My Little Pony Equestria Girl Rainbow Dash, by Hasbro

I am not a serious My Little Pony collector, although I own a few of the figures and I remember these friendly little faces from my childhood.  Most of my pony-playing days were in the 1980s, so I have a special fondness for the chubbier, more docile-looking ponies of that decade.  Among my favorites were the mid-80s first generation (G1) ponies that look to one side (like Applejack) and the half-rearing characters (like Skydancer).  I also love the original mold, and in my youth, I badly wanted the larger My Pretty Pony toy that shared that same basic shape.

The ponies have morphed quite a lot in the last few years.  I have never seen the Friendship is Magic TV show, but I find the G4 toys cute in a new way.  Although they've shed the cow-like appearance of some of the 80s molds (G1 Posy looks particularly bovine...), they don't necessarily look like horses to me.  These little guys remind me more of Chihuahuas...but that's cool because I love Chihuahuas.

When I started hearing bits of information about the new line of Equestria Girl dolls, I wasn't sure what to think.  The Equestria Girls are teenaged human versions of the regular My Little Pony characters.  These teens appear in a new movie, My Little Pony: Equestria Girls.  The promotional pictures of the dolls did not look great to me.  For starters, they don't look human.  The movie characters look like reasonable cartoons of human beings, but the dolls have huge horse ears on top of their heads.  The other problem was that the promo pictures I saw showed only dolls with very limited articulation.  However, at one of my visits to Toys R Us, I found a small stock of the Equestria Girls, and I was delighted to see that two of the dolls (Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash) have articulated knees and elbows.  Furthermore, the dolls looked way cuter in person than they seemed in their pictures.  Won over by Rainbow Dash's colorful hair, I left the store with her, feeling unexpectedly excited about this review.

Equestria Girl doll "Rainbow Dash" and her Crystal Masquerade Pony equivalent.

My Rainbow Dash cost $20 at Toys R Us, and this seems to be the typical pricing.  The less articulated dolls cost $13-15.  There are also doll and pony sets (with Twilight Sparkle and Celestia) that cost around $20.  As a warning, there's another $20 deluxe Rainbow Dash doll that comes in the same size box as this one, but she's not as highly articulated and has extra hair extensions instead of an extra outfit.  I have seen this other doll in person and her hair and outfit are great.  She was my favorite until I noticed that she is missing the elbow and knee joints.

Rainbow Dash's packaging is part of what made her so appealing to me in the store.  Her box is covered in bright rainbow colors with wonderful graphics.  The doll herself is arranged in an action pose with all of her accessories displayed around her.

Look at the awesome pony print on her skirt:

There's a little picture of the Rainbow Dash pony in one corner of the box:

The back of the box has two cartoons of the teenage Rainbow Dash and a small amount of text:

The little snippets of information about Rainbow Dash's personality are not that unique or interesting--she likes bold colored outfits and always wears her backpack:

This second blurb is more critical to understanding exactly what the Equestria Girls are.  It explains that their world is magically connected to the world of My Little Pony.  It also explains that the Girls attend Canterlot High.

The back of the box also has a group drawing of the other Equestria Girls.  In this picture, the Girls have horse ears on their heads.  I am still not quite sure what is going on with the ears, but maybe there is also an Equestria Girls TV show, and the TV characters have horse ears and the movie versions have normal human ears?  *Update: apparently not.  No TV show.  Maybe the Girls grow ears at some point in the movie?  *Update: yes!  The girls grow ears at one point in the movie.  Thank you, my wise readers for this information!

I really like the drawings of Rainbow Dash.  She looks spunky and cool with her jagged, multicolor bangs, layered outfit, and that gesture she's making with her left hand.  

Notice that she has rainbows under both of her eyes.  The doll only has a rainbow under one eye.

Double rainbow.

My favorite feature of the box is this big face shot of Rainbow that wraps around one of the corners (she has rainbows under both eyes, too):

What does this mean?

In two different locations on the box, these three symbols appear:

Rainbow Dash's "cutie mark" is lightning (because she controls the weather), and she is a Pegasus, so the lightning and wing symbols make sense.  I guess she also enjoys soccer? 

A corrugated cardboard insert pulls out of the main window box.  This insert is littered with attachment sites--mostly plastic and cardboard tabs.

The de-boxing is fairly simple, and takes time mostly because there are so many little pieces.

There is a small sheet of stickers, a collector's card and an accordion-folded catalogue:

The catalog has photographs of most of the other dolls:

These are the less articulated basic dolls.

There's another version of Rainbow Dash that I haven't seen in the stores.  On the opposite side of the catalog, there are cartoon versions of the characters.  I like the rendition of Fluttershy.  She's very sweet:

Rainbow Dash comes with a brush, but I have been following good advice and using my wire brush for all of my dolls now.  The brush is cute, but as I mentioned in my Pinkie Cooper review, this brush design is starting to look very familiar.  It strongly resembles Pinkie Cooper's brush and has some features in common with Apple White's brush, too.

Rainbow Dash's backpack is made out of hard vinyl and has some small wings sticking out the sides:

The backpack straps are stiff, but flexible:

The straps have small pegs that insert into the pack.  These can easily be detached:

In fact, there are pegs at both ends of the straps, so the whole strap unit can be removed from the backpack.

Rainbow Dash also comes with purple dangle earrings for her big ears:

The design is a bit obscure, but I think it is supposed to be clouds:

Rainbow Dash has some detachable wings made out of tinted clear hard plastic:

They have a single peg for attachment to the doll:

The pale yellow plastic has silver glitter inside of it:

Rainbow Dash comes with an extra dress.  It is made out of a blue stretch knit and has rainbow panels on either side.  There's a silver ribbon down the front that gives the impression of a zipper.  The dress opens half way down in back and has a small strip of velcro to hold it closed.  

There is also an extra pair of boots.  These boots are blue with red painted laces.  

The right boot has Rainbow's cutie mark on one side:

One of the accessories is a red and purple hair extension clip that is advertised as being, "for you and for me."  I don't think this clip would stay in place on a real person's head, but it might work for the doll:

Not for you.

The clip is very primitive--it's just a bent piece of plastic.  You can see that the joint is already white from the stress of bending.  This thing won't last.

Finally, here is Rainbow Dash herself.  She is wearing a short red dress, rainbow arm bands and red boots.  Her hair has a longer section in the back that is meant to represent a tail:

Her face is very friendly and nicely painted.  She looks like a wolf or a cat, I think.  There's nothing at all horsey about her features.

Neeeigh!  Meo...woof??

There are familiar things about this face, but I can't quite put my finger on them.  She has large, slanted eyes that are a bit like Monster High eyes, and a smile that reminds me of one of the Disney Princesses.  Maybe her face is just reminding me of a My Little Pony character?

She has purple eyes with lightning bolt reflections in them.  Her eyebrows and eyeshadow are blue, and she has a layer of silver glitter over each eye.  She has a rainbow lightning shape under her left eye:

Single rainbow.

Rainbow has a partly open mouth with exposed teeth.  The tooth area is just a line of white paint, but the mouth is so small that this technique works well:

I find this face cute and appealing, but there's also a blankness in the features that makes it hard for me to identify with her.  When I look at the picture of Rainbow with Lagoona and Ariel, above, what stands out is that she's not a sulky, edgy misfit like a Monster High character, but she's not entirely sweet and human like a Disney Princess, either.  She's stuck somewhere in the middle.  

Maybe I would be able to relate to her better if it were clear what she is supposed to be.  She looks mostly human, but her blue skin and big eyes are alien and her ears make her part animal.  Pinkie Cooper is a good contrast because despite her human body, it's glaringly clear she's supposed to be a dog.  I am comfortable with that.  If I put the My Little Pony connection aside, this doll is a blue humanoid that looks like a cat--which doesn't make a lot of sense.  I think I need to watch the movie.

Rainbow's hair is styled in a ponytail, except for the longer blue and purple section of hair that hangs straight down her back:

The bangs are swept across Rainbow's forehead from right to left:

Two hair plugs criss-cross at the hairline, leaving a small area of exposed scalp:

The bangs have only two colors--orange and yellow, and they don't have the cool jagged cut that the cartoon character's hair has.  I might have to change that.... 

Step away from the scissors, Emily.

The ponytail is tied with a clear rubber band and is messy right out of the box.

I took the ponytail out so that I could tidy it up.  The hair is long and looks full.

I like how it is mostly orange in the back, with the other colors hiding in layers underneath:

This hair has a great texture.  It is very soft and smooth and doesn't seem at all prone to tangles.

The rooting around the edges and around the ears is very thick.  The back of the head is more sparsely rooted and shows a lot of scalp:

The longer blue and purple "tail" section of hair is rooted in its own little square section at the back of the head:

The hair is crimped where the rubber band was, so it looks best back in that original style.  I love how the colors show when it is pulled back like this.  The ponytail curves down the doll's back like a real rainbow:

Rainbow Dash's outfit consists of a red dress, armbands and red boots.  

She is also wearing a purple plastic bracelet that matches the design of the earrings.  The bracelet is more clearly in the shape of Rainbow Dash's cutie mark:

I knew next to nothing about these dolls when I de-boxed Rainbow, so I was very surprised to see what was left when I removed her boots:

Stub feet.

The feet are a huge disappointment.  I think this style of leg is terrible.  First of all, it takes a lot of muscle power to yank the shoes off and jam them back on again.  The articulated knees seem in serious danger of getting pulled apart in the process.  I try to be carful to hold the leg below the knee joint when I am removing the boots, but it's unreasonable to expect all kids to be this careful when they're playing.

The other big problem with these legs is that the doll can't go barefoot.  Personally, I love going barefoot, and I'd like my dolls to have that option, too.  I mean, how can you relax at the end of the day if you can't take your shoes off--especially when they're shoes as huge and clunky as Rainbow Dash's boots? 

It's also hard to dress and undress this doll over those big boots, and so the only option is to have her hobbling around on her stumps while she's changing her clothes.

Eech!  Ouch!  Ooch!

Watching her perch on those stick legs made me feel bad, so I gave her a chair to sit in:  

Ahhh.

If this doll had snap-on bare feet, the ankles would be articulated, which would be amazing.  If Hasbro made normal feet for these dolls, it would negate all of my bad feelings about the legs.  Snap-on hooves would be fun, too, while we're on the subject.

Anyway, here are the large, clunky boots that are also the doll's feet:

Gene Simmons wants his boots back.

They have painted silver wings all up and down the molded laces:

The dress is very simple and short, but it does have two layers of fabric in the front.

The stitching is minimal, and the bottom edge of the dress isn't hemmed at all.  Unlike the blue dress, this dress opens all of the way down the back, which makes dressing much easier--especially with the huge boot feet.  The velcro only goes about half of the way down the dress, though, so there's often an unsightly slit up the back.

The red peplums lift up to reveal a full underskirt.  I love the light blue pony silhouettes against the rainbow background.

Here is the doll without her clothes:

She has 9 points of articulation, not counting the peg feet.

She has molded, unpainted underwear, including a sleeveless camisole top and textured underpants.  She has a hole in the middle of her back for the insertion of the wings.

The detail in the camisole top is nice.  Rainbow can be undressed without seeming naked.

This doll struggles to do front-to-back splits:

She has good forward movement in her legs, but the cut of her hip joint prevents her legs from moving straight back:

Her knee joints are hinged and also rotate.

The knees don't quite bend to a 90 degree angle, which makes kneeling a real balancing challenge.  Rainbow can kneel if she uses her arms as counterweights:

Rainbow has ball-jointed hips and decent side-to-side hip flexibility:

The elbow and shoulder articulation is also hinged with a full 360 degrees of rotation.

The top of the elbow joint is very straight-cut, which limits the flexibility of that joint.  It also makes it hard to tell where the front and back of the elbow are.

I think the hands on this doll are really nicely shaped.  They're very realistic:

There are a few frustrating limitations in this doll's articulation.  I wish the hinges in her elbows and knees were slightly more flexible, and I wish her hips had a better design.  I probably have these complaints only because she has a lot of great movement, which tends to get me wishing for perfection.   

Overall, there's a good amount of flexibility in this doll, which can lead to some wacky poses...

...and some great poses:

With Rainbow's clothes off, I can show you how the wings attach.  They stay in place better than I would have guessed, but they still fall out every now and then.

I have to admit, the wings seemed like a bit of a gimmick when I was looking at them on their own, but they look really nice on the doll, and it wouldn't be right for a Rainbow Dash character to be wingless.  

I always wish wings like this were bigger--it would be more realistic.  Dolls tend to have tiny butterfly wings, but I think huge eagle or vulture-style wings would be much more appropriate.  Anyway, larger wings would be harder to keep in place, and, as we know from the Winx Club dolls, larger wings can interfere with the movement of the hair and the head.

I thought while this doll's blue skin was fully exposed, it would be a good time to compare her to the My Little Pony Rainbow Dash figure.  I put on the blue boots, too, so that the cutie mark would be showing: 

Here's my little Rainbow Dash pony figure in her packaging:

She has such a bright, cute little face:

Her wavy mane has two rows of rooting and is red, orange, yellow and green.  Her tail is blue and purple.

I like how the doll's regular hair matches the colors in the pony's mane and the doll's longer shank of hair matches the colors in the pony's tail.  The doll's hair is much softer and smoother than the pony's hair.  The pony's hair is wavy and a little scraggly.

Both characters have purple eyes, although the styles are different.  The pony Rainbow doesn't have lightning reflected in her eyes or rainbow lightning under her eyes.  Also, the shape of her eyes is much rounder and more upright.  The two wing styles are different, but the vinyl color is exactly the same in both toys.  Side-by-side like this, the doll makes a lot more sense.  She is very clearly a humanoid version of the Rainbow Dash pony.  I think it's pretty neat:

At 8.5 inches tall (9 with boots) Rainbow Dash is smaller than many of the other popular play dolls.  Here she is (bootless) in a lineup with some of my 12" girls:

Bratzillaz Meygana, Ever After High Apple, Monster High Clawdeen, Rainbow, Barbie Fashionista, Disney Store Rapunzel.

And here she is again with some of my smaller dolls.  I included my Moxie Girlz doll because she is the only other nubbin-footed doll I own:

Only Hearts Club, Lottie Autumn Leaves, Moxie Girlz, Rainbow, Novi Stars Alie, Pinkie Cooper

I tried clothes sharing with some of these dolls, but not all of them.  Pinkie Cooper, Clawdeen and Apple seemed like the mostly likely candidates. 

Pinkie Cooper actually wears Rainbow's red dress fairly well:

And Rainbow can easily slip into Pinkie's Night Out dress, but the color is not very flattering on her:

Rainbow's dresses are ridiculously short on Clawdeen and Apple:

And Rainbow swims in Apple's dress:

She can almost wear Clawdeen's tight black moon dress, but it's a little long through the torso and doesn't close all of the way in back:

The biggest problem with other dolls' clothes is that their style doesn't suit Rainbow Dash at all.  She really needs outfits in bold, bright colors--just like it says on the box.  Here she is in her blue dress and blue boots:

I'll quickly show you how some of the accessories look on Rainbow.  First, here are the earrings:

They slide over the edges of her ears rather than fitting into a hole in the ear.  These earrings don't stay on very well, especially when the dangling part gets caught on her clothes or in her hair.

The backpack fits over Rainbow's arms, but the stiff plastic and small size makes for a very awkward fit:

The wings can be worn with both dresses.  The attachment point sits just above the neckline of each dress:

The hair extension barrette works, but the plastic clip part is bulky and won't lay flat:

I do like how the extra color looks in her hair, though:

Braiding Rainbow's hair is fun because it mixes up the colors in interesting ways.  It also shows off the wings a little better than the loose ponytail.  

I wanted to try two pigtail braids, but Rainbow's thinly rooted hair makes a center part a really bad idea:

I settled for a smaller braid that runs down one side of her head:

I also tried twisting Rainbow's bangs away from her face.  I don't like how they block the design under her left eye.  I would need to wet the bangs to get this style to stay in place better, but you get the general idea:

This doll's hair is so much fun to play with.  It reminds me of La Dee Da Dots of Style Dee's colorful hair, but I find Rainbow Bright's straight, primary-colored locks more impressive than Dee's pastel curls.

I also think that my two versions of Rainbow Dash make excellent companions.  Even without seeing any of the TV shows or movies, I can imagine some very fun games centering around these two colorful friends...or these two colorful versions of each other.

I wish that the human Rainbow Dash could kneel or sit better so that she could interact with the pony more naturally.

Here's my favorite picture of Rainbow Dash.  I don't think she'd be able to fly very fast in human form with those tiny, delicate wings, but I imagine that she's a super-fast runner:

Bottom line?  A large part of my reaction to this particular Equestria Girl is based on her hair.  Whether I am combing out the thick bands of color, mixing the colors into braids, or just enjoying the rainbow arc of a simple ponytail, this bright, silky hair is addictively fun.  I mean, a rock with this rainbow hair would be fun to play with.  It doesn't hurt that the hair is attached to a cute, well-articulated doll with fun rainbow clothes and a friendly smile.  If the rooting were thicker in the back of the doll's head, there would be even more styling options, but I am pretty happy with the hair exactly as it is.

It's hard to be objective when a specific doll is dramatically better or worse than I expected it to be.  I did not have high hopes for this line, so in my head, I probably tend towards magnifying the good qualities and underplaying the bad.  I'll be careful to point out what I perceive to be the biggest flaws with this doll.  First of all, her knobby feet are terrible.  I don't understand this design choice, although I suppose Bratz and Moxie Girlz fans are used to it.  Second, several of the accessories are cheaply made and could have been left out in favor of another outfit (or detachable bare feet!).  The wings are fine, but the backpack doesn't fit well and the hair extension clip doesn't look like it will last very long.  The earrings fall off too easily and don't add much to the doll's appearance.  Last, I have some minor complaints about the hair rooting and the elbow and knee articulation: these features are fine, but they're so close to excellent that they make me want more.

This doll is clearly a human version of a My Little Pony character, and the doll and pony are really fun to play with together.  The parallels between the two characters are great.  However, when I look at the doll without the pony, she is not quite as appealing.  I think she tries so hard to be a humanoid Rainbow Dash that she looses some of her independent identity.  She's awkwardly not human enough to be human and doesn't resemble any real animals.  She doesn't need those confusing ears.  I think that the cartoon drawings of the human Rainbow Dash are good and I wish the doll had a bit more of that spunky, unique style.

Doll choice played a role in my positive reaction to this line.  I don't have loyalty to any of the My Little Pony characters, so I could simply pick the doll that I felt has the best hair and the best articulation.  If I were an ardent Celestia fan and wanted to get that particular doll, I'm not sure I would have been as pleased with her stiff, unbendable limbs.  Likewise, if Fluttershy was my favorite pony and I wanted to own that doll, I'm not sure I would have had as much fun with her plain pink hair.  On the other hand, owning the pony figure and/or knowing the stories and personalities behind the characters would probably make it easier to ignore the shortcomings of any given doll.  All things considered, I like Rainbow Dash enough that I would be pretty excited to add another one of these Equestria Girls to my collection...but maybe only if I had the matching My Little Pony to go with her.