE. Sometimes I love a cartoony expression and this works really well for her, especially because we're so used to DCSG being relatively unexpressive. Most of the dolls use the same headmold and have the same straight-on stare expression. Even Frost, whose lack of any sort of snarky expression I still lament.

So yeah, this may be just another Wondy in a sea of Wondys and we've already sort of got this outfit, but we do not have a side glance and that is well worth the cost of this set.

Now onto Miss Cheetah. First of all, she is a PAIN to photograph. I struggle with not getting glare on the eyes of the regular dolls, but I really had a hard time with her. Her hair is also kind of all over, so sorry about the flyaways and such. I've had a long day at work and my perfectionist side is napping.

Cheetah is 99% the reason I bought this set. I've wanted her since the show started. She should have been released well before Starfire and Frost, for sure.

Definitely before Blackfire.

Cheetah was the original antagonist at the school, although now that role seems to rotate between the actual villains and some of the not so nice girls like Cheetah, Frost, Catwoman and Star Sapphire.

Cheetah's expression firmly conveys that she is fully capable of being up to no good. I love that we finally get a character that looks sassy! Only now she makes Frost look even more bland, poor thing.

She wears a running outfit and a jacket, along with two gold bracelets and her sneakers.

I did not take a photo of it, but her right ear does not have a notch out of it like the left one does.

I'm so happy to finally see another headmold in this line! So happy.

I actually prefer how Cheetah looks with her jacket off. It shows off her arm muscles better and she looks like she could just beat the pants off you in a race. 

Cheetah comes with a little cell phone, which makes sense, because she had Batgirl fix it at least once. Unfortunately, it doesn't stay in either hand very well. But the left one manages better than the right. 

I think Cheetah is a great addition to DCSG because I love having a bit more spice on the shelf. I promptly stood her next to Frost so they can do Mean Girl things. Just being next to Cheetah makes Frost look a little more like herself. 

I think this set is very well-worth the price and I don't think it's too overpriced on the ebay market, so it's even worth that higher cost. 

But if you want to wait, Cheetah will be out in regular $19.99 signature doll form later this year. I'm eagerly awaiting that one, too, because I also love her looking straight ahead. 

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.

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REVIEW: Monster High De Nile Family

Thankfully, Target put these on their website, because my store does not have them. We don't even have the Lagoona and Clawdeen multipacks yet.

Poor Lux's head was turned sideways in the box, but everyone is mostly okay. Okay enough to debox!

The De Nile additions to the Family line seem to be Target exclusives. Cleo got the bonus of having actual arm articulation, unlike Clawdeen and Lagoona.

The Cleo doll is all right. I like her a little more made up. Her hair is very plain and so is her makeup, but she looks fine for a night of babysitting.

Her eyes are placed a little high, but I'm not invested in the doll, so I don't care.

The set's accessories are drinks for everyone. Cleo gets a regular cup, Lux has a juice box and Sandy a bottle. There's also a little blue blanket or towel or some sort of fabric rectangle.

Poor little Sandy is much-hated by the fandom. He is pretty out there, but I find him amusing more than hate-worthy. I wish they'd gone with red or blue for his onesie and not purple. I don't know how purple got thrown in with Cleo's color scheme, but it's not very Egyptian.

Lux is 100% the reason I shelled out for this set. I adore him. He's got the cutest little face and spiky hair! I don't mind the purple as much in the hair. And his face gem is a pyramid. Cute!

I love the more fully mummified bodies.

My only issue really is the names. Sandy and Pharrah (the single-packed sister that I'm probably going to have to overpay for on ebay) have delved into puns, which is disappointing when Cleo, Nefera and Ramses are all Egyptian or Greek names. Lux is Latin, which I guess is acceptable, but I would have preferred Egyptian or Greek. I guess Mattel really wanted to use Lux somewhere after Lux Ptolemy never became a thing.

I think this is a fun set and more worth the price than the other two. I do hope to get Pharrah and highchair Sandy without too much overpaying. Sigh!

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.

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REVIEW: Monster High Cleo De Nile & Ghoulia Yelps Set

I was thrilled that this gorgeous set was not actually an SDCC exclusive, although it appears to have been designed as one. I placed an order for two when they went on Mattel Shop a couple days before they were supposed to. I never got an email confirmation, so I placed a second order for one set the next day. That got confirmed right away and shipped out soon after. Then a day or so later, so did my order of two!

So I got three sets in the mail today, hence my ability to take the photo on the left of both sides of the outer box at the same time.

The main box has two flaps in the front that open like doors.

This is a bit of a pain if you're putting this box back into the outside one, but otherwise, it's cool.

I have a load of pics for this, so expect a lot of pics with only a few lines of text next to them. I hate doing that because it makes this look unfinished, but that's just me being a bit OCD.

The back of the box has lovely art of our heroines, as well as some story detail.

I wish I could clip the art and put it on my wall, but can't cut up expensive boxes! I don't keep many boxes, but ones like this I sure do.

The sides of the box both have an Anubis-inspired design.

If you open the lid of the box, you'll see the diary in a baggie taped to the top lid.



I was disappointed that the diary was so short. One side is a couple pages for Cleo and the other, if you flip it over, is a couple pages for Ghoulia.

Despite looking like pre-reboot dolls, the diary follows the ways of the reboot and Cleo's been locked in her pyramid from the ancient days until present time. Ghoulia follows a trail of clues to find her destined best friend and ends up discovering her right before the MH ghouls arrive to recruit her to Monster High in the Welcome to Monster High movie.

Why Ghoulia does not also make herself known, I don't know. Why Cleo doesn't point her out, I don't know.

This is what happens when you try to make everything fit into one universe and it just doesn't make sense.

Anyway, if you open the flaps, this is what you see.

Now let's get them out of there.

Remember I said I had three sets? Every one of three Cleos was flawed, while every one of three Ghoulias was fine. Considering I'm an Egyptologist and Cleo is my fave, this did not please me.

My choices were:

1) Cleo with giant space between her lips with no paint AND missing gold paint under one eye.

2) Cleo with two much smaller missing spots of paint between her lips.

3) Cleo with no missing paint between her lips, but a lighter "lip liner" on her upper lip.

I picked the third option, of course. Although the second one had a really cute face, too. Something about her eye placement was pleasing.

The deboxing of both girls was fairly easy, although Ghoulia's hat and glasses were unnecessarily overly secured.

Back to Cleo.

She is simply stunning. Easily one of the most beautiful Cleos ever made.

The level of detail on her outfit is superb and I, of course, love all the Egyptian touches like the eye on her belt.

While I do have a nitpick about Ghoulia wearing spike heels in the desert, Cleo can pull them off because she's had literally thousands of years of practice. Her shoes are epic.

Her makeup is perfect and the side-eye just makes this even better. That lip liner mistake even looks pretty good. At least it looks somewhat deliberate.

I did have a photo of Cleo holding up Hissette, but it came out blurry and I stupidly only took one shot. Maybe I'll reshoot it sometime.

She is amazing though. Simply glorious!

Ghoulia was surprisingly glorious, too. I knew I wasn't going to like her as much as Cleo, because duh, but I got hung up on the inappropriateness of her heels and shorts and went meh.

Then I opened her up and saw her.

Even with the ridiculous hat and completely not matching outfit, she looks stunning.

The hand earrings are awesome. Really love those.

The shirt is really cool, too, and her blue glasses are classic.

What makes Ghoulia though is her face. This is without a doubt, the single most beautiful Ghoulia face ever done. She is perfect.

Here's a look at her bag, which does open, and her brain fanny pack.

I didn't get a shot of her boots, because they're her classic ones but with green.

Do not wear heels like this in the desert ever though. Especially not around tombs.

Ghoulia's other accessories are a cool torch and a randomly green Sir Hoots. He looks cool that way though.

Let's reunite these two.

See, there's Hissette, all gold and cute.

This would have been one of the best SDCC exclusives of the lot, if they'd actually made it there. Instead, everyone gets a shot at enjoying it for way less money.

So go buy one!

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.

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REVIEW: DC Superhero Girls Blackfire

I was shocked this morning when a fellow local collector told me Target had the Intergalactic Sisters 2-pack. I zipped right over after work and grabbed one of the two left. The set costs $29.99.

As you can see by the title, I'm not even pretending this review is about Starfire. This is the same Starfire you can buy separately. This one is a little different than my sig. The purple shoulder piece and boots are darker and I think the Starbolt is darker green. Her makeup is more like my Intergalactic Games Starfire and her face is oddly shiny, yet she's appealing somehow.

I really think putting signature Starfire out again was a mistake. Not one that's going to be the end of the line, but they should have put Intergalactic Gala Starfire in here with Blackfire and then given the third spot in the solo IG line to Bumblebee.

Still, Blackfire is awesome and she's one of the few new characters we'll get this year, so she's worth it.

Blackfire has purple and black hair and purple eyes. Her costume is similar to Starfire, but since her power signature is pink, she's pink where Starfire is green. I love the dress part! It's gorgeous.

A lot of people are whining that she doesn't have bangs, but I think she looks fine without them. (Harley is the one I wish they'd give her proper bangs.)

A lot of people are also whining about her body, so let's take a look at that.

Blackfire has molded upper arms and all of her legs until her ankles. I actually love this effect, because it looks like the armor she's supposed to be wearing. I legit saw someone say they wish this was fabric and it's like don't you want it to look right? She's not wearing striped sleeves, after all!

I think this is where the action doll concept comes in and people aren't getting it. They want the dolls to be like action figures and skip the fashiony releases, but then they reject molded clothing like this, which fits the action doll style more. I like that they're both giving us outfits and doing stuff that's more like action figures.

Blackfire's boots are neat. I had more trouble standing her at first, because the feet are a bit smaller than the typical DCSG footwear, but then when I stuck her on my display shelf, she just fell into place perfectly. So you've just gotta hit that proper balance.

The sisters each come with a Starbolt in their signature color. These were on their hands in the package, but they were way easier to slide off than my signature Starfire's. Blackfire's fingers did get a little crunched though.

I think this set is worth the price, despite the duplicate doll, if you like DCSG and want to expand your cast. Blackfire is a nice addition because she's such an outsider, not even a student at Superhero High. I'm a teeny bit miffed we get a doll this random when so many students still don't have them yet, but I'm still happy to have a new character on my shelf.

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.

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REVIEW: Monster High Garden Ghouls Twyla

Twyla gets another reboot MH doll and she's just as pretty as the Electrified one.

She's my least favorite of the Garden Ghouls, but I love them all, so that's not really saying much.

My biggest complaint about her is that I miss her shadow self. She has a few swirls on her right arm, but that's it.

This is the lightest Twyla's makeup has ever been and it gives her an ethereal look that I love, despite also really loving her with much darker makeup, like in the Coffin Bean line, which is my favorite doll of her.

Mine does have one eye that missed the mark a little, but it really doesn't bug me that much. I might upgrade her when they hit stores, but I might not. We'll see.

Twyla is like a dust mite moth girl. I love her headband. Because it's a headband, I left it attached to her head, unlike Cleo and Toralei's glasses.

Twyla has long silky hair with a slight wave to it. I do wish they'd kept her really dark purple streaks. The reboot's lightened them up too much. Still pretty, but I loved the original color much more.

Her wings are pretty, but my least faves from the line.

She also got an odd little layer of petals on her lower eyelids, not a series of dots like the other two. They're pretty, though not as intricate, of course. This makeup color scheme really does work for her gorgeous headmold though. Love it a lot!

And her boots. Not as detailed as the other two's heels, but also cooler, in my opinion, because they lack heels.

Since Twyla is the last one and the one to inspire this, here's a photo of how I displayed these three.

I had originally planned to hang them on the wall like I do my Winx and other fairies, but then I stuck Twyla between my bookcases on a whim and was surprised when she stayed there. I knew that was going to be her home and was desperate to put the other two there as well. a little fiddling with some extra shelf plugs and rubberbands and ta da, it worked! It's not perfect, but hey, they're flying in between my cases. I freakin' love it.

So I think Garden Ghouls is one of the best reboot lines. Actually, scratch that. It is the best reboot line. I love it all.

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.

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REVIEW: Monster High Garden Ghouls Toralei

Ah, my girl Toralei.

I'm a strong advocate for short hair on dolls and I will always hate when they take a character with canonically short hair and lengthen it. So I struggle with this doll a lot, because I hate that Toralei's first appearance in the reboot is with incorrect hair, but on the other hand, this is one of the most beautiful Toraleis ever.

I'm so glad they put her in this line. She makes a fabulous butterfly ghoul.

I'm a big fan of orange, so all the orange going on here is pure love for me.

Especially her new hair color. This nylon hair really has a stunning orange shade.

The teal crimped section is a bit random, but hey, it's fun, so who really cares?

She had teal before in the field trip line, I think it was...

Anyway. Toralei's tail pops into her back well under where her wings go. It doesn't stay in nearly as well as her wings, but it's not falling out all over either.

Her wings have a fantastic tiger face on them. They're my favorite wings of all three girls. Even over the Egyptian ones, yes.

Her insect is the tiger swallowtail butterfly, so she's just the perfect embodiment of that.

Her makeup has light smearing on the left eye, but I was so happy she had non-wonky eyes that I don't even remotely care. Both she and Cleo have this crazy intricate makeup, so I'm just glad it wasn't messed up.

Her glasses are so cute! I hate that they made these super cute glasses with dolls with such gorgeous makeup, because there is no way I'm covering those eyes.

I love her dress. I love all of the outfits for this line.

Dangit, I just love this line. I think this is on design par with the pre-reboot MH. The quality with the change of the hair type and the ugly joints isn't as good, but design-wise, these could have been pre-reboot. They're way better than loads of the $14.99 lines.

Fab orange shoes. 

Toralei makes a stunning re-entry onto the doll shelves. I'm pleased.

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.

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