Hey all! Today, I wanted to blab about another doll that doesn’t seem to have too much on-hands EN info; Purple Star from Rainbow Bubblegem! Rainbow Bubblegem is a Chinese-Korean magical girl cartoon that’s been airing for around two years now I believe (it recently got an English dub too). I personally haven’t gotten the chance to watch it yet, but as soon as I saw the dolls and character designs, I knew I needed to get my hands on one. So when my mom asked me what I wanted her to bring back from China, I knew right away what my big Christmas souvenir was going to be. (Yes, it does haunt me knowing her and my relatives were on the complete opposite side of the world probably making fun of me for asking for a toy with ages 3+ stamped on it.)
Before we go on, keep in mind that this is a licensed character doll and not necessarily a true blue fashion doll. That means that certain things like fashion quality might not be a huge budget focus compared to things like design accuracy or durability for action play. If you’re used to brands where the dolls are the primary product, some of the quality levels might be dealbreakers. But as someone who personally loves character dolls, there’s honestly a lot I’m willing to let slide as long the doll does its job of representing the character well. That is to say, if it sounds like I’m calling the doll just decent or cheap a few times too many, trust me, I still really love her and think she’s great lol.
First of all, I can’t get over how cute her face is. I’m a huge sucker for very cartoonish styles being adapted into doll form, and it’s honestly the main reason I wanted her. Outside of preschool toys, there just aren’t that many dolls out there these days with this specific toony look. It’s refreshing. The Bubblegem dolls would make great bases for customs based on a lot of modern western cartoons. Star vs. and Owl House especially. That aside, the screening quality is fairly below average. I’m not sure how well it comes off in photo, but in real life, it’s very visibly pixelated. It’s honestly because of the whole wide eyed cartoony look that it does come off as obvious as it does. Other stylized doll screenings can hide pixelation better through details, but she unfotunately does not have that luxury. I don’t personally mind too much, but wth how unique she looks, it’s a shame the screening’s not as nice and clean as it could be (Also, ignore the paint scratch that’s on the top left corner of the face.)
Moving on to her hair. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure it’s poly? Idk I’m no good with ID’ing this stuff. It’s actually pretty soft to the touch, but I do feel a certain dryness to it. I do think it looks pretty nice straight out of the box though. She’s well rooted and is decently thick with hair. There are parts of the upper section where I feel it could’ve been spaced a little more tightly, but it’s probably to help accomodate for the plastic headband.
She has 9 points of articulation; her head that can only move left and right, her shoulders, elbows, wrists, and legs. Unfortunately, no bend in the knees. Her legs are rubbery, so I was hoping for the possibility of a snap click, but nothing. In my opinion, it does feel a little awkward given how the arms are fully articulated, but it’s whatever.
As for the clothes, she has a single one-piece magical girl dress that velcroes at the back, a removable plastic belt, and a pair of rubber gloves and boots.
The dress is honestly the biggest issue I have with her. It’s a really thick and stiff papery material that does not feel pleasant to handle. I wanted to take it off to get some pics of her body nude, but it just seemed like a huge pain. The shoulder areas especially feel really stiff. Not only does it make it difficult to move the joints at certain angles, but I was also a little worried that I might cause the fabric to tear a bit if I didn’t take it off properly. Notably, this is only about the outer pink and purple parts of the dress. The inner whites are a complerely different cheap papery material that isn’t thick but at least feels more like actual fabric. I will say that it does keep the shape of the dress intact very well, and if you don’t plan on restyling her, there shouldn’t be any issues. HOWEVER. The glitter. Oh my god the glitter. I don’t know if it’s there to hide how cheap the dress material is or the dress material is cheap because of the glitter, but it’s literally covering the entire thing and I haaaaaate it. It cheapens the look, it’s not even accurate to the show, and even though it’s not shedding like crazy or anything, I know for a fact this shit will be haunting my room for eternity. Doll companies; I promise you, children do not care if there’s glitter if the design itself is already cute, please stop randomly adding this microplastic infestation to toys.
I do also want to highlight the hands and gloves. Yes, there is wrist articulation. Unfortunately, they’re pretty useless with the gloves on. You can techinically still move her wrists around, but because the gloves have a large opening flap on them to make it easier to put them on, the cuffs don’t stay on properly if you do. It stinks you’re stuck at an either or situation with the hands, but my joy at her having gloves at all outweighs any major annoyances I have with sacrifing that movement. I don’t know. I love dolls with gloves. I think it gives outfits, especially costumes, a lot of character. They’re usually the first to go when it comes to budgeting for a doll since the size and scale functionality doesn’t justify the cost most of the time, so I’m always excited whenever a doll, playline ones especially, still goes through with them. Seriously, modern Precure dolls don’t even bother with them anymore.
Oh, uh, also, she’s got fabric underwear apparently? Not weirded out or anything. Just…really surprised. I’m used to only seeing fabric underwear on bjds and some collector dolls. This is my first time seeing them on a playline I think lmao. Her thighs are on the thick side, so even though you technically can, I don’t think you’re meant to take them off.
Lastly are the accessories which consist of a brush, wand, her starfish mascot friend, and the headband you’ve been seeing in other photos. Quick warning with that one; the band is hard plastic, and since her head’s on the wider side, it can’t really go too far up front even though I think that’s where they want you to put it.
Interestingly, the starfish’s other side is a rounded indent instead of flat. Again, I haven’t seen the show, so I don’t know if it’s meant to be placed somewhere specific.
Overall, she’s a pretty nice doll. Whatever elements are lacking, she makes up for it by having a strong overall character design and for being amazingly show accurate. Maybe she’s not worth centering a huge import order on, but I do highly recommend her if you’re a fan of the show or if you’re just hankering for a nice cartoon doll. At the moment, there’s unfortunately only dolls for Purple Star and Red Ruby and it doesn’t seem like there’s been another wave since those two. Good news is, if you’re a fan of the other girls, the mermaid figurines seem to actually be the main toy centerpiece for the franchise and have all of them. Also way more accessible when it comes to import retailers for some reason.
If you have any questions, feel free to drop them below, and I’ll try my best to answer! ( ^o^)/
she’s a really cute doll. shame about the lack of knee articulation and the absurd amount of glitter.