Warning for doll nudity bellow!
Also really a lot of text and images since it’s a review of 3 dolls.
Jump to actual review starting here if you don’t want to read a brief introduction to the brand. English isn’t my mother language so please excuse me if it’s no written as best as it could be.
First time and possible only review I’m making since there aren’t a lot of reviews of these dolls even in portuguese. 😅 All links on the post that I’ll be using as reference will be in brazilian portuguese since these dolls were released for Brazil only as far as I know.
Promotional Image taken from Mônica’s wiki.
Released in 2009 by Gulliver S/A Manufatura Brinquedos these dolls are a tie in with the comic Turma da Mônica Jovem (TMJ) first released in 2008 and still on going to this day. The comic is a spin-off of Turma da Mônica (Monica’s Gang/Monica and Friends) comic franchise with a manga aesthetic, the original has several doll releases usually as baby or their usual ages (around 7 years old for most kid characters).
Wikipedia article if anyone wants to read more.
3 characters from the comics were made into fashion dolls: Mônica, Magali and Marina. Only Mônica and Magali are part of the main cast that also includes Cebolinha, Cascão and Milena that was officially added to the main cast in 2017.
As a small curiosity, the 3 characters that were made into dolls are characters who are based of the series creator children. Quite a few of the characters from the original series are based off his 10 kids, with him and his wife also being portrayed as characters (Marina’s parents in the comics).
These dolls were first shown at the April 2009 ABRIN international toy fair with their prototypes(?) and the final to be released products shown at Fest Comix in October of the same year with expectation of release for that year’s Christmas.
Possible prototypes of Mônica and Magali, images from MonicaHQ.
Possible Marina prototype from this video by TVFato.
Stock images of all dolls taken from designinnova’s blog.
They had 2 types of releases: with brushable hair and with plastic hair. Marina only had the plastic hair version unlike the other two.
I don’t think these are the only versions of those dolls that were sold however, on local listings it seems like versions of Magali and Marina being sold with parts of outfits mismatched, maybe to sell out the remaining stock of these dolls.
Video Review by PhotoNovelas of the plastic hair dolls
So with all of this out of the way for a brief introduction here are the dolls I got: brushable hair Mônica without original clothes aside the white top, brushable hair Magali missing accesories aside necklace and “new” in box Marina.
ACTUAL REVIEW STARTING HERE
Rough translation of the text on the back of the box:
Turma da Mônica Jovem
The gang of the Limoreiro neighborhood grew up and turned into a really cool crew. Now, in your new routine as teenagers, new fears show up, uncertainties, aside past recollections. They have turned 15 years old!
Magali
Still is the gentle and delicate girl as always. Continues being a glutton, but take cares of her body, practices sports.
Mônica
Continues being strong minded and toothy. The gang’s lider, she’s gentle, romantic, joyfull and true to herself.
Marina
Always loved Arts, she draws all the time. She’s beautiful, joyfull and sociable.
Marina’s box wasn’t fully open from the bottom, but it had some space that wasn’t stuck to the package itself. I can’t tell if the seller added extra tape to the sides or if it was sold like this back in the day.
Doll out of the package, she was only being held by a twist tie on her waist.
She came with two accessories: a small plastic like bag and a type of hat/cap.
Her bag can open since it has velcro, it has enough space for a baby sylvanian to sit in.
And here are the 3 dolls together:
Mônica isn’t with clothes since I didn’t want her to keep wearing the clothes she came with, which weren’t her original clothes, and I also didn’t want to buy her with her original clothes so she’s staying like this until I get something for her.
Magali appears to be the tallest of the 3 dolls since she’s the only one with high heels, Marina looks taller than Mônica due to her hair and Mônica having flatter low shoes compared to them.
The back view image shows better how high Magali’s heels look. Her feet also look more pointy with the sculpt they had for it compared to the other shoes.
Talking about shoes, they can switch up with each other since they have Bratz like feet that are removable.
They should all be around the same size without their shoes if we don’t include how Marina’s hair makes her look somewhat taller.
The shoes have numbers on their soles: Magali’s having 1 and 2 while Marina’s are both 1 and Mônica’s are both 2. I have no idea if it’s to represent left and right or just the type of sculpt.
Magali appears to be the only one with “different” types of shoes since in her plastic hair version her shoes are a darker green-ish color compared to how her brushable hair version has a more beige-yellow like color.
As for their faces I’m not sure if there’s any difference aside Mônica having a more toothy smile as that it’s one of the main characteristics of her character, both as a kid and as a teen.
Looking back at the prototype images their eyes look like they are probably different from the final released version.
They all share the same type of body with very basic articulation. Having click knees, non bendable arms, having their legs apart when sitting.
Due to a few small differences I’ll post images of each of them.
Starting with Mônica, she’s the only one to have full rooted hair. Nothing else to mention about her aside this and her having the lowest heeled shoes. The hair quality feels pretty cheap.
Written on the doll body:
© Mauricio de Sousa Produções
Brasil/2009
Gulliver S.A.
Made in China
As for Magali, she has the tallest look due to her high heeled boots as mentioned before and, unlike Mônica, she isn’t fully rooted! If I was a child who got the brushable hair doll lacking most of her hair I’d be dissapointed.
Her clothes as of the second hand doll I got are: a winter like white jacket with no shirt under, a pair of long purple pants with a beige belt that is shredding and a cute heart necklace with the string being a golden color and the heart being pink.
Now with Marina…
Her hair came off! It looked like it could come off when I saw her in box, but it didn’t occur to me that it would really come off as easily as it did.
Her hair is some type of soft plastic that could be cut off pretty easily with a pair of scissors.
The glue that was supposed to hold it on her head is very visible on the inside of the hair.
Her skirt looks cheaper than Magali’s pants, they don’t look like they were finished properly at the velcro area so they do look like they could be gone very quickly if you’re not careful.
She has “socks” that go on top of her shoes and they also look like they could shred easily. Her tank top looks the best out of all of her clothing.
Their hands are quite detailed for how cheap they are.
To end the post’s images here’s some photos showing them with other dolls to showcase the size difference.
As a reminder: Mônica looks the smallest between the 3, Magali the tallest and Marina in between them. They’re supposed to be around 21cm (around 8,2 inches).
With a Licca-chan sized doll without shoes Mônica looks smaller while Magali looks taller.
Meanwhile with a Made to Move Barbie, both dolls looks smaller than her with Mônica looking even more petit.
If anyone read this to the end, thank you! Hope this post was interesting even if the dolls are really cheap in quality. 😅
They’re really over priced on the second hand market, so I only got them as it was interesting to have another local fashion doll that wasn’t a Susi (considered the brazilian Barbie, she uses Tammy’s face sculpt and license) so I got them only for this and for the small FOMO when the one doll I was interested in that had a cheaper price had her listing paused.
According to Sala de Justiça’s post about the dolls, their price back in the day for their release in 2009 were 59,90 BRL for the brushable hair versions and 49,90 BRL for the regular plastic hair versions. The only dolls I’ve seen under the original price tags were damaged: one having paint on her body and the other having no hair at all.
I’m not sure of how expensive this was back in 2009 so I can’t really comment if they were super cheap, but I can say that the most prices for these dolls nowadays is not worth it at all unless you’re either into Turma da Mônica or want them for the curiosity of owning them.
Their comics are still going on with a 2021 soft reboot, it would be really interesting to see newer dolls based off the current artstyle of the comics since the original dolls were based off the art style of the very beginning of the series. You can see the covers and the art style evolution in the Mônica wiki.
Thanks for reading and sorry for any spelling errors. 🙋♀️
I LOVED it, thank you so much for this article it’s always so fun reading about obscure doll lines 🥺 I really like the body sculpt of those!
No problem!! I like their body sculpts too!
These are so interesting!! Thank you so much for sharing, it’s super fascinating to read about niche/obscure doll lines
You’re welcome!! I also like to see niche/obscure dolls, that’s why I wanted to make a post about them ☺
Yes!! I’m brazilian and have the plastic hair Monica, Marina and Magali!!
I’m so happy seeing people talk about them, I think they’re so interesting〜
seeing the box and all is so nostalgic ( ；∀；)
and I never saw these prototypes, so cool!
I don’t have them out with me right now but let’s see:
my Marina’s hat just dissolved I think, I don’t have it around anymore
Marina and Magali’s hair did indeed fell, and I always thought it was my fault because I was too curious and took it off to see how it was glued
ah, I never knew about the possible swappable shoes (｡・・｡)
all their bags are… is flocking out the term? like the outer shell is falling something like that :v
so there’s my report about what can happen with these over the time I guess, haha
I’m sorry if I talked too much in one go, but it’s so exciting finding a place where they’re known!!
wait, did I just replied insted of commenting… again?!
…. I’m sorry, everyone.
I’ll become better at this (ò//m//ó)
Thanks for the reply! I’m also brazilian! Did you buy them back on their release or after?
I saw mentions of the bags peeling so I’m expecting mine to fall off as well. Looking at how Marina was in the package she looked like her hair would fall off even before being removed from it, so it was for sure not your fault 😅
And it’s fine! Having more information on them is good )b
I hear you can do a few things to keep that sort of material from peeling! I hear Americans use modge podge to seal leathery doll clothing. Maybe look up some options ❤️
on their release!!
i did NOT like dolls at that time
but i was a huge tm/tmj fan so i guess i didn’t want to miss it out, haha ~
Really interesting, I like the plastic wig concept and the clothes look great.
Unfortunately I’m pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to be a wig 😭😭😭😭 The back of the hair has glue that didn’t stick to keep it in place.
I had no idea these came out! It’s sad to hear they are overpriced nowadays, I really like their faces and their different sizes! Really cute. I might look them up (: thanks for sharing!! fellow brazillian here <3
I didn’t know either until last year while looking some listings when one of them came up. You’re welcome!
Mônica is the one that is a bit easier to find at a “lower” price compared to the others, sadly it’s still higher than her original release price. And also brazilian \o
As a brazilian is so nice to see reviews from our doll lines, it was a pretty interisting review.