Freaky Fusion: Bonita Femur - Doll Review

Hello all! When I said that I would be posting my reviews of Bonita Femur and Sirena Von Boo within the next day following Avea Trotter's, I lied. I am actually the world's best procrastinator. BUT I'm gonna work on posting the next two girls anyways because god dang it I have a lot to say and I will not stop shaking my fist until I have said them one way or another. /cue fist shaking

So today's review focuses on Bonita Femur, a doll who, out of all the Freaky Fusion line, I thought I would like the least (although second to Neighthan Rot, I see no redeeming qualities about Neighthan but maybe I'll go on a tangent about that some other day--good news readers, you are spared.) Surprisingly, she's actually turned out to be my favorite next to Avea for reasons I will detail below.

Early on when these ghouls were first announced we found out that Bonita Femur is the daughter of a skeleton and a moth... Man. Thing. Her dad's a moth guy. And while this combo is certainly odd it did pose many questions as to what the doll herself would really look like when she was put into production. How does she look? Well my dear readers... SHE'S FREAKING ADORABLE. I can understand why some people don't like moths as they are bugs and all BUT THEY'RE SO FLUFFY AND BONITA IS NO EXCEPTION.

The fluff on her legs is absolutely cute and totally like that of a moth's, with a nice, soft texture that gives the impression of hair without there being any actual fur. This pattern continues up her calves to her thighs, eventually spreading up to her hips and torso.

The mixture between moth and skeleton really shows up strong here as the fuzz gives way to the detailed skeleton or... Exoskeleton? Of her ribcage. Bonita is quite weird in this way, it looks like she has a body within a body and I'm not sure if they're doing that as a reference to insects' exoskeletons here or... What. Because Skelita certainly doesn't have that going on.

Her arms/hands are recasts in pink from Skelita's mold, and like Skelita's, are fairly bendy and a little bit flimsy due to the lack of substance and how naturally thin the plastic is in comparison to the thickness of another ghoul's arms.

Now arguably one of the biggest things about Bonita that makes her special are her wings, and this is the only part of the doll I have problems with. Of all Monster High dolls released so far, she is easily the one I could actually see being released as part of a new lineup for the next Barbie: Fairytopia or Barbie: Mariposa movie. Not only are her wings obnoxiously large and made of sturdy plastic like some Barbie fairy dolls in the past, but they also ironically lack something that made the Barbie fairy dolls of yesteryear tolerable: They can't move. Like, at all. There are no joints, no buttons to push to make her wings move up and down, no poseability there whatsoever. While some might say that this is a good thing considering her wings are mostly just there to "help the doll stand on her own" (which seems to be a main selling point of the Freaky Fusion ghouls considering it was obnoxiously printed onto all the boxes like some strange Taobao MH knockoff,) I say me no likey, and little me totally would have agreed with me on this. One of the best features of Monster High is without a doubt, their poseability--suddenly the line of play and imagination was expanded beyond belief when these dolls of articulation first hit the shelves, and I'm sure any fellow Generation 1 MLP collectors would agree with me--one of the best parts of having a doll or pony with wings is being able to move them and pretend they are flying as you run around your house and annoy the crap out of your parents. Is this the first time Mattel has released dolls with wings that don't move? Certainly not, I have several Barbies who have plain plastic wings like this that pop into their back and don't do anything, and I also have more than my fair share of "fairy" Barbies who are really just normal Barbies in disguise with the flimsy plastic or fabric wings sewn onto the back of their dresses. Point is, Bonita's wings can be a pro or a con for many reasons:

• They're super duper big and obnoxious, she takes up a lot of space to display and it's hard to pose her with other dolls in close proximity sometimes. 
• They don't move. Yawn. 
• They have obnoxious and somewhat sharp pointy bits so whatever you do don't leave these things laying around on the floor to step on under any circumstances (otherwise it would be the curse of your childhood Lego bricks all over again.)

BUT with those things in mind there is one thing about these wings that I like--actually, two: They are well designed, I have to give credit where credit is due. They don't take away from the actual doll herself... Too much, rather they add to it. The other thing I like is, yes, they are removable. In the strangest of ways--if you'll notice in the picture above, her wings join together in a molded plastic spinal column. Unlike any other winged doll we've seen in this toy line (Avea Trotter, Rochelle Goyle, the dragon CAM, etc,) these wings do NOT attach via two discrete peg holes in her back. Rather, it's one ginormous round peg with a smaller one underneath  that snap in and out of the ridiculous hole in her back (as seen above.)

Whether or not this is good or bad is determined by whoever owns her--on one hand, it ensures the stability of the wings so she can stand on her own, but on the other hand, or at least in my case, her wings are kind of a pain to pull out. And it also leaves this gigantic slot open for all to see in her back, which is more than a little problem if you're someone like me who likes to photograph their dolls--it makes any cool shots of her backside almost impossible unless if you're purposefully showing off how her wings attach, which is a real bummer because, gigantic Looney Tunes-esque hole in her back aside, look at all the awesome detail put in there otherwise! But hey, at least it carries around to her front side, so that kinda makes up for it I guess.

And with a new doll with actual feet (sorry, Avea) comes new shoes!

I dislike these with the burning passion of a thousand suns. :D I can't tell what they're supposed to be--vines? Just weird art sculpture shoes? Who knows, all I know is that the bright neon yellow seems garish against the rest of her design, and while it should look good with her belt being the same color and her wings also featuring neon yellow in them, these shoes just don't cut it in my opinion. Looking at the rest of the doll is a treat, she's gorgeous to look at, and then you see these obnoxious yellow blobs on her feet that completely ruin the image. I wouldn't mind them so much if they at least had some kind of painted detail on them, perhaps a bit of black to tie in the black in her dress/wings/hair or something, but no we just get these big obnoxious things, which will also be harder to coordinate into outfits with other dolls considering the only other ghoul with neon yellow is Ghoul Sports Spectra. Perhaps it's just me being picky or something, and don't get me wrong, the design is cool, whatever they're supposed to be--they're just not what I was hoping for at all. They're at least super easy to get on and off though.

Her belt is cast of the same bright neon yellow plastic as her shoes, although I have no complaints with this one except for how loosely it sits on her hips. It looks nice as it brings in the colors of the yellows in her dress quite nicely. It seems to be made of two spinal columns slung about her waist as a double belt with a moth buckle. It slides around a lot when the elastics holding it there are removed, and it clips around her waist similar to most plastic doll necklaces, without fastening in the back.

I rather like Bonita's dress a lot--it definitely fits in with her comments in her diary that she likes to go thrifting for new clothes, because the top half of it seems very 80's to me and I totally love it. Too bad there aren't any awesome shoulder pads, but I digress. And if you'll notice, the bottom of her skirt looks like it's been eaten by moths--quite a bad habit of hers when she gets nervous. Although how she gnaws on her skirts while wearing them without flashing anybody is beyond me, maybe Mattel will have answers for us in the Freaky Fusion movie. (Seriously Bonita how the heckie did you do that...) Her skirt has an overlay of equally chewed up magenta lace netting that is also featured around the neckline of the dress, in a stripe down the sleeves, and at the cuffs of her sleeves.

The dress actually wears more like a leotard, which solves the issue that poor Honey Swamp had with the ease of looking up her skirt and seeing her molded underwear, which was just plain awkward. The dress has an open back for her wings to fit in, and velcros in the back towards the lower half of her waist.

Her ponytail holder is of red and orange plastic moths, which seem kind of out of place with the rest of the neons in her outfit. I think it'd have looked better if she had a necklace or bracelets that were also orange or red, because as is it seems out of place (though not as much so as her shoes.)

Boy when I first saw the images of Bonita unofficially released I certainly did not notice that hair--and we thought Gigi's was long?! If this ghoul's hair wasn't in a ponytail it would be dragging on the floor! (I have a friend with hair that goes down to her hips and just that seems to be the most tiresome to have in terms of hair care, I can't imagine how Bonita handles hers.) I have to admit, I'm quite fond of the hot pink and black streaks in there, those are a very nice touch. Neon yellow might have been cool, too, but I like her hair just fine the way it is.

She has a lot of broken hairs that didn't quite make it into her ponytail that stick up kinda funny, I'll have to pull those or snip them later, they're rather distracting. As for her face/head itself, I am in love, because it was those big dolly eyes that won me over when I saw her in Toys R Us. The subtle yellow eyeshadow and glitter under her brow is beautiful, and look at those long gorgeous eyelashes! The blue in her pupils looks nice with the blues in the moths on her dress, and her lipstick is arguably my favorite part. The soft pink with purple lip pencil details had me swooning in the toy aisle. I don't care how strange it sounds--I. Love. Bonita's. Lips. Also, check out those cute little antennae! She doesn't have any visible ears, but I'm assuming this is because average moth ears are smaller than a pinhead and nearly impossible to see without the aid of a microscope. Something I was a little concerned about was her actual head mold, as I wasn't sure if it would be unique or a recast of Skelita's, but fear not, it is in fact her own unique head! Her nose is smaller than Skelita's, and Skelita has a more prominent brow and smaller forehead. Bonita's face also seems to have a wider jawline.

I will note however that, like Avea, Bonita also came with a small mark on her face which I will have to attempt to get off at a later time.

(I also included her without her wings for anyone curious to see what she looks like without them. When you first get her out of the package, she has plastic wrap around her torso that you will need scissors to get off, I'm assuming to protect her body from the black of her dress? Not really sure what's going on there.)

All in all, I really really like Bonita Femur, as much as I do Avea, actually! The wings, while they are a big pain in the rear, are still pretty cool looking, and they are handy to help her stay standing on her own when on display--she just... Has to get an entire shelf to herself because they take up so much space. Sigh. But I do feel that her faceup is arguably one of my favorites of all the Monster High ghouls, along with Avea's as it is very clean, gorgeous and put together. The attention to detail in this doll is most certainly not lacking, and I'm looking forward to seeing how Mattel goes about animating her in the movie, and in future webisodes.

Thank you for reading this review, any questions/comments/concerns/qualms and/or trepidations are welcome in the comments, and be sure to look out for my next review of Sirena Von Boo: coming out whenever I get the inspiration to write again. :D

Freaky Fusion: Avea Trotter - Doll Review

Hello all! Normally I would have made a video for this but because I have yet to set up my regular computer (currently operating on a laptop with a shitty webcam) I have to settle for this instead but fear not—there will be pictures!

With the first boxes of the new Monster High line “Freaky Fusion” hitting the shelves only just recently, it’s no wonder that there are few in-depth reviews of some of the new ghouls up yet, and considering I just got mine last night on an extreme stroke of luck, I thought I would fix that. So I will be reviewing all three dolls in the first case assortment of Freaky Fusion: Avea Trotter, Bonita Femur, and Sirena Von Boo! I’ll be doing each one on their own separate post so you don’t have to scroll all the way down a page a mile long to get to a certain ghoul you’re curious about. So without further ado, let’s get on to the review.

First up is Avea Trotter; I feel like it’s safe to say this ghoul was the most anticipated because she is the first doll of her type to be mass marketed in such a popular mainstream toyline—I mean, she IS a centaur, after all. But did she live up to all the hype and expectations in the air surrounding her?

Well, for the most part. I feel like the first most important thing to address here are her joints—I was expecting and hoping for three points of articulation in all of her limbs—arms and horse legs, but it seems we only got half of that. Two thirds?

Her hind legs only have one point of articulation and that’s at the hip; unlike her forelegs, she has no joints in her knees or her ankles. That being said, she DOES have articulation in the ankles up front which was completely unexpected! So her poseability isn’t AS limited, and I feel like the joints were left out of the hind legs for the sake of childplay, so I’ll let it slide for now.

Articulation aside, the lower half of her body is a very rich plum color and she has some quite cute dappling on her left flank and right foreleg in small lavender Monster High skullettes, which I thought was a nice way to bring the color from the upper half of her body throughout the rest of her design for balance.

True to the style of most show horses her tail is bound up to keep it nice and tidy and comes out in a gorgeous peacock teal and blue mix (I think this is where some of her heritage comes in.) It only took one or two brushes to get it looking nice and fluffy, and there was little hair loss. It’d have been fun if it was a little longer, but it’s as anatomically correct as you can get with a stylized line like Monster High so hey, no complaints here.

Along with her clothes up top and the non-removable wrapping on her tail, she also has black leg wraps detailed with painted silver buckles, and a harness… /rein combo on her back? I’m not entirely sure what’s going on with the straps and buckles there and I do wonder why Mattel wouldn’t go to the length of giving her a skirt on her lower half—centaur or not she’s still walking around mooning everybody. You would think with a conscience and being self-aware and all she would be worried about that? (I can only imagine how embarrassing that might be for any boy centaurs, yikes.)

It is removable via a buttons on the underside of the belt going around her horse’s midsection and the belt going around her human (er, avian?) waist.

As for the leg wraps, they’re fairly simple and standard of horse show-ing attire. They stay on by simply clipping on at the back, and fairly loosely I might also add. They have a tendency to slip and pop off when you’re repositioning her legs and bending her hooves once the elastic is taken off. And no, she is not wearing horse shoes. :C

All in all her horse half seems alright, though the joints are a little stiff and only bend forward and back—she looks a bit awkward from the side with the horse’s chest being so flat, and we’re not going to go into how incorrect her anatomy is—after all, this is a stylized toyline based off of an equally stylized cartoon, reviewing anatomy in this case would be silly.

Unfortunately with how narrow her build is and how widely (or rather… Not widely) her legs are spaced apart, she has a tendency to fall over to the side a lot. Want to do a traditional pose of her lifting one leg in an elegantly poised and graceful manner with that balance? Forget it. She is also incapable of sitting, or looking even remotely natural laying down. Curb-stomping is still perfectly acceptable, however.

Alright enough horsing around, time to get to the most important part of the doll herself! Her face—and arms and… Stuff.

Her outfit is comprised of a cyan ruffled shirt (the hems are bare towards her neckline, it Velcros in the back,) red riding jacket (because red IS her favorite color after all) that fastens via Velcro in the front, and a little tophat with fuchsia buckle and feathers with painted details, held onto her head via helmet-like straps that button on on the underside of her chin, so no worries of it falling off.

Avea’s hands are black gloves with little cyan ruffles sculpted/painted on the wrists for decoration; above that she wears a set of purple belted bangles on the right hand (all connected as one piece, only to be taken off after removing her hans) and a maroon belt wrist cuff on the left (also removable only by taking off her hand.)

Here we see more of her harpy heritage; she has cute little feathers on the outside of her forearms!

Unlike the rest of the Monster High cast, Avea comes with her own special torso more similar to that of a true BJD or Integrity doll. The bust and shoulders are a separate piece on top of the rest of the torso, and can turn a full 360 degrees so she doesn't have to be a boring centaur who's always facing straight forward all the time. This wasn't something I had expected, and almost makes up for the lack of articulation in her hind legs. Almost. It's a pretty cool feature, but be warned: she can be a little hard to twist and I was a little worried at first that I might break her.

Her wings attach via two pegholes in her back in between her shoulder blades similar to the Dragon CaM and Rochelle Goyle. They are black with metallic green airbrushing on the wingtips, a nice little touch to give her that extra bird-like feeling.

Now onto the best part of the doll (well, for me at least, I get excited about head molds) her head! Avea features her own unique head mold with adorable horsey ears that put Hasbro’s Equestria Girls dolls to shame. The plastic is soft and firm as can be expected of these dolls, her hairline is thickly rooted and her ponytail, held up by simple black elastic, is silky soft to the touch.

I should note however that there was a small dark mark towards the back of her head by her hairline. I have yet to try and get it off with Magic Eraser as a good old fashioned spit bath has yet to make any kind of improvement.

When I found Bonita and Sirena on the shelf at Toys R Us, Avea was not with them, most likely because someone had already bought her. I had to ask a sales associate to look in the back and pull out another case for me, and this was the first Avea he pulled out. Compared to the other three ghouls, they all seem to have wonderful faceups in terms of eye placement and lipstick, but whether or not this is seen on all dolls across the board has yet to be seen. I think I just got extremely lucky.
Her plum lips are nice and muted, good when her eye makeup is so attention grabbing. The light pinks, red and greens are all call backs to colors found throughout the rest of her doll (the stripes on her jacket, the red of the jacket, and the green of her wings and in her hair respectively,) therefor bringing together the whole doll beautifully and effectively. Color placement on this doll was well thought-out for it is well balanced, leading the eye throughout the entirety of her design smoothly and efficiently, which is important when you consider the artistry and effort that goes into these dolls during the creation process.

Overall, I think this doll is everything I could have asked of Mattel and more. She’s a new, refreshing design to add to the already colorful MH cast, with a unique design and concept that doesn’t seem as much of a regurgitation of old ideas as some of the designs (cough Venus cough) released in the past. Also, she has kind of a peacock theme going on about her, and I totally dig that. Peacocks are radical, and super pretty in flight I might add, although her wings seem a bit too small to actually carry her… If she ends up flying in the movie, I’ll be calling bullshit, Mattel!
She seems to reflect her character (or what little we can gleam of it from her diary) fairly well—stubborn, dignified and perhaps a bit stuck-up. Of the three her character appeals to me the most for reasons you’ll just have to read her diary/watch the movie to understand, but I am certainly looking forward to seeing her animated in the movie and in future webisodes. I just wish she was more poseable. –wistful sigh—

Thank you for reading my first official doll review and let me know if you liked it/think there’s anything I should add in future reviews, and go check out my other reviews of Bonita Femur and Sirena Von Boo if you are interested! Thanks again, and go Monster High!

-Cheesy