China Girl!

I saw Oz the Great and Powerful tonight and really liked it! But I'm not here to talk about the movie, I wanna talk about the doll I got! I was already aware of the Tollytots line of Oz fashion dolls before I saw the movie. The Disney Store has also released their own line of Oz fashion dolls but I don't have one of those nearby, and don't want to buy one online. Anyway, after the movie was over I headed straight to Toys R Us and grabbed the doll of China Girl. Check her out...

Not a great pic. But it shows you the whole box front.

I liked her character's backstory and the whole idea behind her (a living China doll who has been broken and repaired). The doll itself is pretty unique -- you don't see any like her on toy shelves at the moment. None that I know of, anyway. Even within her own line she's completely different. The others are straightforward fashion dolls. She's not the type of doll I usually go for. I suppose you could say she's vaguely Blythe- or Pullip-adjacent, two lines I (used to) collect, but she's really got her own thing going on.

Her face is really gorgeous: bright blue eyes, mild blush, bright red lips, and greyish-silver eyebrows. She has just a hint of matching silver eyeshadow. Her eyes have some beautifully subtle details going on. There's a light grey crescent reflection in the pupil, and check out her irises. I love the little hint of greenish-white by the pupil. Best of all, they're gazing to her left. Combined with the faint smile she looks curious and happy.

You can see the details of her eyes fairly well here.

Her dress evokes the era she's from well. Lace collar, ribbon belt and bow in the back, and simple black Mary Janes molded to her feet. She looks really well-articulated -- neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees, and ankles. Not too shabby, especially for an American doll! Little molded cracks from being broken are spread across her body. This is a great effect -- it gives her a lot of personality, and for a twenty-dollar playline doll, the effect has been manufactured well. At first I thought she didn't have any of the cracks on her face, which would make sense from a marketing standpoint. A closer look reveals she does have them, they're just much more subtle.

The blue stripes around her joints are a nice touch.

Curiously, she comes squatting in the box. 

Not sure why they didn't just make the box tall enough for her stand in.

The cracks are a great touch. They hint at her backstory and give the doll a lot of personality.

I still haven't taken her out of the box. This is extremely rare for me -- I'm more of a tear right into that sucker soon as I get home kind of guy. It's not like I'm undecided about keeping her or something. I guess I'm just enjoying admiring her "from a distance" for the time being. Speaking of the box, it seems kind of anachronistic to what you'd expect. This is a doll line for a big, mega-bucks, blockbuster picture, but you'll only find the film's logo in one spot, the upper right hand corner, and it's pretty small at that. I'm surprised it's not on the back of the box at all. On the front much more space is given to the character's name and picture. On the back the focus is, again, on the character. She's surrounded by the other four dolls in the line. It says Oz at the top, but it's in a completely different font than the logo and there's no mention of the film title at all. I like this focus on the actual toys instead of the film brand; definitely refreshing. Speaking of the other dolls, TRU had all of them, but I wasn't quite as impressed by them as I was by China Girl. I'll probably pick up the Theodora doll, but a lot of that is because I just really love Mila Kunis. No really, she's totally cool -- love her!

The logo's really pretty. The castle looks a lot like the Magic Kingdom castle. Some Disney 

exec got a raise for this bit of synergy.

Simple and to the point: "Oz is a really far-out place! Buy our fabulous dolls!" Seriously though, 

this ain't too much of a hard sell compared to most lines.

China Girl, you know what's what!

The other dolls. Theodora's hat is pretty wicked! I'm having visions of Carmen Sandiego, a very good thing.

Anyway, that's my China Girl story. She's a cool doll -- very unique and pretty. She's not quite like any others I have. I know I've kind of aimlessly rambled here, I just wanted to talk about my neat new toy. When I de-box her I might throw some more pics up.

Music tonight has mostly been M...