ILY4ever doll review - Tiana fan doll

„Most indul a játék”

from The Count of Monte Cristo (originally Hungarian, meaning: The game starts now)

 The new I love you forever doll line (ily4ever for short)is not that new anymore and there are many-many posts about the girls out there, but I’ll still do my review and share thoughts. It’s more like a personal opinion and my story with them.

If you’d like to see an informative review on what clothes fit them and joints and articulation, this is a great post: https://www.toyboxphilosopher.com/2023/01/ily-4ever-fashion-dolls-by-disney.html

I won't go into details, just mention stuff here and there, for details, please visit the blogpost on the link above - it's about the same doll.

When I first saw them, they didn’t struck me as must-have dolls, although I still tried to pick a favourite. In the end, I settled on the girl who is a fan of Tiana, with the Jasmine fan becoming a close second, occasionally surpassing the Tiana fan. When I got the opportunity to buy one doll, I picked the Tiana fan because she kind of “gave me her backstory”. Did it happen to you when thoughts just came so naturally to you in connection with a doll and her story and nature as if the doll told you? Same thing happened with a few names but more about that later.

Everybody knows the stereotypical Japanese person, hard-working overachiever, just like Tiana. And that is just the reason this girl is a fan of Tiana because she can relate to her journey and a big problem that exists not just in her life but on a bigger scale as well. That is why I decided to give her a Japanese name. I tried Violet first but she kind of “rejected” it. It wasn’t easy but I named all six.

So here are the names I gave them (since they do not come with their own names and are usually referred to by the name of the princess they like)

Fan of Snow White: she literally screamed at me that her name is Charlotte. Normally I avoid giving them names that are already used in a Disney movie (like Jane or Anna) but these are not princess dolls so I decided it should be fine. My dolls, my rules :)

Fan of Cinderella: she was the hardest to name and the last one to receive one, she settled for Dahlia. She is the only doll I may consider renaming.

Fan of Ariel: Kaori – she got a Japanese name because her parents are close friends with Tiana fan’s parents and they picked out the name. They are to blame not me. :)

Fan of Belle: Ilka – after a very good friend of mine who looks a lot like this doll and agreed to lend the doll her name. A perfect choice, I think.

Fan of Jasmine: Midori – he parents are researchers of Japanese culture and history, thus the name. It means green and green and teal are her favourite colours.

Fan of Tiana: last but not least, the object of this review. She accepted the name Yukiko

First I didn’t particularly like any, now I love all of them. A story adds so much to them in my eyes.

The boxes in this line are simple yet pretty. 

Art of the princess in the front and one of the sides...
 

...doll photos on the other side and the back. A group of Disney fans taking a picture at Disneyland.

The artwork of the princess is usually the same at the front and on the side but a different cutout. It also looks like the lineart and the colouring does not match, the lineart seems to have a lighter “shadow” lineart and the colouring matches that. It is surely intentional but to me, it looks odd. Still cute art of the princesses.

The box has one rounded edge and a handle at the top that makes opening it from the bottom the easiest option. The first thing I'm greeted with is a tie that holds her right foot. By the way, those ties are great when you have a nicely rolled up cable and don't want to get it tangled. I usually give those to my dad and he makes good use of them.

I used the handle to help me hold the box while pulling out the inner part with the doll out.

The backside is ugly - everything a dollcollector hates when unboxing dolls - plastic T-ties, tape and more. T-ties in the head is what I hate the most when unboxing dolls.

Now let’s start with Yukiko herself. 

She has long black hair styled in two ponytails, it is quite soft and long. She is the only one in the gang with fully straight hair and so with fairly little hairstyling product in her hair. The little short sections at the front are an exception, they are stiff and hard due to the amount used there.

She has black eyebrows with detailing, a slight blush on her cheeks and natural coloured lips with a closed mouth smile. She has brown inset eyes, pretty and shiny, also the eyelashes are painted to be more realistic and not as cartoonlike as the Disney princesses.

She came with green Tiana Mickey ears, a purple top with New Orleans on it, a skirt with straps with flower pattern and light purple sneakers. No idea why the purple, Tiana never wore purple. 

She also brings a fluffy jacket, a beige backpack and a purple water bottle. The green buttons on the jacket are nice and I liked the explanation by a fan that this jacket refers to the white outfit Tiana wears during her Almost there fantasy and towards the end when she is briefly turned human again.

She also has the balloon with the surprise.

Mine had the pretzel in it. Yummy. I decided this will be her favourite treat ans this rule will apply tomall girls.

A closeup of the purple bottle. I saw in other people's reviews that the handle often comes crooked and the elastic tie distorted the bottle and the handle a bit, this one's quite decent.

Almost forgot, she also comes with a purple and green bead bracelet. 

Mine’s a bit crooked.

But these new hands have a nice shape, with not all fingers glued together. More chances for threads to be caught in them when dressing the dolls. But a pair of mittens solves the problem, at least for me.

Still wondering about the purple/violet color usage (one of the reasons I considered naming her Violet) and why so much of it. If not for the Mickey ears, I’d have had a hard time guessing whose fan she is, simply based on her colours. But I must admit, I like it on her so I don’t mind.

The dolls in this doll line in general look more like teenage girls than the Disney princess dolls, although many Disney princesses are said to be teens, too. The Disney princess dolls look more like adults than these dolls. Looking at these Disney fan dolls I’d guess them to be around 16-17 years old.

Their body is a new construction and I love the double knee joints, now I only wish for double elbow joints. Careful, the legs easily pop off. But they can be just as easily put back but I wouldn't do that too often.

A very pretty line, with these dolls, anybody can create their own modern day princess. My guess something like that was the idea of leaving the girls without names of their own, encouraging the owners to name them themselves.

I have two more dolls and three fashion packs to review – maybe I’ll even do them. I plan to get the remaining three dolls and more fashion packs for Christmas. Until the next review, here is a little teaser:

If you're in Europe and wish to buy them, you can do so here: https://www.shopdisney.eu/disney-ily-4ever

Disney Store 2018 Classic Tiana doll review

"Unlimited. Together we're unlimited"

from the musical Wicked, song: Defying gravity

Tiana was on my wishlist for the longest time, I actually wanted her in her blue dress since I like that one more than her green lillypad dress but I'm fine with this version, too, the important thing is I got her and she still has that adorable face I like.
First look at Tia.

She arrived together with a bunch of other dolls. Let's take a closer look at her. She comes with a ring like all the princesses that came out in 2018. (Usually the new ones come out in summer but these dolls are still available on both the UK and the USA Disney online stores) I don't care for the rings, they are designed for small fingers and the best thing I can do with them is to use as decoration in a dolls hair. They are too big and too stiff to be used as a choker, at least I never succeeded to do that.

The box itself is quite simple.

It says Princess Tiana right at the bottom part of the front side. The sides of the boxes have some nice artwork.

The left side has a sketch style Tiana (outlines only) and another picture that shows her while cooking although in the movie that outfit is mostly yellow and not green.

The right side shows Tiana wearing the dress from the end of the movie with frog Naveen in her hands and another where they both are human. This green lillypad dress is the one the doll wears. On the backside, there is another picture of her holding the frog and also a sketch.

Also tons of warnings and a pricetag that has the price of the doll in euros and in pounds.
Let's take a closer look at her. The artwork shows Tia with both gloves and a necklace but she doesn't come with any of these accessoires.

But she does come with her hair accessory, a little crown or diadem, although she doesn't have a veil attached to it like in the movie. Look at that cute little curl she has! The crown is tied to her head with two plastic little thingies and I left them there for now. It's not the one with the T shaped ends that usually goes into the dolls head, it's simply a thin plastic thread that is wrapped around the crown and a lock of hair. Not sure if it goes into the dolls head but I don't think so. Once I redress her, I'll consider taking her hair down and removing the crown. Her hair is up in a bun and it feels a lot like Moanas hair, it's a curly heap on her head. It's nice and as soft as it can be with that texture, it's not hard, it has little to no hairproduct.it's tied together with a black elastic under the updo
Her face is pretty, she has brown eyes, a broad little nose and thick lips, like in the movie. She wears subtle makeup, which I think suits this hard worker girl very well.

I love this facemold and faceup for her. I didn't like the very first one with the big open mouthed smile as much as I like this one. It worked much better in mini doll size in my opinion though, mini Tia was really cute, her classic version looked a bit crazy to me. But I also agree with the people who say that the big smile is very much Tiana. Here a few screenshots from the movie to prove it:

But closed mouth smile Tiana is very pretty, too:

And the doll, just like Tia inthe movie, has dimples! Isn't that a great detail? I haven't seen that often on dolls.

I can't catch it with the camera but it is there!  But you can have a look at here profile and see how her hair is done. Her skin is darker than in most of my photos, because of the flash it always appears lighter than it actuall
Next is her dress. As I already stated, I like her blue dress more but also wanted her bride version that was available for a short while during the summer of the Royal Wedding in Europe (along with brown Rapunzel and Cinderella as brides).
Her dress is simplified a lot but it still has some details and an interesting structure compared to the other princesses' dresses.

The bodice is made of two layers, the upper one is made to look like two big green leaves and are covered in glitter. The leaver are not sewn to each other or to the other layer.

Under the leaves there is a white layer that is cut at the top to look like flowerpetals.
She has a white flower at the waist but nothing more, no leaves or veins.

The leaves on her skirt are smaller and fewer with almost every new release, but this time, they got away fairly well with shrinking since the rest of the skirt is two layers and one of them has beautiful glittery patterns and the skirt is fairly wide.

The skirt has three layers alltogether. But the overskirt has only three leaves and they are fairly small.

They are covered in glitter but they don't have any trimming or decoration. The middle layer is seethrough, except for the glitter. Flowers, leaves and veins and some dots make up the pattern on that layer and it touches the ground if the doll is standing. The layer beneath is a bit shorter, it ends just above her feet. It's all white and a fairly thin material but together with the skirt carrying the glittery patterns it works quite well. In my opinion this kind of skirt works best for Tiana and her dress.

The glittery pattern covers the whole layer, also the backside of the middle skirt but there are no leaves at the back, probably for easy undressing.

The dress is all one piece and closes at the back with velcro.

Tiana has flat feet and lightgreen slippers. She has rubber legs and klick knees, she also has articulation at her hips, wrists, elbows and of course her head, the usual princess articulation.
Overall, I'm pleased with the doll but her dress could be better. Since I'm not that fond of that green dress anyway, I plan to redress her, I have some fabrics for her yellow waitressoutfit so I plan to redress her at some point. I'm glad I added her to my collection, she is a nice addition but probably not the best choice for little girls who want to brush their dolls hair. Tianas hair, like Moanas, is not good for that, although it's very pretty and movie accurate in my opinion.
And a goodbye picture of her with her soon-to-be dress.

Her name is Laura - as I already have a little kingdom Tiana, Madelaine, she needed an extra name.:)
Merida and Snow White to go! :)

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.

Hasbro Little Kingdom - Tiana review

"Nobody's on nobody's side
Better learn to go it alone"

from the musical Chess by Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, song: Nobody's on nobody's side


So here it is the promised Tiana review, I just squuezed in a dollstory post in between so it's variated. (Ans also a bit chaotic maybe.:)
I got Tiana on the same trip I got Rapunzel and Ariel. I would have preferred the fashion change set with Tiana in her blue dress but I was just happy I found her at all. As I already mentioned earlier, she is the very first and so far only representation of Tiana I own.
She has the same packing as all the other little kingdom dollies I own: cardboard with clear plastic. íit is quite easy to open so I like that. Her artwork shows her in her most iconic outfit, the green lilypad dress but at the same time she has the frog Naveen in her hand which doesn't really make sense if you think of the movie.

But the 2017 Disney store doll, not to mention the 17 inch Limited Edition Tiana that was released in 2010, both wear the lillypad dress and hold a frog. The later is important because she came out much earlier than anything by Hasbro. So I assume the idea originally comes from Disney.
The backside has warnings in several languages and a picture of Tiana.

There are also some pictures explaining how the mix and match works.Ther is no little cathalog with all the sets released so far that came with Anna and Merida. Only those first two sets I bought had them and since than so many new sets, even new characters were released that it could be a bit misleading, so I think that's why it was removed.
Tiana is easy to free.

She comes with a complete outfit and three snap-ins, one is already attached to her skirt, the other two are packed separately. The one on her skirt is a simple flower, the other two are a green version of the firefly Ray (I thought it's a frog first) and a golden water lily.

I choose to put the later one in her hair but any snap-in can be put in any hole, technically. Sometimes it is difficult, though.
Both flowers reminden me of snap-ins I've seen earlier. The water lily is a bit like the flower Mulan brought with her.

Mulans on the left, Tias on the right

The flowercrown that looks a bit like it is made of flowers like Tianas other snap-in also came with Mulan.

I tried how it looks in Tias hair. Flowers look great in the hair as Rapunzel taught us :D Not lets leave the flovers and have a look at the dress. Tianas top is a vivid light green and it does not cover her whole chest.

It is moulded to look like it is made of leaves.

 The upper part of her skirt, the 'miniskirt' looks like it is made of big leaves just like her  outfit in the movie. It is a darker, slightly bluish green with one golden leaf.

The lower part has some nice patterns and details that remind me of skirts with huge hoops (like the ones Marie Antoinette and her court wore) and of a waitress outfit. Tianas whole outfit is green and golden. Her bodysuit is golden, too. Somehow this golden color goes much better with her then it went with Rapunzel. That's my opinion at least.  The botton part is a lighter color, somewhere between green and yellow. The backside of the skirt has moulded details as well, it looks like as if the skirt was layered.

I think that's a great way to add some extra details. Those light colors go well with her dark skin. She has a perfectly moulded bun.

I like how Hasbro does the bun moulds, I liked Annas bun just as much, and Tianas looks just as lovely.

It perhaps not the most movie accurate but I still like it a lot.

Her face is lovely, too. I like the curls that frame her face, they are perfect in my opinion. She has a sweet closed mouth smile that suits her well. 

Her background is the bayou which works well with this dress.

But the background looks nice by itself, too and there are some tiny pictures of both frog and human Tia in the top part of the picture.

Tianas golden painted on bodysuit allows her to borrow the golden part of Ariels outfit and look great. Her skirt is broader even at the top part of it, that's why Ariels golden belt isn't a perfect fit.
I also got a picture of her shadow and I thought it looked good so I'm sharing it.

Tiana is instantly recognisable (at least for me) from only the outlines so I think that shows they did a good job with her.

Tiana in all her glory

Her name is Madeleine in honour of a friend of mine. :)
I don't have any more Little Kingdom Princesses I can review but ther might be some other surprises I'll post a review about ;)