They're here, they're here! My giant box is here!
What's this? Ronan acting as scale to show how blooming massive this box IS.
The outer box looks like a backpack, cute.
There's a little bull head skullette eee.
Inside the outer box is the letterman the seller popped in there for me (thank you so much!) and the inner box which is made to look like a folded letterman jacket.
In the pocket is a slip of paper from Iris. It slides out.
It's a love note lol.
I'm not sure I can trust any girl who uses a heart as an O.
The sides of the box feature the bull head skullette and a casketball patch. Along with that maze pattern unique to Manny.
I wonder, do ALL the boys have customised letterman jackets? Who customises them?
The image of Manny with a sewing needle carefully stitching new cuffs onto his jacket makes me giggle.
The MH team logo. I adore this, I want this on a shirt, in this red and black damnit. Mattel, make adult sized Nightmares shirts! Please!
The box is closed by a little velcro dot, the two sides open to reveal the dolls and two pockets with diaries.
Not to give too much away, but Manny was apparently bullied as a kid and never seems able to say the right thing, and Iris is big into astronomy and for some unexplained reason thinks Manny's cute. Um.. ok?
I hadn't noticed before that the boy and girl diaries are slightly different. The girl one has pink bows lol.
Neither has a "if you read my diary" warning, interesting.
As well as Manny and Iris, the box contains a 3d card locker containing two binders. (Love the necrocon poster)
And a casketball and backpack. The noticeboard behind Manny has a poster for a casketball game.
In order to actually get to the dolls you have to pop the tabs on the box around the outside.
There's the two stands neatly tucked in the back behind that locker.
Iris is packaged staring longingly up at Manny, while Manny appears to be ignoring her. d'aaw, poor ghoul.
Free at last, Manny is HUGE. i mean, he's absolutely enormous. He's dwarfing Iris.
The rest of the stuff in the box. The bag is maze patterned with a large red maze at the upper. Oddly it doesn't look much like the bag featured on the outer box... I mean, it's grey not black. Hmm..
The bag doesn't open which is a shame and the straps don't unclip. One is moulded to the back of the bag so can't be used and the other is moulded specifically to fit over one shoulder.
Iris' purse is a giant eyeball and the bag DOES actually open. It has a hinge so it opens fully but all you can really fit in there are earrings.
The Casketball is just a casketball, much like the one Deuce's casketball fashion pack came with. It's kinda heavy, very solid and not in the least squishy like i'd have expected. It's like a giant marble and about as prone to rolling off under furniture.
The two binders are actually character specific. Which is interesting, I don't recall the scaremester ones being particularly unique but I could be wrong. The older ones used to be.
Iris' has eyeballs all over it while Manny's has that maze print. It looks cool. I can't help but start to trace a path on it.
Anyway, Iris has swampy green hair. It's a blend of sort of brown and green actually, styled into two twists on either side of her head (they aren't braids, they're twists).
Her outfit consists of a pink dress with a black waistband, a white vest with pink swirls on it and shimmery black leggings. She also has two black bracelets and two white bracelets.
She has one large eye in the centre of her face, with a deep reddish pink eyeshadow.
She doesn't have an eyebrow, for the record.
She has a rather bulbous nose and adorable freckles.
Her lips are green and she has a rather square face actually.
She has pink safetypin earrings in each ear.
Her hair is a little messy, it's got a few loose strands but it's ok. Her bangs are gelled down but thankfully there's no gloop on her face. I might redo her hair at some point to try to neaten it up but it's ok for now.
The vest is a seperate piece, under it is a pretty simple little dress. The skirt is pleated and was actually tacked to her leggings, I undid the plastic tacks.
Iris' shoes use the same mould as the Student Disembodied 5 pack's Scarah. This time they're a deep fushia pink with eyeballs painted all over them.
These shoes are crazy! I love em.
Iris is, despite looking a bit wee compared to Manny, actually regular MH Ghoul sized.
Her skin is a very yellow-green, quite distinct from Scarah and Frankie's skin tones.
Her giant eye does rather make her head look somehow larger than normal though. Along with her quite broad nose. Iris has quite distinct BIG features, quite unlike any other ghoul.
She's a strange looking girl, that's for sure. It gives her character and personality, but I can't say she's conventionally pretty even without that giant single eye.
While most of the other girls share that standard "small nose, rounded face, large pouty lips" look, Iris is almost the complete opposite. Being square faced with a fat schnozz and quite puckered lips. She also has quite large, round ears, though they're very difficult to see under all that hair.
But wait, who's this slab of beefcake?
Manny's head sculpt is facinating. He's so anthropomorphic. Look at that huge nose, that snout, those wide spaced kinda derpish eyes lol. (I'm certain he's looking in two different directions)
He has a ring in his nose, but it doesn't move at all. It's kinda moulded IN there rather than pierced through which I find a bit odd. I expected it to be pierced.
His ears stick out from the sides of his head much like Gilda's do. He has moulded hair which honestly I think was the right choice. Sure they could have rooted blonde hair in, but with the style, I don't think it would have looked right. Short hair is an absolute nightmare to get looking decent on dolls.
Manny's shirt doesn't photograph easily either. It's a red tee, pretty simple really but it has a maze on the front in a darker red. It's a LOT more obvious irl.
And DAMN his waist is tiny compared to his shoulders. This guy is crazy disproportioned.
The soles of his shoes have mazes on them.
Look at that ridiculous teeny waist haahaha.
His face has such a prominante "snout" and his head seems to connect in a different way to usual. Poor Manny can't actually look DOWN, though he does have a great range of movement in every other direction. This explains why he was ignoring Iris in the box, he can't actually look down at her.
His biceps are about as big as Neighthan's head, and his hands are enormous (they detatch but i'm not convinced the elbows pull apart. I tugged and nothing happened so I stopped.)
Manny's upper legs are broader than standard MH boy legs, but the lower leg looks to be a similar size. The feet are the same as regular MH.
Interestingly, Manny actually stands alone despite being top heavy.
Manny's waist is small yes, but it's still wider than a standard MH boy. As a result, he has his very own stand clip. Neighthan's is the yellow one, standard MH boy size (which incidently is about the same size as a Barbie stand clip, you can use Barbie clips on MH boys just fine), Manny's is the black. The standard boy stand pretty much fits right inside the circle.
Manny photographs best I think from a angle. His backpack actually sits quite nicely over one shoulder like this. It's the only way it CAN be worn, to be fair, but it looks good.
Now how about the Letterman?
From what I understand, these were not given out to everyone at SDCC. An item people assumed would be IN THE BOX, was not in the box (which makes no sense when you note the box is made to look like this damn jacket! wth?)
Instead it was added as an afterthought to the swag bag, along with all the random tat they also bung in there (Was it fake tattoos this year and a book sampler? I dunno, tat)
Anyway, there's a bit of uncertainty about how many of these were actually given out. Some reports claimed only the first 300 people in line got them, others claimed all preorders from Matty got them but those who purchased at Mattel's booth didn't. Truth be told, nobody really knows for sure.
What we do know is that already these are popping up on Ebay for stupid money.
I'm very glad my seller got one and agreed to add it to my parcel. I was very lucky there, and it saved me a great deal of angst and anger.
still, how do you screw something like that up Mattel? I mean that's pretty epicly moronic right there. "oh oops, we forgot the letterman we based this whole two pack around.. duuuhh."
Imbeciles.
Anyway, supposedly they took numbers and addresses from disappointed fans at the con and will be sending out the missing jackets, but it could take a while.
But, let's actually take a look at this thing and see if it's worth all this fuss.
It's actually made of a shiny fabric, rather than the fuzzy material of Heath's letterman. Maybe it's a summer weight one? Still seems a bit odd to me.
It has customised sleeves that are, of course, that maze pattern again. (for a guy who hates red, Manny sure wears a lot of red huh?)
It's missing any of the faux buttons Heath's jacket had. In fact, it's actually a pretty simple item. It doesn't quite feel as "finished" as Heath's jacket does.
As for any other doll borrowing it, yeah right. Unless Iris fancies using it as a blanket...
the boys won't fare much better. Manny is just that much too huge.
But the Letterman fits Manny like a dream.
It looks great on him, it really helps finish his look I feel. Not that he doesn't look cool without it, it's just that his default outfit is honestly pretty simple and the jacket is a nice extra touch.
Also now the dudes can hang in matching outfits ahahahaha.
Manny's jacket also only has one "pocket" rather than one on each side.
Them's some cool dudes.
I also snapped this shot of Manny with Gilda. Why? Well firstly because they share a new technique mattel is using, sticky out ears on the side of the head! and horns! and also because for quite a while there were members of the fandom convinced that Gilda, the at the time unnamed unknown backgrounder may in fact be Minnie Taur, the sister Manny's so afraid of.
They do have a certain similarity don't you think? lol.
I do hope we one day see Minnie, i'm very curious about what she's like. I kinda hope she's the girliest, frilliest thing ever. Like a 6 year old girl in a pink dress with blonde ringlets hahahah.
That'd just make me smile.
so overall, am I happy to have this set? HELL YES. Do I regret paying as much as i did? not really. To be honest, I decided as soon as they were annouced as the SDCC exclusive that i'd get them off Ebay and wouldnt' risk the Matty after sale. I made that mistake last year and while i can live without Wydowna as a powerghoul, I couldn't live without signature versions of two new characters.
I really wish Mattel would stop pulling this shit. Brand new characters have no place being comic con exclusives like this. The first two years of MH at SDCC they produced an existing character in a special alternative guise and that worked great. It was desirable without hurting the fans. Releasing signature versions of characters in massively limited quanties at a single venue DOES hurt the fans who then have to either just suck it up and accept they'll never have them, or pay through the nose to purchase from a reseller.
When Mattel is making a big song and dance about rereleasing the first wave dolls so "kids can have versions of the characters in webisode accurate outfits", why do they then do precisely the opposite by making more characters in webisode accurate outfits unobtainable to those same kids?
It just feels very mean spirited.
I get that Manny and Iris particularly are a rather bold and risky release. But Scarah?
Why was it not "too risky" to release a boy with a half rotting face, wearing an outfit that looked like a rainbow had vomited on him but it was "too risky" to release a cyclops and a minotaur, two characters who've been seen in webisodes, one of whom actually has a recurring role and isn't just a backgrounder?
Because that's the only justification I ever see thrown around. "oh they make them exclusives because they want to test the waters". Yet then they go and do things like release a two pack featuring ONLY boys (and "boys don't sell" remember?), and of course Neighthan and those inner monster cams. Wth?
I have no doubt this time next year we'll have an I heart fashion Iris on shelves, and she'll be awesome. I look forward to it. But i'm wary about Manny getting another release any time soon. He's so huge, the cost of production is gonna be high (much like Avea) and he's a boy. Boys tend to get limited releases, so I can't see any I heart fashion Manny (wouldn't that be hilarious?). Perhaps shoved into a super budgeted multipack, but I fear he'll end up like Nefera and just disappear.
So yeah, i'm pleased I got them and I think I made the right call. Iris is beautiful and Manny is awesome and unique.
I do hope we see more body shape variation with both male and female dolls in the near future. I think at this point it's been made clear that quite a few people don't care about clothing being compatible, and with MH you can get away with this because each character's style is so unique to them.
Overall, I give this set a solid 9.5 skipped leg days out of 10. My only gripes? I wish Manny could look down so he and Iris could share a loving gaze, and I wish his letterman felt a little more deluxe. Compared to Heath's, it just feels very cheap i'm afraid. It could at least have damn faux buttons man!
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