Disney's Ily 4EVER 18-inch Dolls--A Guest Review!

Dear Toy Box Philosopher blog readers, I’m Hannah, an adult doll collector from London, United Kingdom, and the author of The Toy Gems blog site. I have been collecting dolls since I can remember - which dates back to the age of two when my happiest photographs are with my dolls. I am also a writer/screenwriter and an English graduate who loves collecting dolls and figurines to surround my writing desk. My favourite toy brands growing up included these doll lines: MyScene, Liv dolls, Monster High, Moxie Teenz and of course the popular brands - Barbie and Bratz. 

I also hold American Girl close to my heart and as a British child I was always flicking through their digital catalogue and like any young American Girl, I grew up loving the doll brand. Before AG, other 18-inch dolls lines that made a big impact on me involved the BFC Ink Club dolls which were my favourite along with Journey Girls, My London Girl and Gotz. In recent years, I have enjoyed expanding my doll collection with dolls of varying heights including, the Ruby Red Fashion Friends/Siblies and the British brand A Girl For All Time.

Thank you to Emily for providing me with the opportunity to share a review of the 18-inch ily 4EVER dolls on this iconic site. Growing up, I read every single blog post from The Toy Box Philosopher and spent hours scrolling through images and reading reviews. It was especially exciting reading about doll lines that did not have a Europe/UK release and accessing this knowledge was only viable through this blog.

I am a huge fan and have been reading for more than ten years now. And so it may continue… It’s also great to see what the future holds as ten years ago I would never have guessed that I would be writing and publishing a guest review here of my very own.

Ily 4EVER Minnie (left) and Tinker Bell (right).

The Miniverse Make It Mini Kitchen by MGA Entertainment

I've always loved miniature food, and have gotten even more interested in this type of thing since Lena moved into the Rainbow High House and started her own series of reviews: Tea With Lena.  After all, if Lena is going to be inviting guests over to her place for a chat and a snack, she's going to need a well-stocked kitchen, right?

Way back in the first Tea With Lena post, Ryleigh left a comment that mentioned MGA's Miniverse food. The Miniverse toys are primarily little surprise ball kits that include everything you need to make a tiny fake food dish.  I was immediately excited about Ryleigh's suggestion, but of course it took me almost nine months to act on it.

I'm happy that I was so slow in pulling this review together, though, because MGA has released several new Miniverse products during the last few months.  The most interesting thing to me is the Make It Mini Kitchen.  I love kitchen-themed toys, and I suspect this particular one will be popular during the holidays.  So, today I'll explore several of the Miniverse options that are currently available, including the kitchen set, and I'll keep my eye on how useful each item might be to Lena and her 1:6 friends.

Lena with a Miniverse Make It pizza.

Mali and Lilli's Boston Adventure

There has been a lot going on in my life recently!  A few weeks ago, in a very spontaneous decision that I might live to regret, I got a job.  I didn't really set out to get a job, I actually just wanted to do some volunteer work at a local no-kill animal shelter.  But that effort somehow translated itself into a part time job.  So my schedule is going to be a bit chaotic for the next few weeks as I get used to this new reality.  I'm optimistic that I can keep the blog going at a fairly normal rate, by writing shorter reviews or perhaps less frequent reviews, but who knows.  I will certainly do my best to make it awesome.

To add to the complexity of life, I also had a four-day trip to Boston planned around this past weekend.  My son and his lovely girlfriend still live in Beantown, and we wanted to go visit them.  I was very excited about the trip, but I didn't really feel like I could miss a weekend of blogging--what with the new constraints on my schedule and everything.

My solution to this problem was to find a small doll or two to bring with me on the trip, and try to take all of the photographs I'd need for a review while I was on vacation.  I also thought I could actually write the whole review while I was away, but that was unrealistic.  So here I am back in New Jersey, grabbing a few hours before work to tell you the tale of two little friends and all of the fun things they did together in Boston:

Little Friends Mali and Lilli by HABA, $11.99 each.

Patron Post: Kidz 'n' Cats Jennet by Sonja Hartmann

One of the interesting things about blogging for a decade is monitoring which dolls have endured that expanse of time and which have been discontinued.  For example, it doesn't surprise me that American Girl is still alive, thriving, and pretty much unchanged from 2013.  And it's great that some smaller 18-inch doll companies, like A Girl for All Time, Carpatina, Maru and Friends, and even My Salon Doll are still making their products.  Other brands have not been as fortunate.  My Twinn dolls, which are close to my heart, were discontinued in 2016--possibly because of widespread eye problems.  The Extra Special Dolls met a similar fate.  But another casualty of the last decade, and one that took me by surprise, was the Kidz n Cats line by Sonja Hartmann.

I've actually written two reviews of Kidz n Cats dolls in the past: a comprehensive review of Evita in 2013, and a shorter look at two Henriettes in 2018.  And I guess we can count the brief review of the mini doll, Annie, too.  In all of those cases, there were a lot of quality issues and design disappointments that prevented me from thoroughly enjoying the dolls.  Frankly, I struggled to see why the brand was so popular.

But then my lovely new patron, Lillian, suggested that I take one more look at the Kidz.  She even suggested a specific doll, Jennet, who happens to be a character that I remember admiring a great deal back when she first came out in 2016.  So, because of some pangs of nostalgia over the loss of the Kidz n Cats brand, and because I cherish my patrons, today I'll be talking about Jennet:

Kidz 'n' Cats Jennet, by Sonja Hartmann (discontinued).

Na! Na! Na! Surprise Mini Dolls by MGA Entertainment

I was touched by all of the kind comments in the last review!  Kit is doing great and life has calmed down.  I also really enjoyed hearing about your school mascots.  There's such a fun (and occasionally shocking!) variety out there.  Several of you used the comments to help me out, too, which I appreciate.  You identified bodies and showed me how to unlock Addison's full singing feature.  I'm always grateful for your help...and your humor.  Black Kitty's admission that "for the longest time I thought cheerleaders, like zombies, only existed in movies" had me in stitches.  Thank you so much for your contributions.  They are a hugely precious and important part of the blog to me.

This week, as the weather turned a bit colder and it started to feel like fall might actually be on its way, my thoughts returned to the fall of 2021, when I decided to re-start this blog.  The first review I did back then was a Sunday Surprise post featuring a few Na Na Na Surprise dolls.  Now, two years later, MGA has miniature versions of some of their Na Na Na characters!  I love miniature things, and so I was very eager to get my hands on these little dolls.

Today's post was intended to be a Sunday Surprise, but I didn't work quite fast enough to make that happen.  Still, I'll try to retain some of the surprise elements in this review as I de-box dolls from both the first wave and the newly-released second wave of the Na Na Na Surprise Mini lineup:

Na! Na! Na! Surprise Mini dolls by MGA Entertainment, $9.99 each.

Disney's Zombies 2 Movie Dolls by Mattel

September has not gotten off to a great start for me.  First of all, my newest rescue dog, Kit, was recently diagnosed with heart disease and bladder stones.  This involved spending a whole day at the emergency clinic with him, and stressing while he had surgery the following day.  Literally one day after the surgery, I had to travel (with all five dogs in tow) to take care of some family business, which was both physically and mentally exhausting.  These are not the worst problems in the world to have, but they're why I haven't posted anything for a while.

Needless to say, I was extremely happy to get back into the swing of things this past week.  I'm delighted to be sitting here typing up a new review, with Kit cuddled beside me--healing beautifully and filled with new-found spunk.

And of course rather than easing back into things gradually with the blog, I decided to jump in with a behemoth review.  The goal today is to look at six (yes, six) dolls from Disney's Zombies 2 movie.  I started researching these dolls because I thought they looked fun, not because I'd actually seen the Zombies 2 movie.  In fact, I hadn't even heard of the Zombies movie franchise before I found these dolls.  The movies are similar in style and with the same target audience as shows like High School Musical and Descendants.  Movies like this tend to produce interesting and popular dolls, which was enough to get me on board for a review.  Also, I've never been one to resist a good zombie doll, especially if he has green hair:

Zed and Addison dolls from Disney's Zombies 2 movie, $19.99 each (by Mattel).

Magic Mixies Pixlings by Moose Toys

As a habit, I try not to disrupt my review queue for a brand-new doll line.  That's mostly because the frequency (and length!) of my reviews is not compatible with keeping up-to-speed with the ever-changing doll market.  But also, there are so many video reviewers out there these days who deliver quickly on all of the hot new releases, I don't need to fill that niche.

However, I made an exception this week because so many of you emailed or messaged me asking about Moose Toys' brand new Magic Mixies Pixlings!  I had one of the dolls sitting on a shelf waiting to be added to the queue, but your enthusiasm inspired me to buy two more dolls and move the review to the top of my list!  So let's see what these popular little Pixlings are all about:

Magic Mixies Pixlings by Moose Toys, $17.99 each.