Ever After High - Hunter Huntsman and Ashlynn Ella

 

Riding high on the success of Monster High, it's only expected Mattel would be setting there sights on another similar success story. Cue the fairy tale spinoff series, Ever After High. Featuring, instead of the children of monsters, the children of fairy tale characters. Princes, princesses, unicorns and fairies. It's the perfect concept for some super girly dollies right? I mean, little girls love them some fairy tale princesses.

But there's the twist, these aren't the characters we know from stories. These are their children, some more eager to follow in ma and pa's footsteps than others.

For those not in the know, the story revolves around your usual group of pretty young things. They attend a school for fairy tale characters and are supposed to follow their same gender parent's role, continuing the story in an immortal loop... their kids will do the same, and theirs, and theirs... 

So anyway, Apple White, daughter of Snow White is determined that she'll have her happily ever after, marry a prince, all that fun stuff while Raven Queen, daughter of the evil step mother, really would rather not be evil thank you very much.

Thus we get a divide. the "Royals", mostly a bunch of princesses who are quite happy to go off and marry their prince charming, and the "Rebels" a ragtag group of well.. anyone else who'd prefer to forge their own destiny rather than plod along a path already trodden. 

 As a universe, it's flawed on first exposure, but i'm hoping those gaping holes in the universe will start to close as the franchise expands.

My initial impression? Annoyance actually.

Now, anyone who knows me knows i'm an OBSESSIVE world builder and while I fully accept other people aren't nearly as crazy as me, several of the gaping holes in the story made me cringe. 

1: If Snow White married "prince charming", then wouldn't that make the son of "prince charming" also the son of "Snow white"? And wouldn't that then mean the daughter of Snow White is in fact, the son of prince charming's sister? ARGH.. does that mean she's supposed to marry her brother or was Prince Charming sneaking around the castle... if you know what I mean? (I believe this has been fudged to claim there's a whole family of prince charmings, but... doesn't that still mean they're related!? Kissing cousins? ew.)

2: If everyone follows their parent's destiny, what happens to those characters who die in the story without having kids? Where did their kids come from? Confused! 

Also, does that mean Apple pledging to follow her mother's destiny means her mother has to die because Snow White's mother was dead? So.. she's effectively signing her own mother's death warrent? What a loving daughter huh?

3: What happens to those extra children? The ones without destinies? For instance, the story only calls for one rapunzel so what happens to her sister?

4: In order to fulfil her destiny, Raven would have to marry Apple's father to become her "eeevil step mother". Nevermind the massive age gap and squick there, what about the fact that technically she's apple's mother's step sister anyway! Is anyone ever gonna mention this? 

5: Who in their right mind would sign off on a destiny that involved them dancing themselves to death in iron shoes? Or any of the other gruesome deaths of the villain's in fairy tales. (Though it would seem the evil queen isn't dead... so death doesn't really mean death in the EAH universe? Wth?) 

Anyway, i'm sure there's a whole load more. Maybe they'll explain it, or it'll just continue to bug me lol.

My crazy aside, the dolls themselves! I mean that's why you're actually here right?

So, my husband purchased Raven Queen and Maddie Hatter a while back, for himself. So I never bothered to review them. He has done so here: http://cypherdorranreviews.blogspot.co.uk/

However my love of male dolls meant I HAD to get the two pack all for myself bwhaha.

Hunter Huntsman, son of the huntsman from pretty much every fairy tale, and Ashlynn Ella, daughter of Cinderella. They have this sort of forbidden romance thing going on, which despite the cliche, is all kinds of adorable so shut up.

And here they are.

The EAH boxes are large, wide and plastic. Almost entirely.. plastic. I dunno but this seems a bit... wasteful on an environmental front to me. Oh sure it means you can see the whole doll but I kinda prefer the cardboard boxes of Monster High, they feel sturdier line up neater on a shelf.
Still, this box style does give us a very good look at our purchase.

The box is designed to look like a book, with a spine on one side.

It's cute, and fitting. This two pack is actually designed to almost look like two books side by side, but the title and picture would indicate otherwise. Confusing...

Anyway, despite their romance somehow Ashlynn is still a Royal, but we all know she's a rebel really so she should totally just stop faking boo.

The backing card is beautiful, depicting a sketchy book illustration of a tree and stream and all that fairy land prettiness. The words tell the story, but are in just about every language you can imagine. What's interesting though, is that if you translate it all, it DOES say stuff. It's a bit disjointed but it pretty much gives a blurb/description of the line's premise. I'd love to see someone translate the whole thing, when I first had a go I thought perhaps it was identical to the narrator's speech in the "World of Ever After High" video short, but it isn't. It's similar though.

It has some wonderfully interesting tidbits. "Headmaster Grimm lies" being a particular favourite.

The back of the box is split in two. Half pink for Ashlynn, half green for Hunter. (seriously parents? That name was the best you could come up with? Hunter.. the hunter? Wow... )

There's a bio for each character, the usual blurb about the line's premise and the website link. The bios are very similar to the Monster High ones, just with a fairy tale flavour.

What I do find interesting is that both these characters are vegetarian/vegan. Unusual. It makes particular sense for Ashlynn though, considering she can talk to animals. I'd be a bit freaked out eating something I was chatting to only a few hours earlier.

So let's open this plastic prison!

I admit, i'm a little apprehensive as the last fully plastic box I opened was a novi star box and it sliced my hand open. Ouch.
While this box has similar razor edges of plastic slicing doom, the tabs and floppyness make it a bit easier to open it without doing damage to oneself. 

Once in I notice this. Yes, that's Ashlynn's ring. A tiny item liable to be lost within about 20 seconds of opening the box had I not noticed it lying there. Must have fallen off her finger in transit.

Without the plastic glare, you can see the pair properly. We'll take a nice close look at each in a bit. Ashlynn's eyes match Hunter's shirt lol, cute.

 Just like Monster High, the Ever After High dolls come with a sort of diary or journal. They take the form of these bookmarks. It's a cute touch but they aren't the easiest thing's to open and read.

They're a bit tricky to get off the backing card, there's a "cut me" line but i'd really rather not cut these things.
They unfold into a crazy long piece of paper, I think I prefer the diary pages of Monster high.
The little doodles from the characters are however a very cute touch. Each character has added their own little illustrations and the diary is split into chapters rather than days, which is a bit confusing in terms of how much time has elapsed. But they're simple and don't tell much.  Just enough to make you go "d'aaaaw" which this pair seem to do a lot haha.

Don't you touch me!

Speaking of which, by the looks, they're supposed to be holding hands in the box. My pair however, seemed to be having some sort of lover's tiff. Perhaps that's how Ashlynn's ring ended up on the floor huh?

I freed Ashlynn first, as I was eager to get her out of that dress and into something that suited her complexion.

 The key is a hairbrush, cute touch but I never use the doll brushes. I have like fifteen billion of them lying around the house. I open cupboards, brushes fall out. One day they'll find me crushed under a mountain of the damn things.

 Ashlynn's handbag is a clock, which is awesome. It's very detailed but it doesn't seem to open. I also thing it's a shame only one side has a clock face. There's a sculpted on clock on all four sides but only the front has the clock sticker.

Her shoes are made to look like glass, which is again awesome! They're a cute twist on the glass slipper of her mother's story. The vines up her legs make me think of Lagoona Blue's shoes, but they work well here for this nature loving princess.

ARGH box hair!

Poor girl, her hair feels soft but damn is it frizzy and flat. I'm scared to run a brush through it, so finger combing for now.
let's see if we can fix this mess.

Hair is still frizzy and a bit beh but I think that's just going to be something I have to live with unless I boil wash and recurl.
Curled doll hair and long doll hair always seems to do this, yuck.
 

Ashlynn's dress is a sort of modern take on your traditional princess garb. The sleeves are poofy, the bodice fitted and the skirt a pencil style with flowers and vines on the overlay.
it's pretty enough but the colour does nothing for the poor girl. She has very tanned skin and strawberry blonde hair, the pale teal and pink clash terribly and just detract from what could have otherwise been a very striking doll. I can't wait to get her out of this unflattering thing.

The quality is good, what you'd expect from anything Mattel produces. Things are hemmed nicely, stitching is mostly neat, though my girl did have her dress half undone in the box lol. What WERE you two doing in there??

Her necklace is, I think, a birdhouse. it's kinda hard to make out and my eyes aren't what they used to be.

Like Monster High, EAH is giving all it's got in the shoe department. Every character gets unique shoes and they're incredibly detailed. Ashlynn's glass slippers have a swirled blown glass heel and leaves and vines trailing up them before turning into vines that twist around her legs. of course, I can't even begin to image she'd be able to walk in these if they really WERE glass (Glass leg braces?) but they look cool and fit the theme so who cares?
They're teal coloured like her dress, which is a beautiful colour and works better I feel than clear would have.

Her ring is a little golden bird. The ring actually fits over two fingers but won't stay on by itself, you have to elastic band it on or it'll just slide right off and fly away.

Ashlynn tops everything off with a pink headband depicting birds and foliage. Her hair is a bit complicated as well. There's a braid at the front, then a bump on top.

The bump is a loose ponytail over the top of a bun. While I think I might be able to replicate this, the lengths are all different and I wasn't certain it'd look good all down so I opted to leave it as it was. I'm bad with hair ok?

Ashlynn's earrings are gold heels and she has a little charm bracelet with shoes on it.

Now she wants me to free her man, so I best oblige before she summons the local wildlife to hurt me. Ahem.

Much better.

Hunter's hair is gelled to HELL and back. He has this long side swept style which i'm sure has a name but i've never known stuff like that. And the rest is flocked.
His undershirt is sleeveless and has a forest scene on it, while his hoodie is a combination of leather effect fabric (which is surprisingly soft and supple) and green cotton.  The hood even covers his head nicely, yay!

His pants are kinda beige coloured and quite thick.

the quality here is amazing, i'm actually really impressed. not only is the doll himself really HEAVY, his clothes feel amazing. Also, I totally want a human sized version of both his shirt and hoodie damnit.

The back of the hoodie is a different fabric to the front, a brown paisley pattern. Not sure why but it's pretty. I'm a sucker for paisley.

Hunter's satchel opens, and made to look like stitched leather despite being made of plastic. Love it!

he has a plastic brown cuff on one arm, I assume it's supposed to be leather but it's the least convincing of his accessories.

His shoes have been given a black wash and it really makes them pop. I'm so glad they did this, they could have cheaped out and not bothered but the wash gives these shoes such depth and makes them look worn and distressed.

Ever After High dolls stand pretty much the same height as Monster High. The girls are the same height give or take, as are the boys. But both EAH genders are substantially chunkier than their monster counterpart. The EAH girls do not use the Monster High body but rather, their own unique body with curved hips and a small bust. Their thighs are thicker, their arms are thicker, their heads are bigger... and flatter.. and rounder. argh.

The boys, well, Hunter is about twice the width of Clawd here. He makes Clawd look so scrawny and inadequate. There's no way these two can exhange clothing, look at Clawd's twig-like legs compared to Hunter's manly thighs!
Their heads seem a similar size, so go figure on that one huh?

Articulation in the girls is identical. Elbow, wrist, knee and your standard shoulder/hip/neck. The Ever After boys have wrist, elbow and knee but don't seem to have the random and inexplicable "why on earth would they need it?" ankle articulation of the Monster High boys. Seriously... are the Monster High boys supposed to wear heels? WHY do they have articulated ankles!? It makes no sense!

The pair had fun showing off their articulation before I whisked Ashlynn away for a makeover.

And while she's getting herself beautiful, let's re-examine this box.

I was curious about whether this two pack had stands. I remembered that the single dolls had them, but I wasn't paying attention when husband deboxed them. But given Mattel's recent trend of sporadic stand inclusion and such forth, I wasn't certain this set had them.
There is NOTHING on the packaging to indicate there's stands included. The back of the box makes no mention of stands, only that there's a diary for each doll inside.

Hmmm. Still, something about this fat piece of box bothers me. The only bit of the box that's taped down...

Let's see what's inside... This should totally have "open me" written on it.

Oh look, stands! Hidden away in the "spine" of the book. You know what Mattel? Some indication these were here would have been nice. You know, "stands included" on the back of the box, a little sticker on this compartment that said "open", anything. I wonder how many people have unknowingly thrown these away without realising.

And here those stands are. A silver one for Hunter, a gold one for Ashlynn.

For some reason they both have a clear strut. From left to right: Maddie, Ashlynn, Raven and Hunter. Look at how HUGE the clip on Hunter's stand IS!

The base is bigger and chunkier than the Monster High stands, which might hopefully help with balance. I doubt it though. These things always seem to topple over bah. otherwise the structure is pretty much identical. Strut clips into base, clip slides over strut and clips around doll's waist. The clips on MH and EAH look to be about the same width for the girls so are probably interchangeable.

 Oh and here they both are now, all scrubbed up, made over and ready to continue.

Well well Ashlynn, you do scrub up nicely. 

Hunter had a hair wash as well.

I didn't expect the EAH body to fit Bratz or Monster High clothing. They're chunkier than Monster high and yet, Ashlynn managed to squeeze into just about anything I tried on her. She even managed to pull of this Bratz number better than any Monster High doll could! No doubt thanks to having actual HIPS to fill it out a bit. I think she looks amazing in blue.

I'm sure Ashlynn has bigger lips than Raven and Maddie... is that a paint thing or does she actually have a subtly different face mould?

Either way, she stands out not only for her tanned skin but her far more expressive face.
I can't say i'm a fan of this giant moon faces, but Ashlynn has just enough personality to draw me in.

Ever after high are the same height as Monster High, making them taller than Moxie Girlz and old Bratz, but shorter than Bratzillaz and new Bratz. Bratz clothing seems to fit, I would imagine Bratzilla and Moxie clothing might be a bit too baggy though.

When I first saw the promos for EAH I thought "wow those look like Simba's Super Model dolls (on the right) but then I got Bryten down and wow... the Moxie Girl resemblance is a bit uncanny as well. They all have very flat, very round faces which are a bit... odd.

I can't help but wish EAH had gone more the Monster High route and given each character an obviously unique sculpt, but more than that, I kinda wish their faces looked more in keeping with the Monster High doll aesthetic. That they could cohabit a shelf and look like they belonged together. Sadly that's not the case, Monster High in my mind remains superior purely because of the sculpts on the dolls themselves.

EAH has the same amazing detail in fashions, the incredible shoes, the unique character aesthetics
and patterns and colour palettes, but the very samey faces kinda ruin it for me.
I know I know, very few doll lines before Monster High had a different mould for every single character... in fact... did any? but Monster High has spoiled me and as a spinoff, I  would expect EAH to exceed what Monster High lay down, not take a massive step backward right?
It feels very... safe. Very "little girl friendly" with big, happy, non threatening faces. A bunch of Caucasian or close to pretty princesses for parents to feel secure about their kids playing with (Ignoring the actual setting because parents never pay that much attention to that crap do we?)

Monster High took massive risks, EAH is playing it very safe in my mind. Oh the characters are cute and all, but the dolls could never be described as edgy.

I get they're trying to target a slightly younger demographic here, but the link to Monster High means Ever After High will FOREVER be held up against the franchise it spun off from. It's got very big shoes to fill and i'm not sure it can really do it. Certainly I don't find myself needing to have every single character released, unlike Monster High which still has me fiercely clutched in it's talons of obsession.

Will EAH manage to forge it's own destiny like the franchise's rebels? I suppose only time will tell.