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.
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.
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
