Many many apologies folks! I completely forgot I was going on vacation, and came back on Friday. -.-;; Feel free to bash with those foam bats! ^_^;;
I know we were going to look at the Animation Cels, but, since my return from vacation, I've managed to find, and purchase many many more Sailor Moon items for your .. erm, reading pleasure! This time, I focused more on the NON electronic items! So, let's get started with the first round.. the "Sailor Moon Excellent Model Dolls".
What they look like: Well, the packaging on these particular dolls seems to be really imaginative. The outer area's of the boxes well decorated with various anime images of the characters they have chosen for this particular series. The backs showing just how amazing these dolls look out of their packaging.
However, the REAL magic, is when they come OUT of the boxes. With every box, you of course get the doll, but you also get their microphone, as well as a card featuring all three of the starlights. Sorry all, Sailor Moon is seperate!
We'll start out by looking at the bases, being a transparent blue of sorts, and sparkled with, sparkles, this stand is fairly easy to put together. It comes in your basic 3 pieces, that seem to just fit together (or rather are supposed to.. but we'll get to that later). The doll then can be removed from the packaging, to be placed in the hold of the stand, with, the microphone (being all gold and plastic in color) attaching to the HOLE in their head.
These particular dolls are made of a high quality vinyl, with a true attention to detail!! The hair moves, the boots even move, and even their eyes have the very same sparkle that this trio has in the anime. Everything was carefully painted and detailed to a point where the word "Excellent Model" truly does do them justice. The appendages of the doll are poseable, to a degree. You're able to move the arms, but not bend them, along with the head, and the hair (to a degree).
How much they cost: These dolls can cost you anywhere from $40 to $100 a piece! I personally paid about $160 for the entire set of the 3 in MINT condition! The boxes were very well cared for, and aside from my opening for inspection (to ensure all pieces were in fact in tact), had not been touched since it's release.
Now, if you're looking for the rarer of the set of 4, Eternal Sailor Moon, be ready to have that pocket book loaded with money, and ready for a bid war! That elusive doll is going for anywhere from $50-$200 alone! And yours truly is still looking for it after all this time! So you can guess my dillemma in finding this item.
Finding this item on ebay is fairly easy every year or so. Although most sellers will list the item as a BIN feature instead of allowing bidding to take part. Which leads to an even lesser availability to those collectors out there! So be sure to have your wallets ready for that next round!
Personally, I adore these dolls. They're by far the favorite of all the dolls I have and have seen in the past. They're very well made, and detailed, to a point where it makes you WANT to display them outside of the package for all to see. Unlike many of the other dolls out there that came from Bandai. However, there is a few rather large drawbacks...
One of the main drawbacks I found, was the pictures of the items themselves, makes them look as if they are HUGE in size. When I first bought these dolls, I was under the impression they were around the range of 1.5 to 2 feet in height! Unfortunately, they are relatively the same size as a large barbie doll, perhaps a tad bigger. As they pertain to my MSD (for those familiar with them) they are smaller, but not by TOO far.
Another draw back, is the idea of display itself. On the package you get the impression (by the image) that these dolls stand on their OWN. Had it not been for the picture of one already being displayed, I would have thought this was simply how they stood to begin with. Not so. These dolls have no chance of standing on their own without the support. They're simply not proportioned well enough to do so. And the stand assembly is rather scary, as the pieces must be SNUG into their slots, making disassembly quite scary for the collector!
Finally, the movement. Looking at the dolls in the images, once again, I was under the impression that they were able to be moved around a bit better. unfortunately, no. These dolls have a set pose, and only that pose. The idea of being able to move them around and allow for your own creativity is close to nill. 'Less you fancy the reverse arm position (left one up instead of the right, and right one down instead of the left..), and the completely unrealistic flow of a ponytail.
Overall, these dolls get a 9 out of 10. Why? Because there is simply NO other doll that comes CLOSE to the detail in this, aside from model KITS. They're VERY well made for the money, and offer a real beauty for the collector. Though it may be difficult to attain a FULL set of 4, they are relatively easy to find as well (
www.atamaii.com for example has them for sale!). I highly recommend these dolls for the Sailor Moon collector, as well as the Sailor Moon doll collector. They truly are a sight to see on your shelf, with or without the box(es).
Next Week: The Sailor Moon Tiaru Childrens Cosplay Wand
See ya then!
