Sneak peek at new goodies

I just got what I oreded for Christmas and here is a sneak peak for you:

Rapunzel is for my sister and  her name is goin to be Horatia, after a character in a book she is going to be made to look like. I got another Merida because the other one, Mireben, moved out with my sister - I bought that one as a hristmas present for her as well. :)

New Merida going to be called Samantha, Sam for short for now. I'll explain sometime where I got that name for her :)

This lady will have the name Laura. No particular reason, I just liked that name for her. She needs a new dress badly.
There are more girls but I don't want to show everything :) But I'll give a hint: now my princess collection will be complete.

Disney Store 2017 Classic Merida doll review

"My land's only borders lie around my heart"

from Chess by Björn Ulvaeus & Benny Andersson, song: Anthem

Yes I'm really behind with my reviews, since the new dolls are already out in the USA and I'm doing a review of the Merida doll from last year. But she is the last doll of the bunch and I bought her for my sister as a Christmas present. I'll possibly purchase another Merida for myself for Christmas. My sister plans to turn her into a prim and proper regency lady, curled hair, high waisted dress and everything.
Let's get a closer look at the box first.

She follows the 2017 pattern, simple box, simple letters.

The movietitle and the characters name is at the front, and there are pictures on the sides and on the back of the box.

To be precise, one side shows her with a serious face, the backside shows her with a happy face (the doll can actually kind of do this trick, I'll show later, how it works).

The back of the box as all kinds of warnings as well, the price, the movietitle and Meridas name once more.

The other side shows her brothers in bear form, an obvious choice, since she comes with a bearcub figure. (This years, 2018 Merida comes with a ring, like all the girls this year) Merida also has her bow and arrows on both pictures, I think it's a great choice to represent her with her signature accesoires.

It would be great if the doll came with these accessoires, too. (Like the first edition did) I'm happy they didn't try to use 2D images of her for the box. While I think the 2D handdrawn pictures work quite well for Rapunzel, I don't think they work for Merida. She doesn't look like herself. But that's just my opinion.

Her background, misty woods, matches her colors and her story. Sorry no deboxing pictures this time but it was quite easy. The only ties that were almost forgotten and almost caused damage were the tiny ones at the bottom of her skirt.

She has a pretty, quite movie accurate face in my opinion. She has sideglancing, blue eyes with a touch of green. I think it's the result of some details painted with a yellowish color. She also has some freckles and rosy cheeks. Now the serious-happy trick: she has a loopsided smile so looking at her from the sides result in two very different pictures.

A happy one and a more serious one.

I love that. Little Kingdom Merida and Mini Merida can do this as well but pretty much all dolls with a loopsided smile are capable of this. It is great for storytelling with dolls. 

She has long, red, mane-like hair. Fresh out of the box, it's quite obvious that her hair has two different parts. At the front, you can see these bigger curls. She has them at the backside, too and these sections have a lot of hairproduct and are quite hard. The other parts are fluffy, messy and are mainly hidden under bigger curls. A boil-wash and recurling should help, but be careful, Disneystore hair doesn't like hot water that much, it'll possibly be damaged ot look dry. I recommend to do more research on the topic, if you decide to recurl your Meridas hair. There are many really good and helpful videos on youtube, they are a more reliable source - I've never done this myself so far, only read about it and watched videos on youtube.

So where was I? Oh yes, her hair is a mess.
That's okay for me, since her hair is quite messy in the movie as well.
Her dress is quite simple, no belt, no pattern running around the bottom part of the skirt. (the 2018 Merida does have it)

But there are some yellow details around the neckline and in her sleeves.
She wears plain brown flats, which are held in place with elastics. I leave them on so the shoes won't get lost.

She has flat feet and klick knees like all 2017 dolls I have.
I do not know what other collectors experience but my 2017 dolls tend to sit in a not so princessy way, as it was called when the issue first appeared with her hard plastic-hinge knee legged dolls back in 2012. Pocahontas sits propperly, holiday Anna is okay, too but Aurora, Belle and Merida... maybe it's Annas bad influence. All three of them sit now next to an Anna doll. :) Certainly not all the dolls have this problem and not all of them have it to the same degree. I don't really mind but I know a lot of people don't like it so I thought I'd mention it.

Now just look, how Merida sits. She has the usual princess articulation, head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips and the already mentioned klick knees. I mention in every single dollreview that I do not like those klick knees and responsible for that is this post by The Toybox Philosopher.
That post shows in detail, what is going on in the klick-knee legs.
The little bear she comes with is very top-heavy and can't stand on its own.

 

He has a mischevious little face.

There are some moulded details, too amd look at those... hands?

He also has a little tail.

He prefers to lay down, lazy little boy.

But he also likes to sit in Anna Margarets lap.
All in all, Merida is a lovely doll. My sister named her Mireben.
I also have mini Merida called Chris so I took a comparsion photo as well:

The picture doesn't really show it very well but there is a difference between the haircolors, Classic Meridas is a bit more red-red (like Ariels hair)  Mini Meridas hair is a bit more orange-rusty red color. There are lots of little differences between these two but they are both clearly representations of Merida. And good ones in my opinion.
And this last picture shows the reason why her arms were in the same position through the whole review:

She is doing a dancing pose (a different one) with this figure  and I have to put her back there, just as she was. It's much easier and is quite a nice pose, too:)

Right now I don't really have anything to review - all that's left are the Frozen mini wardrobe set and some bits from the big Tangled series set I got for my birthday. Sadly Rapunzel from that set has some issues I noticed too late to return it so I'm not really happy with it. The small bits are nice so I'll probably do a post about them. But for now, I'll just post about Dollys story, the ball and all that and hopefully get back to the Minis, too and let Elisabeth and Rosemary tell their tale and so straighten out a not so great start with Nicky and Becky. (If you have no idea who those are, but would like to know, go check the Introducing my minis tab at the top:) )

Edited: Teasers and new trailer released - Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2

"When Can I See You Again"

from Wreck-it Ralph ;)

Edit: I added the new trailer and a link to some more pictures and some thoughts towards the end of this post! Have fun!
Today I discovered that some pictures of the new Wreck-It Ralph sequel were released, among them a picture showing some of the Disney Princesses that will appear in the movie. I've been waiting for this since last year, when  a scene was shown at D23 where the girls appear. Here is an article from last year with more information:
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2017/07/15/wreck-ralph-sequel-disney-princesses/481531001/
I found two versions of that picture:

 

I linked this first one from Facebook, shared byWalt Disney Animation Studios The second one is linked from the USA Today site. I got the information from the comments section belonging to the first picture that the picture is cropped and where the full picture can be found.

I'm very excited for this movie I loved the first one and I as far as I know, Vanellope von Schweetz is going to give the ladies a makeover. I hope this means casual dresses for all of them and I also hope Disney realeases the outfits as dress packs. My dolls would love to exchange their ballgowns from time to time for more comfortable clothes.
According to the Wikipedia article, all members of the Disney Princess lineup will be included, so no worries if you don't see your favourite girl in the picture. (To make it clear: I consider Disney Princesses and princesses two different things. Disney Princesses is the lineup, with Pocahontas and Mulan beeing part of it, and princesses are - well, princesses. Anna is a princess but not a Disney Princess. Mulan is a Disney Princess but not a princess. That's how I see it.) I think they actually use the cast of Ms Amy Mebbersons Pocket Princesses - her lovely and funny weekly pictures feature Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tiana, Rapunzel, Merida, Elsa, Anna and Moana. It looks like these ladies will appear in the new Wreck-it Ralph movie, too. I understand that many people are disappointed that characters they love didn't make it but I greatly dislike the amount of negativity and rudeness it brings with it. Maybe the other characters (like Kida or Nala) will get a chance later where they won't have to compete with the princesses for attention. That is pretty hard in my opinion.
Here are some more pictures, also form Facebook, shared together with the first picture:

Oh and here is the link to the trailer, too, I'm pulling this one from youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMgLxOZJWvs
Neither the pictures nor the video are owned by me, I'm merely an excited fan who wanted to share it.
Here is the new trailer that came out today (4th June 2018):

https://youtu.be/_BcYBFC6zfY
This flickr user made some great screenshots, go and look at them! They are right at the top now, but will likely get lover and lover, as koji kiote  adds more new pictures to the gallery. Another flickr user with amazing pictures, drj1828, made an album for Wreck it Ralph 2 which can be found here and the pictures can be easily found there even as his gallery grows. Those pictures are of course not mine.
If you look at these pictures, you'll see that all the girls missing from the first picture are there: Mulan, Merida and Ariel.
No Elena, but she has her own Wiki (as far as I know) and she is from a TV show, so I think it makes sense she is not in the same room as the other girls. But I'm sure she is out there somewhere in the internet, we just don't ger to see her in this movie. :)
The US Release Date is said to be November 21, 2018.
I'm going to watch this one with the original dub, since most of the puns and jokes get lost while translating or doesn't work so well in another language - at least that's what happened to the first Wreck-It Ralph movie.
Who else is excited? :)

Hasbro Little Kingdom - Meridas playful adventures review

"Irgendwo wird immer getanzt"

Literally: There is always a place where they are dancing

From the musical Mozart! by Lévay & Kuncze, song title is the same as the quote, cing by Constanze, W. A. Mozarts wife

This is the third little kingdom set that joined my little collection.  This Merida set has just about the same amount of extra stuff as fashion change Merida but it didn't cost as much. I noticed that the two Meridas have differently moulded hair.
She comes in the usual packaging, cardboard back and all.

On the backside, there is a picture of Merida and everything she comes with.

I just noticed that the photos on the packages are different from the actual dolls, for example the arms are posed differently (that's quite common) and Merida has green sleeves on the photo, while my actual Merida has purple ones.I went back to check Belles picture, it's the same, the arms have a differnet position compared to the real doll. Back to Merida and her adventures.

She has the usual nice artwork in the front, bottom left corner and is as easy to get out as the others. She even has that tie across her chest. But she didn't  have the catalog of all the sets that Belle and Anna had at the bottom of their packaging, there was only a single warning because of the small parts. And Merida comes with lots of small things.

Her stuff is easier to get out so let's have a look at what she brings along. A piece of cake...

...one of her brothers...

...and a bow, a headpiece and  two snap-ins, one comes attached to her dress, the other is packed separately.

Both snap-ins are little blue ghosts, spirits Merida follows in the movie. Oh that cake is not going to last long.

It's yummie!

This little guy just loves cake and not even a spirit can distract him.

Here is Merida with all her stuff.

She can stand but it is not as easy to balance her as Anna or Belle. Anna is best at standing and sitting, Belle is second and Merida is third.

Locks

She has moulded curls in her hair that can be seen best from the back. She can hold her bow with her own two little hands but that's not very professional.

That's not how you use a bow

Or she can hold it with the help of the little handle tha bow has.

Better but still not perfect

That looks better but she is best with Belles mirror.

Now after all the exciting stuff, let's sit down.

Sit... down

As you can see, she looks a bit werid when sitting, because her hair is in her way. I took off her outfit so you can see her better.
She can do the same trick all dolls with loopsided smiles can: from one side they look serious from the other they look extremely happy. Mini doll Merida aka Chris can do it as well.

smiles

This is really helpful when creating photostories with them., I think, although I didn't have an opportunity to use it yet.

Merida in all her glory

Let's mix and match a bit! Now I have quite a few outfits so it's a lot of fun.

She looks somewhat shorter than the others but she is not

I mixed a funny colorful ballgown for Merida and a scottish inspired dress for Anna. Belle got to wear the rest and there is a gown left, too. I think they turned out quite nice. Since the top part of Meridas skirt is more like a belt, she can't really dress up in the ballerina style using her own clothes, like the other two gals.

She can stand better in this colorful mixture of clothes than in her original outfit.

Miss Mc Arendelle

And a last random picture of Anna, wearing Meridas clothes, inspired by Pocket Princesses nr. 114
(Link is from the artist Facebook page, which she made for Pocket Princesses) Those little ones are a lot of fun and I'm happy to have Merida in my little kingdom. :)

This little Merida is named Constanze, Conny for short.
Next members of my little Kingdom are... tam tadadaaam! Mulan and Elsa! There are three more little ladies but I'll reveal them later. :) Mulan is the June girl, Elsa is a gift from a dear friend. :)