Teen Version Hermione Granger by Star Ace

My youngest son is really interested in movies, so we've been watching a lot of films in the last few months, mostly when we're traveling for some type of college-related trip.  We tend to alternate between me introducing him to a classic romantic comedy (like When Harry Met Sally) and him showing me something new and noteworthy (like Get Out).  Because of his enthusiasm, I find myself thinking about movies a lot these days.  One of my favorite movie series is the Harry Potter octet.  I enjoy these movies because I like the story and the characters, of course, but also because my family watched them (many times!) when the kids were younger.

With all of this on my mind, I guess it's no surprise that I chose a movie-related doll to review this week, specifically, Star Ace's Teen Hermione Granger from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  This is a doll that I preordered back in September of 2016, about half a year after I wrote a review of Star Ace's Sorcerer's Stone Hermione.  My positive experience with the first Star Ace Hermione doll made me very excited and optimistic about this version (especially because Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite of the eight Harry Potter movies) but the reality did not turn out to be what I expected.

1:6 scale Teen Version Hermione Granger by Star Ace, $239.99.

Figuring Out Phicen (Part 3): The 6th Generation Females

Well, we've arrived at the third (and final) installment of my Figuring Out Phicen series.  I published this review in small segments partly because I had too many pictures for a single post, but also because I've been crazy-preoccupied by our high school's spring drama show.  Every year this fun event eats huge amounts of my time, and this year is no exception.  So, if you feel like I've been distracted lately...you're absolutely right.  Oh, and also: we're getting 21 inches of snow today in Maine.  Same old, same old.  So, basically, this review might not be my best work, but if I get it published before our power goes out, I'm gonna be psyched.

Regardless of distractions, I do read every comment on the blog, and I have to say: you guys are hysterical.  The banter about Paul and his "bits and pieces" from the last review made my entire week.  Aria, your thread made me laugh out loud more than once.  I'll admit to having the same fixation on finally seeing the Phicen secret parts.  And Alina_Mau: my apologies to you and our other day-glow pale sisters for all of the skin tone shaming.  In my defense, I don't even know what a tan is.  There's pale and then there's burned...right?

I'm afraid there will be even more skin tone discrimination in this review, though, because--spoilers--a Phicen suntan body found its way into my house and totally stole the show:

Phicen 6th Generation S17B Super Flexible body (suntan) with Kimi's Amanda Seyfried head.

Figuring Out Phicen (Part 2): The Phicen M33 Male Body

Welcome to the second of three posts about the fabulous Super Flexible Phicen bodies!  I started this series with the intention of simply finding a head for a pale female Phicen body.  However, my choice of body (the S01A--which you can read about in Part 1) was far too similar to the only other Phicen body I own (the S01--which you can read about here).

So, in an effort to learn something new about Phicen, I went a little overboard and purchased a male body and two of the newest female bodies.  Today I'll take a quick look at the male body I chose, the M33:

Phicen M33 male body with an Eleven head (left), Phicen S01A female body with a Dreamer head (right).

Figuring Out Phicen (Part 1): Finding a Head for a Phicen S01A Pale Body

I had my first experience with a Phicen Super-Flexible Seamless body back in the winter of 2015.  Ever since my review of that doll (Leila, a stainless steel S01 figure) I've been considering another Phicen purchase.  In fact, I bought another doll while I was reviewing Leila, but I sent her back immediately because I did not like the body shading or the head sculpt.  I always assumed I'd give the brand another try, but there have been some obstacles along the way.

The first obstacle was that my older Phicen body is not holding up very well.  I was never able to get the pencil stains off her leg, and her soft body has continued to separate along the side seams.  Another hurdle is that the newer Phicen bodies do not come with heads...and Phicen doesn't sell heads separately.  In theory, I was happy to purchase a head from a different company, but it's not so easy to tell which heads will go with which bodies, and the Phicen pale bodies seem particularly difficult to match.

My mission for this review was to order a new stainless steel pale body and then find it a head.  Sounds simple, right?   However, I'm not very good at keeping track of all the different types of Phicen body (or all of the different brands of heads, for that matter).  My inexperience led to a few blunders that took me off on some unexpected tangents.  By the time I figured out what was going on, I had way too many photographs for one post.  I decided to split my discoveries into several short parts: Part 1 will be my quest for a decent head for an S01A body.  Part 2 will feature a Phicen male body (and the selection of his head), and then Part 3 will look at two of Phicen's 6th generation female bodies...and a few more heads.  It's going to be a full-blown Phicen overload.

Phicen S01A body with middle-sized breast...and no head ($74.99).

Phicen's Super Flexible Seamless 1:6 Scale Figure with a Stainless Steel Skeleton

Ok, so here in the Northeastern United States we have been getting quite a lot of snow.  I think Maine has had 25-30 inches of the stuff over the last few days...with more to come.  I very much hope that all of my fellow New Englanders are faring well in these storms.  The weather has certainly made my week strange--with a mix of snowed-in days and hectic catch-up days--but I did get the chance to spend some time with a very unique action figure doll that I've been admiring for quite a while.

I am a relative newcomer to the world of action figures, but lately this style of doll has become increasingly appealing to me.  One of the reasons I'm drawn to action figures is that many of them have excellent articulation and balance.  This flexibility can come at a price, though--some of the figures I've purchased (like my Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Otaku figures) have unsightly joints and/or bizarre, exaggerated proportions.  I also admire how action figures can have such realistic faces, and both my Daryl Dixon figure and Séverine's Avenger's Black Widow are great examples of this.  With all of these things in mind, I set out to find a 1:6 scale action figure with a good blend of articulation and realism.

In my quest for this ideal action figure, I spent a lot of time browsing BigBadToyStore, Entertainment Earth and several of the big manufacturer's websites.  I also lurked around on the information-packed forum, "One Sixth Warriors."  After all of this research, the company that stood out to me the most was Phicen.  What makes Phicen figures unique is that they are extremely well-articulated, but they're also "seamless"--meaning that they have very few visible joints.  The skin-like covering on these dolls can make their bodies look startlingly real in some photographs.  In fact, the body on the Phicen figure in this review is so realistic that I left her partially clothed for most of the pictures.  Even so, I would like to start off with a quick warning:

WARNING: The realism of this doll might make some photographs inappropriate for the workplace or for young children.

1:6 scale seamless Super Flexible Phicen body with stainless steel skeleton, $105.