Tangkou Doll - "The Gap Year"

New arrival in da house! Yes, another Tangkou doll, like I got addicted really fast or something. I blame the relative cheapness compared to Pullip and the like. Here's the outer box/sleeve, which features some cool artwork.

Here she is out of the outer box/sleeve. Everything is neatly packed in little bags and the doll is MUCH easier to debox than her Pullip, umm, "cousins."

Not-really-visible is her cute little hat. Or big hat.  I mean, she does have a massive head but I don't want to give her a complex or anything. She comes with the usual stand-comb-brush cheapo plastic accessories, and then a higher-quality set of things unique to her, which are her hat, her sunglasses, and her little rucksack which has actual zips on it. She wears a pink t-shirt, blue-and-tartan jeans-sort-of-things with a little belt (they open at the front like real trousers ermagerd!) and yellow trainers/"sneakers." She also comes with a passport (identical to China's one, so presumably always the same) and a little card of "authenticity" with some art on. Oh, and she is also wearing a pair of yellow knickers under the rest of her clothes.

One immediate thing -- her wig is not glued on and you have to lift it if you want to put the little button on that changes her eyes, which will make it fall off.  Bit odd that, but possibly an element of compromise since earlier Tangkou dolls have rooted hair. Her wig is a weird green-yellow colour, I am not really sure why that seemed like a good idea. It's not as horrendous as it sounds, but it's an odd choice. I will probably attempt rewigging at some point. Wig is quite soft, and elasticated so it goes on as easily as it slips off.



Her eyes change in the same combination as China's but her face-up is less pink which perhaps makes her less terrifying in the face, I am not the best judge of that. Unlike my China, her torso joint moves, so that might be an issue from doll to doll. Her eye mechanism appears to stick less out-of-the-box, which again is probably something that varies and is pot luck what you get.

First impressions are that she is pretty nifty and cute, like a tomboy counterpart to "Chinese Girl" or any of the other, girlier dolls in the series. She has eyebrows, and a strawberries-on-black pattern on her eyelids. Which actually is a bit odd in that it doesn't seem to go with the rest of her image.

Eeeeeee! (Danbo)

Danbo arrived this morning, though he has yet to obtain his own special name. I got him on the ebay for slightly silly money given his smallness, but nothing like INSANE or anything.

Here he is in the diorama, with his new friend R-Patz (AKA Lime's hair). They like each other a whole lot.

Danbo is a mini Danbo, but clearly he is the cutest size. He can move his arms and legs a bit, and his head. A switch on the side lights up his eyes but given that is TERRIFYING| I don't know why you'd want him to do that. The (small and thus kawaii) box he came in has Japanese writing all over it but since I don't speak Japanese it's just pretty decoration.

He is astonishingly expressive for a tiny box robot (no he is not actually made of cardboard, he is plastical).

I completely think he was worth getting, he was intended to be a friend-slash-pet for the Dals & Byuls but we shall see if that works out or not. They will probably appreciate there being someone around who is smaller than they are.

I am going to go look at him and make abnormal squealing noises at the adorableness.

Tangkou Chinese Girl "Review"

Meet Jenny Wonderpants, my new and first Tangkou doll, though I suspect she will not be the last. Behold her wild untameable hair, her staring eyes, her lovely stock dress!

Here she is in close-up, staring right into your soul! I adore her slightly odd face-up and the massiveness of her head and hair.

She fits most Barbie clothes pretty well, though her feet are too big for Barbie's dinky shoes. They do seem to go into Moxie Teenz shoes, but here she is pictured in Mystery Shoes from Ebay that my Dals usually wear.

She stands slightly taller than a  Pullip (so the internet shows me) at 12 and a half inches / 32 centimetres. Her torso is slightly smaller than a (bellybutton/Fashionista) Barbie's, so strappy tops for B will fall off her a bit. She is a good height for the grown-up/young adult sister of Dals and Byuls. Her eyes flip between four colours (two looking ahead, one colour looking to the left, one to the right) and she can close her eyelids which have amazing-if-strange patterns on them. Brushing her hair pulls some out so I stopped brushing and decided to love her as a wild-haired weirdo. Her head and hair are a lot heavier than the rest of her, so she needs to use her stand to stay upright or she will have to lean against something. She is however weightier and sturdier than I anticipated, as I had been thinking along the lines of a Dal's fragile little body. Not so! Sure her arms and feet pop out on occasion, but they go right back in no problem.

Jenny Wonderpants doesn't look especially Chinese to me other than her stock outfit, but then to me she looks about 1/4th alien so maybe I am not the best judge of what she is intended to be as a person.


She came in a lovely box (not pictured, hah!), not too irritiatingly attached to the inside, and she was accompanied by her outfit (dress and shoes), a handbag with a string of pearls in, an instruction "passport," an authenticity card,  a headband (?), a slightly rubbish brush and comb, a stand, and a pair of white knickers. (I assume those didn't fit nicely under the dress hence the separate inclusion.)

I love Jenny Wonderpants! She is a welcome addition to my "Pullip-Related Gang." I have always found actual Pullip herself a  bit bland and samey so this weirder-looking and cheaper alternative appeals to me vastly. She is going to be a "big sister" for the Dals and Byuls to look up to and resent.

But what if I don't love her?

I'm worrying a bit about whether or not I will love my Tangkou when she arrives. I mean what if I don't? Still, she wasn't horrifically expensive and I can always give her to someone as a present.

I see a lot of people saying they failed to "bond" with a doll, sometimes the dolls in question cost hundreds of pounds so I feel really bad for them. Even if they sell that doll on to someone else it still sucks for them.

It might just be that I have no concept yet of my Tangkou's "personality," and I'm waiting to see her in person before I choose a name for  her. One reason that Lemon is my One True Doll is that I knew what she'd be "like" before she arrived. She just sort of invented herself for me, and then the other Dals have, err, variations on the same personality. It's cool, they don't mind.

I get confused when people have kind, sweet Dals, because Lemon and her hatred of everything affects how I view all other Dals. If they don't look grumpy and hate-filled I generally don't like them all that much. That said, I've seen plenty of ungrumpy Dals who looked lovely and carefully-customised I just... don't see my Dals in that way.

And then my Byuls have a personality that is a reaction to the Dals. They go together nicely, or not "nicely" but really well somehow. I shall have to have a think about how my Tangkou is going to fit into this drama. I hope she isn't bland, Pullip herself always strikes me as bland. I'd have to really work at making a Pullip fit into the gang.

I don't sell stuff on ebay for all sorts of reasons, so selling dolls on isn't really an option for me. I am probably worrying about nothing. I hope I am. I don't have Buyer's Remorse or anything like that, I am glad I bought her, it's just that I don't know who she's going to "be" and while most of my dolls have no personality to speak of (a Barbie is a Barbie is a Barbie), my Pullip-adjacent dolls are the ones that have the most.

Well, we shall see what happens when she arrives. Fingers crossed!

A "Chinese girl" Tangkou is en route to me! I got her on ebay and she should be here some time next week (I didn't want to pay for fastest postage). I hope she is excellent. She is going to be Big Sister to the Dals and Byuls, who now that I think of it are probably not all related to each other but whatever.

The thing is that Pullip herself has never appealed to me much, striking me as a bit blandly pretty when compared to a Dal or a Byul with their, um, "unique" expressions. I was wanting a new doll though, so some "research" (read: browsing doll-related blogs) later I decided that a Tangkou was what I needed most in the whole world. She looks slightly ridiculous and a bit strange, so hopefully she is as weird in person and goes with her doll-siblings reasonably well.

I *think* she is a wee bit taller than a Pullip, which might mean she will sort-of fit Barbie clothes? If so I have a ton of those lying about so no problem. Presumably I'll have something around the house that will fit her anyway.

I also went a bit mad and got some extra "diorama things" for the shelves that house the Pullip-Except-Not Gang. Did I need a second IKEA Huset? Well, I reckon so, because I love them things and they are pretty good value even at ebay prices, once you work out how much a doll-sized chair etc would cost on their own. (Pro-Tip: buy those "novelty mobile phone holders" that come in chair shapes, because they're about the right size and WAY cheaper than Actual Doll Furniture.) And I got a few other things that seemed about the right size based on my measuring tape and some guesswork.

Above is my original Huset and The Bitchin' Ride which is a purple Bratz car that you can plug an mp3 player into for "in-car radio." Nothing - nothing - will ever top the Bitchin' Ride for doll-related awesomeness. It was £14.99 from Toys'R'Us in Gateshead and it was worth every penny of that sale price. In the picture it is being driven by Laverne (Dal Lipoca) with Honey Swamp as her passenger. Yes, I may have some Monster High dolls. No, I am not addicted to them shut up.

Burda 7336 (Sewing for Barbie, yo)

I am not finding much in the way of reviews for doll pattern sets, so I should maybe share my own experiences with a few, at some point. Today it's Burda 7336, which makes three fancy dresses to fit Barbie.

I've only tried one dress and the top part of another, but that bodice section? I can't get it to fit a Bellybutton or a Fashionista, though it was better once I actually paid attention to shit like seam allowances. Still, it irks me that I can't work out what I'm doing wrong. Such is the way with these things, and I am indeed one of those people who sometimes just skips a bit if I don't understand what it's telling me to do. For all I know the patterns are for another sort of Barbie, but they don't have tinywaist so I expect not?

Anyway, fancy dresses. People love that shit. Especially people who want "modest Barbie clothes" as though Barbs were a terrible hussy having children out of wedlock and not going to church often enough. Get real, I grew up with Barbies that were mostly naked and aside from the foul mouth I'm lovely! "Modest" is a word that evokes Mormonism and the Amish. I don't think those people have dolls, because idolatory.

ANYWAY! It's definitely harder to follow than the Simplicity ones (which actually do live up to their name for the most part), and tbh the style of dress isn't really my dolls' "thing" but most likely it all fits if you sew it properly and know what you're doing. I don't even own a sewing machine, I'm just an eternal beginner.

Bratzillaz Jade J'Adore Back to Magic

Welp, I may as well start here.

This morning's semi-unexpected arrival was Bratzillaz Jade J'Adore. These dolls seem to be going for cheap lately, and I knew already that Bratzillaz clothes will fit a Dal/Byul doll body. I don't love Bratzillas, but I do love my Dals (and even the Byuls) so I parted with some cashmoneys to get this doll pretty much just for her clothes. It's a nice little outfit, it looks lovely on Spite.

The furry red handbag is a bit odd but obviously Spite has sufficient evil class that she can carry it off. The socks go almost all the way up but whatever they can pretend they are tights.

Anyway, now I have a Bratzilla. I am not that impressed, tbh. Her hair is weird and plasticy (well yes) and one of her legs appears to be defective in that it won't move very far in any direction. Plus she has these creepy red eyes with loveheart pupils. I don't know why someone thought those would be a good idea, I really don't. If her head was less sinister I might be looking for a possible body donor for her, but no.

I confess I don't entirely understand the Bratzillaz. I mean what are they for? Are they really just an attempt to cash in Monster High and Harry Bloody Potter? Apparently kids these days love witches with SCARY RED LOVEHEART EYES oh I don't know. But since the stuff is going cheap maybe they're on the way out, I should investigate. Maybe I just got a dud one, but I can't quite imagine these dolls inspiring many people to catch 'em all, Pokemon-stylee. They have the points of articulation but the lower legs and hands are rubbery (like the old Barbie legs, remember those?) plus have I mention the creepy red eyes yet?