Giving Monster High g2 another look.

 Maybe i'm a glutton for punishment, but with no new Monster High hitting the UK i've been thinking back on their last failed attempt to revitalise the series. 

G2 is almost universally hated by collectors, but despite that the dolls are uncommon enough that they seem to command pretty decent prices on Ebay. Something I find surprising if this generation is hated as much as online vitriol would suggest. 

Now, back when g2 came out I wasn't overly impressed with the "kidification" of the franchise, making everything rather Barbie-like with the baby sisters for everyone, cheaper simpler outfits and a general polish of "this is aimed at 6 year olds not tweens" which I always felt was Mattel panicking because they didn't know how to actually market to the audience who embraced Monster High.

see, I don't think Mattel expected MH to be as successful as it was, particularly not for it to get a bunch of tweens, teens and young adults interested in dolls. From most toy company's perspectives, kids stop playing with dolls when they hit about 10, so why bother marketing stuff to anyone older than that? 

but MH managed to capture something Mattel as far as I believe, couldn't quite handle. An audience of older kids, a market they hadn't factored for and one their current exec etc simply didn't know HOW to market to. They were so used to making Barbies for children, suddenly having teenagers wanting dolls when by Mattel's own words they should be "into phones and tablets" was a big deal. 

Sadly, instead of embracing this new and previously mostly untapped market, Mattel panicked. 

G2 as far as I have always believed was their attempt to wipe the slate clean, push out those unwanted older fans and return to their comfort zone. A toy line marketed to younger children. A nice safe market, one they knew well, one they felt most comfortable with. 

g2 felt like a giant "screw you" to the majority of fans of MH simply BECAUSE it wasn't aimed at us. That was never it's point. It was a reboot designed to appeal to younger kids, not the market it currently held. 

And I always felt this was short sighted of Mattel because their tween/teen market was such an untapped market otherwise and teens who collect dolls tend to become adults who collect dolls. They don't "age out" like young kids do and it meant you had this gateway franchise. Kids would age out of Barbie and Disney princesses and age INTO Monster High.

Of course this is all conjecture, I have no evidence of any of this, but that was always the vibe I got from the decisions Mattel made. As g1 drew to a close it was already pushing more and more for pink, for girly, for safe child friendly things like mermaids and cats and puppies and shit. 

I mean i'm honestly surprised we didn't get a horse riding line for mh the way things were going.(We DID get fairies though with g2, and babies.) 

 But G2 happened and initially at least, I didn't HATE it. 

There were things to loathe for sure, the "everyone gets a baby sister!" thing was tiresome and tacky for example. 

But there were also things I LIKED about the first g2 dolls. 

They had chunkier limbs which allowed for thicker more sturdy pegs in the wrist, elbow and knees. This made for sturdier joints and more robust dolls that weren't as prone to losing a leg or breaking a wrist through regular play. 

They introduced moulded "monstery details" for the original ghouls, like mummy wraps for Cleo and fur detail for Clawdeen. A design idea they continued over into G3. 

But they also made some really wierd decisions. Decisions that ultimately turned me off MH as a brand for a long time. 

But it's been years. I'm in a better place in terms of my mental health, i'm no longer using dolls as a crutch to keep my head above water and hyperfixating to a dangerous level. So it's time I think to step back and reassess g2 and see if it still pisses me off as much now as it did then.

Spoiler: It probably does. 

But let's get retrospective shall we?

Monster High Howliday dolls

 Mattel's releases of Monster High are... pretty random honestly. We've got G3 which has mostly just not hit anywhere outside the USA (We in the UK have gotten the core 5 but NOTHING else. We're like 5 lines behind at this point and it's ridiculous!), the overpriced "haunt couture" dolls available only from Mattel which sell out stupid fast and their "howliday" dolls which like g3, simply are not being stocked in regular stores outside the USA.

Suffice to say, it's getting pretty damn frustrating being a Monster High fan who doesn't live in the USA right now. I thought we were past those days of toy companies forgetting that a whole planet was out there beyond American shores and yet, here we are again. Second class consumers who's money Mattel apparently neither want or need. -_- 

Meanwhile MGA is, for the most part, actually managing global releases. Here in the UK we've missed two Rainbow High releases (slumber party and the band group) but have gotten every other one and more importantly, get them within weeks of the USA rather than 4 months later. I don't understand what is going on with Mattel and their distribution right now. They aren't just ignoring other countries, they're screwing up distribution within the US as well. So many of their Monster High releases particularly have had really spotty distribution, not hitting whole regions at all and there's honestly no excuse for it. In this day and age it shouldn't be this bad and i'm honestly starting to wonder if this is some form of self sabotage on Mattel's part. I mean it's bizarre, it really is. They cry about how MGA is beating them in doll sales but it's like... guys, maybe if your product was actually making it TO SHELVES that wouldn't be such an issue.

The fact is that in many places MGA products are the only big mainstream option because Mattel's apparently forgotten how to distribute product. 

Anyway, this is not really the point of this review. I just wanted to get it off my chest.