Monster high - Boo York Boo York City Ghouls 3 pack

This is a waaaay belated review and i'm sorry about that. Christmas time is super stressful for me, lots of birthdays around christmas and the general angst and awful that is the festive season puts me in a bad mood and not much wanting to write.

But it's the new year and i've got some time on my hands since Star Trek online booted me off the server for the night (lol)

So here's my promised review of the "city ghouls" 3 pack.



A Walmart exclusive in the US, in the UK this set is exclusive to Asda (who Walmart owns) but annoyingly, not all Asda stores stock toys and those that do, do so chaotically.
My local Asda has the worst organized toy aisle i've ever seen. It looks like a bomb hit it, then Godzilla rampaged through the wreckage and then there was an earthquake.
There are toys scattered everywhere, across the floor, under the shelving units. I mean it's a mess, it's impossible to find anything there.
As a result, I usually don't bother going in there unless I have time to kill pawing through piles of random toys hoping to dig out the one box I want.
Big sets like this do show up in the local big Asda, but usually it's better to get them online. So I was stalking the online store hoping this set would reduce in price. The original cost on Asda's site was a whopping £50 (that's about $72USD) which while cheaper than buying the Gala Ghoulfriend dolls of these characters (which are an eyewatering £26:99) it was still more than I wanted to pay. Especially given I already have Luna's gala doll.

Thankfully some time in late november the price dropped to £25, and I snapped up a set. They sold out pretty fast at that price, perfect christmas presents right?

£25 is a brilliant price, a bargain you could say. I was willing to pay £35 so I was pretty happy.

Anyway, let's have a look at the set.

The set contains the three new characters introduced in Boo York Boo York (which I still haven't summoned the courage to watch. Musicals aimed at kids always give me "the fear")

Unlike the Gala dolls, these dolls though nearly identical in hair and faceup are dressed in their casual movie outfits. I prefer this, casual outfits always attract me more than over the top flamboyant party wear. They also lack the shimmery sheen of the Gala dolls, I didn't really understand the shimmery sheen in the first place so eh. No real loss.

The box is huge, and the back of it has the crystal city of Boo York pictured.

Because this is the international version all we get on the back is the name of each character and who they're the daughter of.

It was husband who pointed out this error in the translations into all the other languages. While Mousedes and Luna's both seem to translate correctly, Elle's english parent is correct and every other one is "rat king" lol. What a weird error.

The bottom of the box shows the three bodies and their individual features. Luna's hinged wings that can be removed and moved. The detatchable arms, i'm not actually sure what the second image is trying to tell us. How to remove the bolero from Elle? I'm not sure why that needed a diagram. And Mousedes tail.

I've heard reports that many people had tailless Mousedes dolls in their sets, mine thankfully has hers.

Their artwork is cute, though Mousedes' arm is really bothering me. The angle of her curved arm looks off, making her look like she has a broken wrist or something.

Luna was the first I got out, mostly because she's the only one I have the Gala doll of and I was curious about how they compared.

City Ghoul Luna's skin is lacking the pearly sheen of Gala, she's a lovely custardy yellow tone that's refreshing to see in the MH line. There simply isn't enough yellow in Monster High. or orange... or well, any primary colours. It's all pastel tones now. Boo.

Her dress is a little simple A line number with a shimmery bodice and a nighttime city skyline skirt. I really like the pattern for the skirt but her outfit is lacking something for me. A jacket perhaps?

There's a little silver "belt" around the waist and she has little ankle boots.

The boots are super soft and have antennae heels.

Her wings attach like her Gala doll, they slot into a large hole in her back. They're hinged and unlike my Gala Luna, this Luna's wings actually hold a pose. They can be moved up and down so they can be out like this, or folded down over themselves "at rest".

Her hair is rooted into pigtails, she has antennae and compound eyes and strange eyebrows with little dots at the end.

Her makeup is as far as I can tell identical to her Gala doll.

I admit though, i prefer Gala's OTT super glam goth look. She feels more "finished" to me (well i did have to add the skirt but aside from that). City Luna just looks incomplete.

Their hair is rooted a bit differently. While Gala has her bangs starting near the front where they naturally would start, City Luna's bangs start right at the back of her head and are combed forward. They're thicker, puff out more and have a curl to them while Gala's sits pretty flat against her head.

City's hair seems to have less gunk in it too, it's softer and less greasy feeling.

She comes with these utterly stupid glasses that can't even fit on her face properly.
They're dumb, she's not wearing them on her eyes ever.

So here's City Ghouls Luna and her outfit. She comes with very little but that's not a surprise for a budget doll. there's no stands, no diaries, no handbags. All Luna has are her wings, her glasses (not pictured), a simple but quite cute little dress and a pair of boots.

Her body does indeed have the same moulded carapace details of her Gala doll.

Overall, she's cute but I prefer her Gala version. She just has more visual appeal. She's a striking doll with her black jumpsuit and her bright red accents. That train with the skull is just awesome. This Luna feels incomplete, a complaint I often have about Mattel's multipacks.

Mousedes (which is a super awkward name to type) is daughter of the Rat King. That in itself is baffling. A rat king is a bunch of dead rats with their tails tied together. Hardly a monster now is it?

Mousedes as a doll always disappointed me. I felt her design was SUCH a missed opportunity. When I read "spoiled rat" as her character description before the dolls were revealed I imagined something more like this:

You know, blonde.. preppy...

Instead we got a doll who looked like she raided her grandmother's wardrobe. *sigh*

Mousedes' skin is grey, a little darker than Ghoulia but not as dark as Neighthan. Her face sculpt is actually extremely cute with moulded buck teeth and mouse ears. I kinda wish she was more rat-like but at the same time understand they wanted to maintain a cute friendly feel for the kiddies.

she has candy  pink hair that's styled into waves. its pretty boring. The fibre is a bit dry and the ends are frizzy. it's not bad it's just really bland to me. Pink hair is just SO overdone in the Monster High franchise, i'm tired of it. yeah it goes with her eyes but eugh...
Bored now, moving on.

She has bright blue eyeshadow around each eye, a little pink animal nose and dotted freckles for her whiskers. They seem to have learned their lesson from the cat Create a Monster's whisker mustache issues and didn't try to give her whiskers. I think that was the right call, painted on whiskers look weird.

Despite her pink hair, she has dark eyebrows. I'm rolling with her bleaching and dying her hair. Hah.

Her profile is quite flattened and animal-like.

Her Gala outfit I felt was super frumpy and just flat out awful, her City outfit is better but only just.
She comes wearing a yellow swiss cheese print sleeveless top and a high waisted black skirt in crinkly blueish green fabric with some sort of zig zaggy pattern that's hard to make out amongst all the pleats.

It's a very nicely made skirt, it's just the cut looks... odd to me on the short little sister body. It's a blah length, a blah style and coupled with the yellow top just looks frumpy and uninteresting. For a poor little rich girl, her look is far too thrift store.

I HATE her shoes. I honest to god hate them. They're ribbons.. just ribbons, that's all they are. While I try to convince myself they're a subtle nod to the whole "rat king knots" thing, I don't think they are. They're just... there. There's no cute motif, no monstery detail, they're astoundingly bland and boring and don't feel monster high at all. These feel like shoes you'd see in Ever After High, kinda.. generic. I suppose in a way it's useful because other characters could wear them without it looking a bit odd but when MH shoes are so cool these are just hugely disappointing.

Also I don't like pink.. I don't like bows... i just.. bletch.

Poor Mousedes suffers terrible box hair, you can see here how frizzy the fibre is.

She has a cute little tail that doesn't like to stay attached that well. I'm profoundly disappointed the designer didn't put a little knot in it, that would have been a really subtle but lovely nod to her non monstery parent. As it is she's just.. a mouse girl... and how does that make any sense? Yet more Anthro High rubbish from mattel. (Was were rat too hard?)

Her tail is however suitably rodent-like. It isn't particularly bendy.

She has moulded fur detail on her arms

And her lower legs.

I gotta admit, I have a fondness for fuzzy dolly girls heheh.

Mousedes comes with her headband (a simple little greeny blue bow) that's far more practical than Luna's glasses, her ugly shoes, a little shirt and her skirt.

I think she looks better with all that frizz tied back out of her face.
Though i'm still not at all convinced about that yellow shirt. There's no other yellow anywhere else in her look and it just feels so jarring.
I tried a few different bits on her but nothing really looked right.

I decided to cover those awful shoes. As Mousedes is on the little sister body, she can't really wear the regular MH sized shoes. it limits her options quite a bit.

I like her better like this though. But I still really wish she'd been blonde or something. Pink hair is so.. meh. It's a colour massively overused in the franchise and I wish they'd try a few colours that weren't just purple, mint green and pink, just you know... have a bit more variety.
Which is why I prefer Luna. She's yellow and red, two colours sorely underrepresented in the franchise as of late.

Overall? I like Mousedes a lot better now i've restyled her but I still can't say she's anything other than "eh, cute" to me. She's just so... safe. So.. blandly cutesie and lacking anything really that engaging about her. Her outfits are boring verging on the old fashioned and super ugly and even her face is just a bit eh.
I wish they'd done more with the idea, because a were-rat character had potential. the "spoiled rat" concept was amusingly punny. I expected rodent Cher, instead we got this...

Elle was the doll I wanted most from the 3 pack. Luna was my favourite of the three new characters but Elle was a doll I intended to pick up when she was "cheap enough."
I was put off by her very similar colour scheme to several other dolls (most notably how much like Spectra she looks) but at the same time intrigued by her robot details.

Again i feel like had Mattel not stuck to their "safe" choices with the purple motif and gone with a more robot appropriate circuit board green, maybe she'd have stood out more.

She has an interesting face, covered in panels that really could do with being picked out with a bit of ink wash or something.
Her eyebrows are bright purple, as are her lips and eyes. Her eyes are like camera shutters.
She has pale blue eyeshadow that's actually very very simple. There's no gradient to it, it's just sorta slapped on there. It works though, looks like she painted it on hahah.

Her hair is black (I think) with streaks of teal and purple through it. I don't quite understand the purple if i'm honest. What does purple have to do with robots? Copper yes, silver? sure. Green? Obviously. But purple?
Anyway, it's all metallic looking and makes her hair very very shiny. It's extremely pretty, I just think it's a shame her colour scheme of grey and purple make her so similar to other dolls already in the line.

Elle doesn't have ears, instead she has these sorta.. speaker... things?
Very robotty.

Her whole body is made up of panels and segments and a pale grey colour, there's a very slight shimmer to her skin from what looks like embedded glitter in the actual plastic. It's very pretty and very subtle.

Her outfit comprises a purpleish charcoal bolero/jumper jacket thing made of some sort of thick denim-like fabric and a simple asymetrical shift dress. The dress has a circuitboard pattern on, with added pink and purple bits. It's abstract and pretty, I like it.

She also has a necklace but i'm not 100% what it's supposed to be.

Her boots are freaking awesome. They're all covered in panels and circuity bits and then the heel/platform is some sort of mechanical system that makes me think it should be hydraulic or something. It has clear tubes. (does anyone know what these are?)

It means she cannot stand without her stand, but given most MH dolls can't stand without their stand...
Still, they look cool but must be a b**ch to walk in. 

Her body is incredible. It's a bit hard to make out because she's such a pale colour but every inch of her has sculpted detailing. It's all panels and segments, it almost looks like musculature in parts. It's absolutely incredible how much detail went into this body sculpt. Almost seems a shame to hide it under clothing.

This is Monster High at their finest, those hidden details you only discover when you strip the doll off. I love it.

She has what look like socket ports in her spine and big "bolts" on each hip.

Her outfit actually felt mostly complete to me, despite being so simple. She has such a complex body sculpt that a simple outfit actually works really well here. I added a belt from a Spectra fashion pack. It seemed appropriate heh.

I do love her, she's absolutely awe inspiring with all the panels, I could stare at them all night but I do still think it's a shame that when you put her on the shelf, she kinda merges with the rest of the dolls because her colour scheme is so generic. she's robotic Spectra, there's just no two ways around that and I think it's a shame. Had they used just about ANY colour other that purple she might stand out as her own character a lot better.

So, final thoughts?

Final thoughts:

I am glad I got this set. Mousedes is a bit bland but she's cute, just.. a bit boring. Elle though, she's absolutely gorgeous and though her Gala doll has a more elaborate outfit, this doll has much cooler shoes. Those boots are just super neat heh.

Considering how similar this set's dolls ARE to the Gala dolls, I really don't think there's much need to have both. I think it's a bit of a shame they didn't bother to give them different hairstyles or makeup, they are basically the same doll, just redressed. They aren't QUITE identical, but they're close enough that it feels redundant to have the Gala ghouls if you already have the City ones. And for £25, I basically got 3 dolls for less than ONE bloody doll cost new.
that's crazy right?

If you don't already have the Gala dolls, this set is worth picking up to get them all in one go. Their casual outfits need tweaking with accessories imo, but the dolls themselves are lovely.

Reccomended.

8 knotted tails out of 10