Bratz - Hello my name is Jade

it's 2015 and Bratz are BACK.
It's been a while, but finally the time has come and Bratz have relaunched... again.
This time with a wee bit more fanfare than the last, and not without it's own degree of controversy.
MGA have rehauled everything, new bodies, new face moulds, new art... old logo (lol) but the real question is, are these new Bratz any good?

Well, certainly when myself and several others saw the first images of them we weren't impressed. The community seemed divided, some welcoming the change and others wishing for the old. But I was curious, and one particular doll did appeal to me: Hello My Name is Jade.
So when Argos' new catalogue launched, I picked up Jade. The prices are a bit steep this year, but they're steep for ALL doll lines, not just bratz.
Even so, the cheapest Bratz line (Hello my name is) retails at £14:99, while the deluxe lines range from £25 to an eyewatering £33 for the snow dolls.
Ouch.
The US prices seem far more reasonable, but sadly we foreign scum just gotta put up with being ripped off. *sigh*

Anyhoo, given the newest budget Monster High line (Boo York) is £17:99 (yes, seriously) the £15 price tag for Jade wasn't nearly so hard to swallow.

And heeeere she is!



I admit it, I was swayed by her half shaved hair style ok? She's honestly the one with the most interesting hair, the others in this line just have... bleh, generic long hair and it's a bit blah... dull. I love alternative hair dos, and of all the budget dolls this Jade had the most "Bratz" feel to me.

The side of the box has little cartoons on it, I think they're meant to be stickers, they look like stickers. A cat, a skateboard, a monster, pizza, lightening, a bow and scissors.
random assortment but eh.

The back of the box has photos of the doll, along with random bits and bobs. It does rather remind me of the chaotic nature of pintrest or something, a bunch of pictures someone just "thought looked neat" shoved together.
And random hashtags, because hashtags make you seem hip and cool... right?

Can I just pause to say how much I HATE this new artwork. It's freaking hideous. Bratz art has seldom been pretty with the stylistic choice to never show anything resembling a nose but this is just terrible. Those giant lips, the two finger claw hands just.. argh. It honestly looks like fanart to me, drawn by someone with very little practice with anatomy. I know that sounds bitchy but damnit, i'm an artist and when someone gets paid to produce art for a big company and it looks THIS amateur it offends me. Did they just use some 12 year old's fanart? Because that's the impression this work gives me. I hate it, I really hate it.

Phew... rant over, let's move on shall we?

Me and MGA boxes is sort of an ongoing joke on this blog, but I have to say... this one wasn't TOO evil to open. I cut the tape on the side and that opened the box up. The problem came when I foolishly assumed I could slide the inner card out. Oh ho ho, of course not! nooo, someone GLUED IT to the outer box. I had to get my hand in and pry the two bits of card apart, then the whole thing got stuck on that white card ribbon sash thing which is fastened into both sides of the box with glue and tape and doesn't seem to want to break/come unstuck at all.
but no injuries were incurred and once the backing card is out it's just a case of snip snip snipping all the plastic restraints.
And wooooah there's a lot of plastic bits holding her in. each wrist has one, her waist, her neck, her feet are in the usual plastic coffin of finger slicing (glued and taped in place at the back)  and several plastic staples in her head.
Thankfully someone used some sense and the plastic staples are in the HAIR part of her head, not the flock. Yes Mattel, i'm looking at YOU guys here.

Aaand she's free!

Straight out of the box she has a bit of box hair going on but it's not too bad. Her hair has some sort of product in it that seems to be to keep it sleek. Her hair was stitched into the box, tagged into the box, held in some places with some sort of strange plastic box thing with the hair threaded through it. And that is why her hair is in such a mess, I had to yank and snip tabs and yank some more.

But let's get a closer look at that new face that's so divided Bratz fans.

First things first, YES this is a new face/head sculpt. It's marked 2015 on the back and has a wide squared jaw and very hamstery cheeks.
The nose has a very long bridge, it goes right up between her brows in fact but it's very flattened and not hugely well.. there. She has teeny little ears, slightly narrowed green eyes and bitch brows. no i'm serious, those eyebrows give her a bitchy expression which amuses me a great deal.
On the other characters, who all have rounder wider eyes these heavily arched brows make them look surprised or shocked, but on Jade with her narrowed eyes they have attitude. I'm gonna shiv you attitude, but attitude all the same.

The new face is quite different to those i'm used to. I don't own many older style Bratz and I couldn't locate them for this shoot, but here's my post 2010 ones. Note Jade now has green eyes, which apparently her original doll had. They go nicely with her green streaked hair.

Her eyes are still narrowed, but not nearly as obviously as the older versions of her, but the thing is, the other characters in the new lines all have MUCH bigger wider eyes so Jade's look really small by comparison. I prefer the narrowed almond shaped eyes on my Bratz dolls to the big round eyes, the round eyes make them look a bit young and cutsey to my eye. While Jade retains that Bratz sort of sass, Cloe and Yasmin both have a sort of doe eyed child look to them.

But the biggest difference here is the actual head sculpt itself. The jaw is rounder and less defined, it's almost squared off with no obvious "point" for the chin. The older dolls have a clear chin, the new dolls really don't. There's something faintly masculine in how square their jaws now are and they look a little like their faces are slightly too small for their head because it's so wide.

I joked that the new Bratz looked like they hadn't just had collagen plumped lips, but also just got out of dental surgery. Wrap a bandage around new Jade's head and she'd look like she had swelling cased by a bad tooth... or mumps. Either/or.

Her slightly parted lips and larger eyes actually looked more to me like Cloe here, their eyes are about the same size and new Jade's lips are actually a little wider.
Maybe this similarity in eye shape is what drew me to this Jade over the other characters, her eyes look more like the older style Bratz in terms of size and shape. The thicker lashes are in keeping with the aesthetic of the 2010 dolls.  

Jade comes wearing honestly a hot mess of an outfit. She has this plaid mess of a dress thing with kitties on the sleeves, giant clashing pink boots that go with nothing else she's wearing and long black hair with a neon green streak through.

Her hair is saran, so it has a slightly greasy feel but looks beautiful and stays pretty smooth and sleek with only a little quick comb. I'm glad MGA learned their lesson about cheap crappy nylon after the shambles of 10/10/10, I believe ALL the new Bratz have Saran. YES!
She also has half her head flocked, another YES because the previous range of Bratz dolls opted for painted hair instead of flocking it. Lazy lazy lazy cheap. Again, MGA have actually made effort and flocked her damn head. it's so soft and fuzzy.

Her outfit is... honestly pretty dire. In a way there's something epic about how much of a mess it is, but on the other, it hurts my eyes to look at it too long.
The top is blue plait with cat heads on the sleeves, a nod to Jade's nickname of "kool cat" (or whatever it is)
The skirt part has a fake zipper down the front and is half red and half yellow plaid.
There's an odd peep hole section between top and skirt which made me think in photos and indeed in box that this outfit was two pieces.

It is not. It's a dress. not a top and skirt, a dress.

It is, despite the rather questionable fabric choices beautifully made. It's soft fabric with a really lovely feel in the hand and all the edges are finished and all the stitching is tight and pretty neat. No loose edges, no fraying bits, it's a quality piece of dolly clothing.

Jade's shoes are bright pink and clash horribly with her dress, they're also ENORMOUS. They're twice the size of the older Bratz shoes, and about three times the size of the 2010 shoes. They help balance out her giant head but at the same time, wowza they're massive.

They've got a lot of moulded detail, painted laces and soles and a paler pink section too. The paint work is pretty neat too, there's a few smudges on the laces but teeny laces are hard to paint so i'm not gonna be too hard on the factory people here.

Jade comes with a giant cat bag. This this is massive, you could fit a small child into that thing!
It's made of slightly squishy semi opaque plastic that has a bit of a glittery quality to it. It's cute but it's far too big, I wish it was half the size, then it'd be an actual usable accessory but as it is it just looks ridiculous for her to be carrying it. I know some people have giant bags, but even irl I think they look stupid. stop it with the giant bags! Nobody needs a bag this big, you aren't transporting that much stuff that you require a bag this huge.

For inexplicable reasons all the new Bratz come with their accessories not actually ON the doll. I suppose it's to show off all the extra plastic tat you get but it really just means you have to open a plastic cover holding teeny things in place which immediately fall all over the floor and skitter off under the sofa. Not that that happened... noooo... I haven't lost loads of stuff under sofas over the years.. nah uh. *whistles*

I also want to know why her scissors are "maj" and I feel old because teen slang makes me grumpy and confused. They're magic scissors? They belong to Maj? God i'm sooooo old.

Here's all the bits. There's a yellow necklace, a pair of square earrings, a pair of scissors for... some reason (I think Jade's a seamstress? is that why scissors? I was a bit confused), two hair clips and a bracelet.

The scissors are actually hinged, so they move! I squealed in delight when I learned this, husband gave me funny looks haha. 

All these bits are shown on the back of the box but true to MGA's "Showing promos then changing it all" tendencies, none of it looks like this in reality. The cat bag here looks like it was supposed to have a proper clip fastening, the bows were supposed to be pink and blue not both pink, the bracelet had spikes and the necklace was a lightening bolt, not a wierd surfboard shape with a bolt painted on. Also it was silver and red, not bright yellow.
The earrings interestingly aren't even shown.

But here they are! I nearly broke one trying to ram it into her ear holes. They're made of pretty flimsy plastic so the peg that goes in bent because her ear holes are a wee bit too small.

The dolls also come with a pair of lips, which are actually the new Bratz hairbrush. I was dubious but it works fairly well despite having no handle. 

The new Bratz also have a completely new body, it's pear shaped. There's a teeny little bust, a pinched in waist, wide hips and skinny legs with very very narrow ankles. Her arms are overlong too, but Bratz arms always were.

I got together all my Bratz bodies. I don't have any unarticulated 2010 bodies i'm afraid and the party body with the gorilla arms gave up her head so Daisy could use the body hahah.

The new body has hard rubbery legs and squishy rubbery arms, the plastic legs make her nice and easy to dress though, they're smooth like bratzilla legs rather than a bit sticky like older Bratz or Barbie legs. Pants an leggings just sliiiiide on with no friction, it's lovely.

Her hips are about the same width as the 2010 hips while her upper body is a LOT smaller in every dimension. Her bust is smaller, the width of her rib cage is narrower and she has narrower shoulders too.
her legs are a lot narrower too, the upper thighs are smaller and the calves taper away into next to nothing.

Unlike the taller Bratz though, the new one has shapely calves. Her hands are really elongated with long fingers and thumbs. they're nice and rubbery though, which makes dressing her a lot easier than the old bodies who's hard plastic thumb looooved to get stuck and rip seams.

The new body also features a very sway back with a pert sticky out booty. The older bodies had much flatter butts, this new girl? Baby got back!

Oh my god, look at her butt.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

This shape makes me think of Monster High.

Now, the new Bratz fit the older doll pants beautifully, they hug their hips in a very flattering manner. However, the tops gape awfully around the bust and just don't quite sit right.

The 2010 shoes will fit onto the new pegs but they're a bit loose. 

The gaping of the top is even worse with the older doll shirts, but the pants still fit very nicely.
the shoes from this outfit don't fit at all, they won't click on.
I tried another few pairs of older shoes and it seems a bit hit and miss. The new foot peg is longer and narrower than the old pegs so most shoes fit a bit wobbily and loose while others just don't click at all.
This is a very odd choice I feel. I expected the new Bratz to fit the older stuff perfectly but they just don't.
Some tops might work but all will gape and bag around the smaller upper torso and the shoes may or may not click into place securely. Hmmm... odd.

The new outfit has a similar issue. The shoes will fit the 2010 bodies but the dress while it looks ok from the front...

Does not fasten fully at the back.

Meanwhile the older body, the shoes are very tight around the calves and they don't seem to click into place.

It's the calves being so snug in the boot that's keeping them on, NOT the pegs. So I suspect less booty pairs of shoes may not fit at all.

The dress however fits, it's a bit snug around the bust but it does up.

So... if the new Bratz can't reliably wear older Bratz stuff, what the heck CAN they wear?

Monster High stuff is too long in the torso so fitted things tend to have gaping problems around the shoulders.

Pinkie Cooper (who can wear Bratz clothing) looks ok from the front (a bit short)

but doesn't fully fasten at the back.

Ever after high, despite the dolls sharing a pear shaped torso doesn't fit nicely at all. It's too gapey around the belly and the torso section is way too long meaning the sleeves are too long and everything just looks baggy and gross.

Monster high seperates are a bit hit and miss. Some are too long in the body or the sleeves are too long around the shoulders. Others fit really nice. The only problem with this outfit is that the skirt holds her legs too close together and it means she can't stand, she topples over because her legs can't be splayed slightly to balance her.

But if you find the right bits, MH pants and leggings fit really well and the tops if they're styled right look great.

I rather dig this girl in pink.

Monster High can fit into the new clothes too, but they're very short in the body and look a bit... off on the full height dolls.

The little sister body fits this dress a bit better, though it's very tight around her bust, despite her having like.. no boobs.

I feel like Howleen would rock this dress.

For reasons known only to MGA, the new Bratz have static rubbery arms but jointed knees. The knee joints have better movement than the older Bratz articulated bodies, but it's still not great. In fact, when I got her out of the box one of her knees was frozen at the joint and I had to very firmly bend it, all the while convinced I was going to break it. It didn't break thankfully, it eased up and now both knees work fine. If anything they're a wee bit loose for my liking. they remind me of Bratzilla legs, they have the same heavy weight that means they sort of flop slightly when unbent.

The actual bending is very strong, they stay in position once bent despite the heavy boots. But this is as far as they'll bend.

I do have one big gripe, and that's Jade's hair. While it's lovely silky soft saran, it's cut terribly. The green is substantially shorter than the black and the black is cut in choppy haphazard layers that look messy and unprofessional. Thankfully I have scissors of my own, and that ratty hair has gotta go.

Sooo much hair... 

And soooo much better.

She even modelled her oversized bag, which won't stay on her shoulder because she can't bend her arm to keep it up. Doh.
Seriously she could wear this thing as a damn hat it's so massive.

So, final thoughts?

I'm actually pleasantly surprised. I was expecting these new bratz to be dire, I honestly was. After the 10/10/10 fiasco I didn't trust MGA not to screw it up. And when images of the new dolls were shown I felt like my fears were confirmed, over a year away and they'd taken away everything that made Bratz Bratz. Terrible outfits that didn't look like anything I was seeing in clothing stores or on people, fashion ideas that seemed straight from 2001 not 2015, giant round ill defined heads with doe eyes and minimal makeup and none of that sass and attitude i'd grown to love about Bratz. I was disappointed, but not surprised.

But I wanted to review a bratz, and as time wore on I started to get used to the new faces, Jade's hair and better eyes made me gravitate toward her and I decided if I was going to review any bratz, it was going to be her. but, when I opened her up I expected terrible. I know that sounds bad but honestly I was. MGA had been SO cagey about releasing images of their new product, so odd about anyone sharing info about them, I thought "they must be hiding something, what have they screwed up?" but... they... they didn't.
they got a lot right.

The hair is lovely, it's saran not nylon and it's smooth and sleek and soft. yes my doll needed a trim because it was cut sloppily in the factory but in terms of quality of the hair itself? it's excellent.
Her eyes are even, there's no smeared paint or chips like there were in the 2010 dolls.
The outfit, while pretty ugly is really well made and her shoes are painted great.
Attention to detail happened here, and while I find some of the design choices a bit questionable (What is going on with most of the outfits?) the dolls themselves are actually pretty damn nice.

Now, i don't understand why they made the new ones not totally compatible with the older dolls, that IS a baffling decision, but at the same time, the new bratz are... dare I say it... actually good.

I know, I feel like I should be more snarky, goodness knows I expected this review to be dripping with snark and complaints but really I just can't. I really do like my Jade. she has a bitchy little face that makes her look perpetually slightly annoyed but to me, that screams "bratitude" lol. She has a funky trendy haircut and giant clompy boots that help her balance (if you position her juuuust right she'll actually stand unaided) and she feels pretty well constructed.
I'm not sure how well her knee joints will hold up over time, they feel much like the Bratzilla joints, and I wish she had articulated arms because they'd really help pose her to match her facial expression but these minor gripes aside, I can't really complain.

No, the new bratz can't wear all the old stuff, they can't even wear all the old shoes, but some stuff works and MGA have released several fashion packs alongside these, something Mattel seems reluctant to do for MH despite fans begging. The price point is a little high, but you are getting thickly rooted saran and fully hemmed and finished clothing and painted accessories. This is more than I can say for the much more expensive Monster High dolls which have been steadily declining in quality over the past few years.
MGA have come back strong with Bratz. They're a little hit and miss clothing and design wise for me, but I got to see a lot of them today and I have to say, I am rather liking the deluxe Study Abroad line. at £25 it's a little rich but they do come with several accessories and two full outfits which look to be all separates. Like old Bratz!

Bratz are BACK guys, and it's awesome. 

I give Jade a solid 8 out of 10 giant cat bags. She needs arm articulation and she needed a new outfit stat, but i've really enjoyed playing with her this evening and i'm looking forward to picking up Study Abroad Sasha next month when I have money. I hope MGA keep up this level of quality, I think they learned a lot from the last relaunch about what NOT to do. This time instead of rushing they took their time and that shows.
The new faces will take some time to get used to, but I think we'll get there.