Monster High Boo York - Luna Mothews

It's my birthday on the fifth, wheeee.
I'm old. <_< >_> heheh.

Anyway, Smyths had 20% off all Monster High and were still the only place that actually even HAD stock of Gooliope here in the UK (everywhere else is backordered) and husband convinced me I should just bite the bullet and treat myself.

So Gooliope ended up about £28, while Luna was still a somewhat eye watering £21, but I really really wanted her so eh.

First time i've ever ordered from Smyths, as we don't have a store anywhere within about a 20 mile radius and they often don't have online stock. I've never been hugely impressed with Smyths business layout, their website is very deceptive but the past year or so they've been getting better and now the majority of what they have listed on their site IS actually available for home delivery (previously you were lucky to get maybe 10% of their online listings that weren't "collect in store only")
They offer free delivery on orders over £29 and told me it would take 3-4 days so I sat back expecting my parcel not to arrive till Monday at the earliest.
Surprisingly, despite ordering at 11:45pm on Wednesday night, they actually dispatched Thursday morning  and arrived Friday. Sweet!



Amusingly, the Hermes courier guy recognised me and was all "HEY! I haven't seen you in ages!" and I felt a bit bad because I had no clue who he was hahaha. Oops? I haven't had a hermes order in ages, but it was cute the guy recognised me. It's probably hard to forget the crazy lady who opens the door before you can knock because she saw you walk past (my desk is positioned in such a way I can see anyone approaching the house bwhwhahah)or I traumatised him by answering the door in just a towel once... ahem. I loose track of how many poor delivery guys i've answered the door naked to. if they WILL knock while i'm in the shower...

Anyway, GIANT BOX!

Seriously, the box was big enough to fit a toddler, or two... I was like "ok I knew Gooliope was big but this is ridiculous".

And yes, it WAS ridiculous. Two dolls, this box could fit about 8! Come on Smyths, wth? Surely you had a smaller box you could use!

Still, the kids got a box to play in.

First impressions? HOLY HECK Gooliope's head is MASSIVE!

But we're gonna look at Luna first. I decided to open her first before I got totally distracted by Gooliope's new body sculpt and jointing. 

Luna's box art is cute, though i still think that head.. thing is ridiculous.

The Boo York boxes have plastic windows that unhook like the Haunted boxes, though the plastic feels less razor sharp this time. Hmmm. Maybe they made it slightly more flexible and less slicey?
I managed to open it without hurting myself, which is a plus.

There's a 3d building to one side which has the stand inside of it

Getting Luna out proved a little more awkward than I expected. Her head was held in place with three plastic tags (SERIOUSLY Mattel?) and she had several little ties that needed snipping but all that was fine till I got to pulling her out and realised her skirt... train.. thing was actually tucked INTO the backing card through little flaps. It was super awkward to get the fabric out, it was really wedged in there and I ended up having to shove my hand in between the two layers of card to ease one of the tabs open as brute force was NOT working and I was scared i'd tear the fabric.
Why the heck is her skirt wedged into the box like that? Were those teeny fabric tabs not sufficient?
strange.

Her box tells me her diary is hidden behind the backing card. 

Her diary is disappointingly the "international" version. *sigh* I'll be emailing Mattel again. Eventually they'll realise the UK doesn't bloody want these non diaries.

There are only three entries in english, they're repeated in various languages on each page.

One thing that is interesting about the international diaries is that often they look to have different entries, slightly different wording in places or flat out different stuff. I'll need to read Luna's full diary to see if this is just a hack/edit or if it's actually different.

Same thing, just in French.
There's a fair few pages, they're all like this.
It's frustrating because while i'm sure some people don't care about the diaries or think "oh I can just read it online" the point is that we are paying £26:99 for these damn dolls! they SHOULD come with all the same content the US is paying for. I also find it really cheekily deceptive to advertise a diary and then NOT actually have one. This at least has 3 entries, often we just get their bio printed over and over and maybe one sentence. That's not a diary, that's false bloody advertising.

As I got her out the box I noticed this left on the backing card. Now, I didn't cut her hair when I removed her tags as I cut them from behind the backing card to avoid such things, so this has snapped off when she was boxed up. I can't see any bald or thin patches though, perhaps a little on one side of her fringe but nothing obvious. Maybe it's just excess hair from where they cut the fringe in and gelled it. Sometimes that happens.
still, unsettling to find such a large HUNK of hair like this.

But here she is all deboxed.

I LOVE the black and red, it's very very striking.
I'm a big fan of yellow and we've only had one other yellow doll so far, so her colours stand out on my shelf. most of the MH dolls are shades of pink or green, with a large prevalence of purple in there as well. Soft, cool tones mostly so a vivid yellow and stark black stands out nicely.

I was actually worried this outfit might be a bit too OTT with that train but the train is actually very very cool.

It's a skull see?

So, Luna has her black and red streaked hair tied in high pigtails with two long strands framing her face and blunt cut bangs. The front of her hair is super gelled, like solid and ick. She needs to be rinsed under warm water for a minute or so to wash the worst of it out.

Her eyes are huge, red (She IS the Mothman's daughter, she SHOULD have red eyes) and the pupils are compound eyes like an insect. Nice touch.
Her eyebrows are heavily slanted and end in dots, not sure why but it looks neat.

She has black lips, in keeping with her whole "goth moth" look. About time we got a Goth Monster high character.

Her headdress thing is a large stylised butterfly... I think. With crystals all around the wings. It's strange and a bit too fantasy for my tastes. Also it conceals her pigtails which I think are adorable. So it's gotta go.

She has two black antennae that don't really look either mothy (feathery) or butterflyish (end in blobs) however she's apparently supposed to look a bit like a Lunar Hornet Moth and their antennae are a little more solid looking.

The headdress thing actually attaches to her head via her earring holes. Ouch. it looks like some sort of torture device when you look at it like this.

Her ears are feathery like moth antennae. Interesting they gave her ears considering you know.. moths don't have ears lol. That or she has two sets of antennae? whatever, they're cute and fuzzy and very detailed.

She has totally new wings, they slot into her back with one large socket much like Bonita's big wings but these ones are articulated!

Either flared out (moth wings actually have this style of wing, they fold down overlapping on the moth's back while butterfly wings fold UP and away from the body)

Or relaxed.

My Luna has one slightly loose wing, the upper part on one side likes to droop a little. It seems to hold in place better if you have her on her stand as the back bar holds the wings in place.

The socket her wings clip into actually clicks when the wings are in place, so it holds them pretty securely. Gone are the days of wings falling off if you moved the doll hah.

You can see in this picture how badly sewn her clothes are though. Her bodice doesn't do up neatly or straight, the velcro seems to be sewn in crooked and one side of her train is folded over making this thick section that distorts everything.

Her bodysuit underneath is actually way too big around the bust, it gapes and falls down exposing her boobs to the world. Nice.

Her undersuit as you can see is a sleeveless bodysuit with full stockinged legs. It's slightly shimmery but yeah, it doesn't actually stay UP because the bodice is completely the wrong size. It looks like it was sewn for a doll with much larger boobs. Wth?

Over that Luna wears a mesh collar thingie that likes to shift out of position constantly.

Under all that clothing she has a brand new sculpted body, same shape as usual but with fantastic ridges and plates. She reminds me more of Gigi Grant's body sculpt than Bonita's, she has no fuzzy legs or indeed any fuzz, her body is far more insectoid with all these segments.

Her upper legs and arms have teeny little spikes on them.

Luna's shoes are super OTT. They're silver and have a large butterfly on the front with crystaline wings forming the heel at the back. The rest of the shoe seems to be smaller butterflies flying up the leg.
They're pretty cool and fairly soft plastic so combined with her stockinged legs are quite easy to get on and off.

The new Boo York stands are silver and have a crystal base.

Here's Luna (with some tweaked outfit additions) with our other Moth girl. Now, I do hope Mattel will explain if Luna and Bonita are related considering they're both supposedly "daughter of the Moth Man". Are there multiple Mothmen or are they half sisters?

Anyway, regardless, they look nothing alike. Not just their colour schemes but Bonita has feathery antennae while Luna's are more bee-like. Luna has more moth-like wings while Bonita's are some sort of fairy madness. Both have large angry eyes somewhere in their design though heh (Bonita's wings and Luna's train/skirt thing)
Bonita has compound eyes too but hers feature a skull in the middle and are more a bunch of dots surrounding a middle dot (or skull) while Luna's are completely made up of circles.

I'm still disappointed neither of these girls had an extra set of arms. Come ON Mattel, they're MOTH girls, they should have 6 limbs!

Luna is a very similar shade of yellow to the Bee Create a Monster, though Luna's skin has a pearly sheen to it while the Bee girl is matte.

I'm pretty sure they DON'T share a face mould despite people saying when they first saw Luna "oh she just looks like the Bee CAM". They have similar jaws but their noses are a different shape and Luna's cheeks seem fuller to me.

Bee has a really thin pointy nose while Luna's is still quite sharp but not nearly so narrow. Also Luna has ears, which the Bee girl does not have.

Two black and red girls, because it's such a great combination. The red in Luna's hair looks to be the same red as Wydowna's hair (and for that matter Operetta's).

Horah for insecty (and arachnid) girls!

Though playing with Wydowna does just further my disappointment that Luna didn't get 4 arms. I mean, we've SEEN a four armed torso now with that squid mermaid girl, so why Mattel? WHY didn't you use that torso for Luna!?
Bah.

Luna has her flaws, but I still really love her. Her yellow skin is a nice change of pace. I'm DELIGHTED there's no pink anywhere in her outfit and i'm so so happy to see a goth at long last.
Her pigtails are adorable, the blunt bangs could do with being neater cut but look great on her and I dig those black lips.
Her wings are a lot of fun to pose as well, it's a nice touch.

I wish her outfit was sewn better and her collar thing didn't distort when she raised her arms.

Overall, I give Luna Mothews a solid 8 Wardrobe Malfunctions out of 10. She lost a point for her outfit being so badly fitted (nip slips ain't appropriate Mattel. Get it together) and another for not having the appropriate 6 limbs a Moth girl should totally have damnit.

I do really like her though. She's beautiful.

Up next, Gooliope! stay tuned!