The MGA/Mattel rivalry has now reached the level of comedy where Mattel is doing the thing their own competitor did a decade prior to rip them off.
Moonspell Magic (by Monster High) is an unexpected new venture from Mattel--a spinoff of Monster High G3 focused entirely on witches with different magical specialties. Over ten years prior, that was the very premise of Bratzillaz, MGA's direct imitation of G1 MH. This is all extremely hilarious. I was all ready to say that it's probably not totally fair to say Mattel is directly ripping off their own ripoff, especially as Bratzillaz is a dead franchise...but turns out, it's not. Yeah, so here's the thing: MGA renewed their Bratzillaz trademarks and shortly prior to Moonspell Magic going up for sale, MGA seemingly announced a full Bratzillaz brand revival for 2027, suggesting that maybe there was a behind-the-scenes industry race where either Mattel knew Bratzillaz was returning and decided to snipe them by doing their own version first, or else MGA heard of Moonspell and threw together plans to revive Bratzillaz in a panic, aiming to use the property again as a Mattel cash-in competitor. Witches are a big thing this year, so maybe the projects were independently conceived, but with the storied and transparent rivalry of these two utterly petty corporations, I'm disinclined to believe one company wasn't reacting to the other here. Now MGA's Monster High cash-in will be competing with Mattel's Monster High official spinoff with the exact same base concept!
There were rumors the Bratzillaz revival would be nothing more than a wave of awful Bratziez dolls, but MGA themselves said the return is "more than you think", heavily suggesting there's a proper rebooted doll line impending. I bet MGA hates that Mattel got Moonspell Magic out first, as Bratzillaz is going to end up looking like the wannabe imitator a second time, just to a different doll line this time around.
The greatest of farceurs couldn't concoct this scenario. This might be the funniest development in the Mattel vs. MGA rivalry. I'm only sorry the Bratzillaz reboot isn't this year. I can't tack it onto this series. I've had a couple of reasons to consider leaving Witchy Wonders as an open series and review title for whenever I have a witch topic in the future, though that clashes with the interlude idea I've already used, which is intended for diversions in a series with a closed endpoint in sight. Maybe Witchy Wonders is just an exploration for this year as originally planned. There's nothing preventing me from discussing witches in unattached posts as I did several times before, and I can certainly cite the G1 Bratzillaz and the Moonspell Magic discussions when discussing G2 Bratzillaz without needing the latter review to be in this series.
I like that my two parallel series, Hatter Madness and Witchy Wonders, ended up rhyming so specifically with each series' parts 3 and 4 discussing back-to-back similar dolls. HM 3 and 4 have the case of the two Maddies and WW 3 and 4 have the case of the two witch lines!
Moonspell Magic itself is a departure from mainline Monster High perhaps in similar ways to how Ever After High branched from Monster High. Like EAH, Moonspell appears to be the "girlier", "safer", "prettier" franchise, with more conventionally human-looking dolls and emphasis on ornate aesthetics over spooky vibes. Ever After High is almost certainly dormant for as long as Mattel can do fairy-tale fantasy via their Disney doll license, as the brand only emerged in a period where Mattel lost the rights to Disney dolls, and I expect trying to revive EAH while working with Disney would create friction that would cause Disney to break their contract. Mattel has no financial incentive to pursue EAH as long as they have Disney, and are probably actively discouraged or forbidden from reviving the brand as a result of the reforged partnership. Perhaps Moonspell Magic is being planned as the EAH-esque sister franchise to MH's current generation? We'll have to see how long it actually runs, but it has promise. At least one further wave of Moonspell dolls appears to be in the pipeline, though we have no confirmation yet of any narrative material to support and flesh out the storytelling.
Notably, Moonspell Magic represents the first doll characters in the G3 continuity to not be adaptations of G1 MH cast. It's not quite the same as getting dolls of G3-original monster characters (who do exist in the cartoons), but these are still the first new MH-universe playline characters since G2. The only new original monster characters since G2 were the two G1-styled Designer Series collector dolls, who flopped and might have killed any further original G1 characters for a while.
Moonspell Magic's approach to a witch theme follows the rest of Mattel's new witch designs (like G3 Draculaura and the Witch Weaver) by eschewing Halloween stereotype and divorcing the witch traits from a specific monster species. The Moonspell dolls are clearly witches without qualifying for the "monster" description, though--unlike the G1 witches, G3 Drac, and the Weaver. The Moonspell witches all have human skintones and zero monstery features, and like G3 Drac and the Weaver, seem insistent on wearing wide-brimmed Lydia Deetz hats. I don't know if that reads "witch" specifically, but Mattel seems to be going all-in on this being the new witch signifier in lieu of the stereotypical cone hat.
The Moonspell witches, and Drac and the Weaver, all seem to be following a trend of modern witchcraft spiritualism becoming (more) mainstream, and cater to the trending mystical aesthetic, without some of the more distinct occult/pagan symbols that scare the Christians. I tend to refer to this vibe as "Barnes & Noble witchcraft", as in, the kind of imagery you can push as trendy on a designated corporate bookstore merchandise table, and can get away with selling at mass retail without offending any customers. Real witch stores offer objects and iconography that are a bit less mainstream and marketable to all--bones and pentacles and such. The Moonspell dolls are trying to be fantasy more than spiritualism because toys are expected to be nonreligious and palatable to the masses. I'm fully nonspiritual myself and don't believe in the supernatural. I also don't have much knowledge of modern witchcraft, so I can't cite what these dolls get right or wrong, nor am I personally invested in their relation to the real practice, so that angle will be absent from my analysis. I have heard that at least one practicing witch was involved, though. I'm treating these as fantasy characters with a coat of modern witchy aesthetics. I'm not a suitable advocate for witchcraft as a real practice.
The dolls are quite pretty, and I think the debut core cast is a great showing.
The best move the line makes, in my mind, is the choice of central character. The head of the cast is Claire de Luna, who breaks every expectation of a doll line's leader, save, perhaps, the inevitable fact that she's female.
Claire is the celestial witch who uses the moon and stars to guide her. She's also--to put it very bluntly--brown, blue, and blind. I love all of these choices for the lead.
I think Claire is a lovely doll and she brings some meaningful representation...though I do dislike the "blind person with second sight" trope and find that counterproductive to constructive depiction. We'll have to see how it pans out, but in terms of pop culture at large, it that difficult to portray a blind person as blind?
The rest of the cast is good too. There's Carina Song, one of two more typically-marketable pink characters that Mattel might have been expected to place as the lead.
Carina is the love witch, and was mistaken for Mattel's highschool Cupid in early leaks. That she isn't actually Cupid means Mattel lost a funny (and perhaps logical) opportunity to shuttle Cupid off to another school after a single Monster High appearance again, and seeing Cupid Asteria be an itinerant character like G1 C.A. Cupid was would be fun. Cupid has actually stayed in MH for G3 and got her second doll there despite looking even less fit for MH than she did in G1. I do love Carina for who she is. Carina brings Asian representation to the cast, though I'm not sure which region. I think I heard her attributed as Filipina once, though her surname sounds more East Asian.
Next is the other pink girl who might have been an easy lead to market the series around--Rae Lumina. "Lumina" has been a Mattel name at least once before, used for the Monster High G2 firefly garden pixie.
Rae is the sun witch, and I'm fully on team "theme color should have been yellow instead". Her use of "dawn" pink feels like a focus-group corporate copout from people too scared there wasn't enough girly colors, and it denies us a radiant yellow and orange doll. We don't need two pink girls in a brand that already chose not to use pink for the lead, but maybe Mattel picking Claire as the lead character got executives too scared and they demanded two pink girls to compensate. I can see how Rae's sun, pink, and gold are designed to pair with Claire's moon, blue, and silver, but Claire is by far the more compelling design to me. The aesthetic designs aren't on par like a sun/moon duo ought to be. I might also accept Rae's palette more if she were actually named Dawn or Rosa Dawn or something like that to homage "rosy-fingered Dawn" (Eos) of Classical myth and literature, but a yellow/orange sun theme was still the best possible move that Mattel failed to make. The stock photos also made her hair ties look really awkward.
It is good that Rae has a significant curly hair texture. Within Monster High, Mattel seems more willing to put the Blackest hair textures on Black dolls with nonhuman skintones, which is suspect. I've also heard criticism of non-Black dolls getting curly styles before Black dolls get the same, and I can't state a verdict there. Several curl types are possible in non-Black groups and none of the dolls that have annoyed people are wearing textures that look definitively like Black appropriation to me, but it's fair to be peeved when Lagoona, Draculaura and Twyla wear curly styles before any Clawdeen has worn the same or curlier. Rae has (shimmery) human-colored darker skin and curly hair simultaneously, which shouldn't be hard to do, but which MH could stand to display more often. (MH G3 even has a qualifying character design with G3 Headmistress Bloodgood, but she's not a doll yet and might never be.) I don't understand why Barbie can depict dark skin+curls quite easily when MH doesn't, beyond the bleak idea that Barbie designs are one-offs and throwaways, not real characters, and can "get away with" more because they'll never be seen twice.
I'm sure Mattel is often censored and restricted by market projections of what audiences want, and I'd be unsurprised to hear that realistically visibly Black dolls are discouraged by consumer data. The Us Skullector set, starring two dark-skinned Black women with textured hair, is one of the worst-selling out of the whole line, and that makes me furious because it's one of the best Skullector sets ever made. Dark-skinned Bianca Barclay also needed to go on discount, House of Wolf Clawdeen was deeply discounted, and I've seen a Barbie playset with a dark-skinned curly Black doll linger on sale, too. There may be other factors affecting demand deficits for some of these, like pricing or non-racist personal taste, but there still is a commonality that's worrying and if other dolls, comparably priced or more, still sell, then it's hard not to look a certain direction. It sucks that the consumer base appears to display anti-Black tastes, but I still think there's no excuse for MH to shy away from creating original dark-skinned human-colored Black characters with textured hair. Caving to racism and cutting back on representation because it's not profitable is how racism continues to fester. What happened to the days when Black dolls were the most in-demand and valuable to collectors because people craved their depiction in the doll sphere? I may not love Rae's ensemble, but I hope she performs well, considering this now.
Next in the Moonspell cast is Willow Thorne, the plant witch. Her planty name sounds like a reversal of G2 Monster High dryad Treesa Thornwillow's surname. Willow looks to be the only white character in the core cast. Bratz was ahead of the game by having every core character be a visibly different background in the 2000s (then MGA totally flunked it with the counterpart Bratzillaz), but it's nice to see more franchises' core casts these days having even diversity without a slight white majority percentage. MH G3 does this too with its core five.
Willow is specifically labeled as hard of hearing and wears a hearing aid. Including a blind and hearing-impaired character each in the same core debut cast is a bold and positive move. G1 Monster High might have relegated these traits to supporting cast or one-off movie guest stars. Finnegan Wake needed to win a fan vote to get a single doll that wasn't even sold at standard retail. (I'd loce to discyss Fin and his potential hiccups in depiction sometime.) The Moonspell dolls first dropping on the first day of Disability Pride Month has to be intentional, and I think it's a great move.
I love Willow's silhouette giving her a charmingly gangly, literally willowy stature, and her colors and representation are appealing.
Last, and perhaps least, is Layla Stone, the crystal witch.
Layla looks the least distinct of the dolls to me, resembling some other G3 characters like Cleo, and her design wasn't very appealing to me. My personal utter lack of belief or interest in crystals also might contribute to my dismissal, but I think she's actually grown on me visually over time. (I love crystals in a geological sense and they're very pretty. Magic, though? I don't connect to that, and I see more romantic poetic symbolic power in the sun, moon, plants, and love than in crystals.) I'm not sure what Layla's background is meant to be, but her first name comes from Arabic. Perhaps that's intentional.
There will be a couple of parallels between Moonspell Magic and Bratzillaz if MGA revives their character concepts unchanged. Both lines will have love witches (Carina Song and Jade J'adore) and clairvoyants (Claire de Luna and Yasmina Clairvoya). Bratzillaz' other core cast members' magic focuses are different from Moonspell's. Meygana Broomstix flies, Cloetta Spelletta transforms things, and Sashabella Paws talks to animals. Moonspell is more rooted in real witch spiritualism in magic as well as aesthetic, so I'm curious to see if Bratzillaz will retain its more fantasy/Halloween cartoon angle or evolve to compete closer with Moonspell.
I'd be stunned if boy dolls ever make it into this line. Even one. They haven't been in Monster High G3 for multiple years now, and the witch theming is likely to bar any interest in male cast thanks to the predominant gendering of the concept. Spelldon would like to disagree, but he's tied to an older continuity and a female character preceding/inspiring his look, so he's an exception. In a world with no boys being marketed, though, Carina's love magic has to be between herself and all of the girls. I don't make the rules, Mattel. If you don't give us boys, and do give us a love witch, then everyone's a lesbian! (I'm aware that love magic needn't be portrayed as romantic per se, but these are teenagers. It's probably gonna happen, and the only candidates for shipping thus far are female.)
I was positive my selection for this post was going to be Claire, Carina, and Willow, the three dolls I liked the most, but recognizing the potential of pairing Claire and Rae as thematic counterparts, plus ranting about the doll market's racism problem, made me feel activated toward getting Rae and giving her a fair shot. It was worth it to explore a doll who didn't immediately excite me and see if the reaction in-person was different or if the doll could be touched up a bit to click together more. Giving myself a trio I'd basically all made up my mind on beforehand would be less interesting, anyway. I don't know if I want to make Carina and Layla their own post soon as an interlude for Witchy Wonders, or if I get Carina and save her for a February 2027 Valentine post. Not sure I can wait that long!
Rae ended up being the first doll in my trio who I was able to get. This doll line dropped online and then rapidly sold out, leaving mysteries about when it would be restocked and on physical shelves. 2026 playline doll drops have stumbled and fumbled pretty badly, with several periods of uncertainty about whether or when X or Y doll would appear on shelves in X or Y place, and it's been floated that physically shipping them due to one particularly unwarranted global conflict blocking a certain strait may have disrupted the flow of product and created this. Politics will mess with you, and it sucks to see your escapes being disrupted or destroyed by greater circumstances (the gaming industry also appears to have entered a rapid death spiral of anti-consumer "pay your whole income to own nothing" inaccessibility, motivated by inflated tech costs as well as basic capitalistic greed, and has been horrifying to be caught in). The circuses of "bread and circuses" are actually arguably bad for the people if they distract from the action mindset that can check the powers that be and make life better for all, but all the same, I'd like the pleasantries of life to remain so.
Anyway, in the hell world of 2026, the Moonspell dolls only slowly trickled into availability. I picked and recieved Rae first, then was able to order Claire second and Willow third a bit later.
The Moonspell boxes are the current Monster High blister windows that get the box torn apart in the opening. The dolls are backdropped with a mystical sky and moon with the character name in the top right, and the doll line logo and character art is in the bottom right. The accessories are mounted on the left, while Monster High typically has them on the right.
Rae's box arrived with ugly shipping labels right on the plastic window. I had to peel those off before photographing the box.
The Moonspell character art is lovely, with a softer, slightly flatter look than the current G3 MH art. It suits the dolls as a more fantastical and gentle aesthetic than their sister brand, but it's distinct from Ever After High too.
Illustrated Rae looks like she has more coordinated colors than the doll herself.
The back of the box shows all of the dolls. I don't know if Rae is in the middle only on her box, or if this is how they're all laid out, but I wouldn't expect Claire to ever be on the end unless the characters were rearranged for each doll to center the doll in the package. Claire and Willow pair nicely as a duo of dolls reflecting the disability initiative taken with this doll line.
Rae is described as "lighting up every room", but with her color palette and dawn theme and face (and no fiction yet to confirm it), I see her as a more soft-spoken and comforting type of person rather than someone who brings an exuberant energy and turns up the fun. Rae might be the type to light up the room by being there for you and showing that there is light when all seems dark. A different Rae would be lighting up the room by amping up the energy, and she would be fun too, but I admit I feel feel fiercely attached to the type of person who brings comfort and peace to the troubled. It's the kind of thing that doesn't come very naturally to me, and I have nothing but respect and gratitude and affection for those who have those skills ready.
Here's the doll unboxed and using an unbranded doll stand. Moonspell has no more doll stands than modern playline MH.
As mentioned, Rae is hardly a drop of golden sun and seems to use a dawn motif as an excuse to be a second pink doll in the group. Her dominant pink is firmly warm in tone, approaching salmon, but she has more cool tones added in as accents. I'm not sure the dawn theme is really successful and just sounds like the wrong idea outright, but let's work with her.
Rae might be the Moonspell doll who suits the uniting hat concept the poorest in the line, as her hair shape overshadows the silhouette of the hat and the rest of her outfit doesn't seem matched to it. Again, I think Rae would look good with a sunny halo, so maybe this needs to be repositioned so the brim looks more vertical. The hat is hard plastic and is molded from two pieces, with the dome clicking into the brim with tabs. I'd suggest this would be so the brims can be swapped out and molded separately while only one dome needed to be made, but Rae's hat has a unique dome too, and this would hardly be much more practical than just molding five one-piece hats. Rae's brim has molded sun rays on the top side and painted rays on the bottom.
Rae's hat is unique in this line because it has a comb inside the dome part to slide into her curls and stay on better, as her texture and volume would make it harder for the hat to rest on her head and hug her cranium. I think she needs a puff or a bun tied on the back of her head if the comb is to slide into a more vertical halo position.
This doll is where a hat comb is wisely applied. It works nicely. On the Witch Weaver, the effect of an internal hat comb was next to useless and potentially obstructive to the hat's fit.
The hats in this line are fake-worn for the box presentation--the hats are packaged and positioned underneath the plastic cradle that the doll heads are stapled to.
Rae's hair turned out much better in person after looking really weird in the stock photos. Her hair ties aren't so stiff and the hair shape flows much better and matches the character art well.
I'd prefer different coloring, but the curls came out nicely and the hair came in a hairnet for packaging.
I was so sure I'd dislike Rae's hair silhouette and want to retie it in one band so it would fall in more of a circular sun-halo shape, but I actually quite like the hair shape now that I have the doll. Under the dawn motif of her tenuous sun theming, I think this silhouette makes sense. Dawn doesn't radiate bold and bright, it gently spreads across the sky, just like this hair falls around Rae's shoulders. Would I love a yellow-haired sun witch with a circular hairdo and a bold personality? Oh, absolutely. But I can see the designers working as well as they can to push Rae into the market demands for a pink girl, and I think they gave her the right hairdo for the quiet dawn.
Rae's hairline has painted baby hairs in light brown and pale gold colors. I wish we had more of the latter.
Rae has light brown skin with a shimmer effect. I think it's the reflection of her hair color that gives it a bit of a pinkish cast, not the inherent color of her skintone. Her face is nicely sculpted and painted. She looks calm and keen.
Rae has eyebrows that match her brown baby hairs, suggesting that her hair color may be dyed and not a fantasy feature? I can also just see how pink eyebrows wouldn't look good, so this is fine. She has pink eyeshadow and more orange gold like her baby hairs for some of her eyelash lines, as well as some dots in a freckle pattern which are lighter than her skin. Her eyes are brown and have sun-shaped reflections (though the spokes are a bit uneven and they look more like protozoa to me) and she has berry-red lips with a subtle two-tone shading effect.
I like Rae's face.
Rae's ears are human-shaped and her head mold is new, stamped 2026.
Rae's earrings are symmetrical sun icons with stylized faces. The plastic bridging the implied split two-string bead dangles is obvious, as is the color not suiting the suns, nor matching anything else on the doll.
While this isn't good design, I at least know what they were going for here. Dawn can definitely contain purple and periwinkle.
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| I'd believe this very Wikimedia Commons picture was on the designer's moodboard. |
The periwinkle color needed to be re-mapped and balanced out better, but it does have a place in Rae's design.
Rae's top has black sleeves which are good for a witchy character but not great for a sunny doll unless she were to really play on the contrast of dark and light. I guess it works as the darkness that dawn is falling upon. A bust portrait of Rae could imply the dawn of her hair and earrings above the dark horizon of the landscape, perhaps. The top is cropped with a high neck and the long sleeves hang in a bell shape. An implied reddish purple tube top is part of the garment; it's all one piece. I do like the gold foil print on the black fabric.
Around her waist, Rae has a pale yellow-gold belt with sun and moon motifs and sculpted chains. It sits low on the waist.
The skirt itself is unusually long for Monster High and is a denimy fabric that looks like jeans but rather than splitting into legs, it splits into a parted curtain above a folded-in layer. The fabric is the same pale reddish pink as her hair and is printed with suns and sparkles in the yellow of her belt.
I don't know how to feel about this outfit. The skirt looks nice, but the jeans theme hurts it for me and makes it less witchy. The outfit doesn't feel very cohesive or portray a specific fashion sense.
The boots don't help. They feel a little clunky and their total monotone color looks cheap. I get that witches wear boots, but they don't pair well with this outfit and paint, at least, could improve them.
Rae's purse is the same disappointing monotone as her boots and has no functionality, nor does it sit well on her shoulder. I'd just as well not bother with it.
This doll's two problems of lacking paint detail and an unbalanced color palette feel like they'd both be solved with paint apps on the the earrings, boots, and purse to make the doll feel more produced and throw more of the colors around the design to tie it all together.
Rae comes with a book, which is a non-opening mold and has a finger loop on the spine. It's a cute prop.
In addition to her book, Rae also comes with a candle (but no bell to complete the witchy triad). This apparently channels solar energy...because both are lights?
The candle handle isn't a tight fit around Rae's middle and ring fingers, so it's not a perfect prop to display in her hands.
Rae also has what looks to be a perfume bottle, but it might as well be for witchcraft too. Maybe this is for potions rather than fragrance.
The last thing is the cauldron. Each debut Moonspell doll has one, and just as a visual prop, these are great.
These also provide a simple mechanical gimmick where filling them with water will float up a little buoy with a necklace stand and necklace inside. Rae's necklace stand has a sun-and-moon ornament, but the other girls' are just moons.
Tipping the empty cauldrons upside-down will do the same job with gravity, or pulling up the moon emblem. The necklaces aren't secured either, so they could easily be shaken out. It's just a bit of theater if you want to do the thing as suggested.
Mattel may never learn that clip-on necklaces just don't work with high-neck collars.
Rae hardly feels completed by the necklace, anyhow. It's a bit of a waste on her.
Rae has a G3 Monster High body--looks like Moonspell isn't molding its own body style. Makes sense. Same universe, and that's the more cost-effective move. Rae is the median G3 "Ghoulia" build that the other variations are compared to.
Moonspell using G3 body types already started to, and could in the future, serve as another avenue for some G3 shapes to have more models. I'd enjoy more dolls with G3 Catty's frame. Iris in MH G3 is an obvious candidate and I still want her, and if there was a non-monster sculpt with those proportions, both Iris and a new Moonspell character could use it.
I came at Rae disliking her fundamental concept, but in-hand, I can work with her gentle dawn theme, just as Mattel's designers had to work with it. I doubt this was their vision from the get-go. Rae is pretty and she makes good reaches with her specific flavor of sunlight. Her flaws are still fundamental. I don't love her costume, but I can't portray her as a sun witch without it. Her earrings are a bad color, but they need to be there. Ultimately, there was no pushing Rae into a sunnier, more golden look. Her aesthetic is pretty baked in. But I could make her just a little bit better.
I got her hat oriented into more of a vertical halo, and added a G3 Nefera belt layered over her own belt, as well as Mego Endora's sleeveless sheer purple coat to give Rae some witchy drapery and balance the earrings a little bit. I also swapped her shoes out for Monster Ball Clawdeen's since the lunar-phase motif and the colors worked well while flattering her costume better and balancing the black top.
Come to think of it...Rae does seem oddly similar to G3 Clawdeen. Both are their brands' foremost Black characters, introduced with gold, pink, and purple colors and pale pink or purple hair. Both are messy debuts in my mind, though I do think Rae pulls it off better than signature G3 Clawdeen did.
I hope there are better dolls in Rae's future where her design is more cohered and detailed. There's a good deal of good in this signature doll that shows some artistic care for theming. Next to Claire, though, who ought to be the other side of Rae's coin, Rae looks really clumsy. I don't see a strong moon/sun duo in Claire and Rae. I see a slick moon doll and a sun doll trying to keep up.
Rae isn't what I'd think of first for a sun witch. Maybe that's okay. I became endeared to her soft dawn motif and gentle personality. But in designing a thematic line of witches, not making all five stand apart and communicate their themes with utmost clarity feels like a failure. Carina Song is a perfect candidate for the pink girly-appeal character in the line. Why push for two when Rae could have flourished in a more distinct manner with a totally distinct color and thematic identity you could instantly read for what it was and pick out of the crowd? I think the designers tried to make the best of a mandate. I just wish the doll herself held up to that effort, because parts of her feel disjointed and unfinished in a way where I can't say Rae overcame the executive fiat to make the pink dawn theme flourish as well as a sunny yellow doll might have. She doesn't make the mandate feel like original, confident artistic intent. I like Rae, and more than I expected to, but I can't call her a top-tier doll design.
Rae's second doll's design has leaked, and it looks to be the version I might have drafted for the signature design, pinkness aside. The hair silhouette is a ball of curls, and the doll looks much better-dressed; I don't care that it's a sleepover doll. I'd probably find my satisfaction by dressing signature Rae in her second doll's clothes.
When I started shooting photos with Rae, I'd returned her to factory state (sans necklace, which I lost) for the cover photo, and I ultimately left her that way. Her improvements from restyling were so marginal that I didn't feel the need to reinstate the changes. I had a few pieces with the sun-face imagery, and set Rae up in a pink room.
I took her outside in the real sunlight so she could soak in the mid-day rays.
Rae's sun theme was probably the most challenging to come up with photo ideas for, but Rae got a couple more after Claire's work gave me counterpart pictures for Rae, so those will be coming up.
Claire and Willow arrived simultaneously. I started with Claire.
Claire's box features Braille in the top right, which relates her name. The C and L are marked as capital letters with dots in the bottom left. Their lowercase versions don't have them.
I'm not sure if this Braille comes across performative or not. It's the only text on the box which is replicated in Braille, and as much of an effort as Claire makes to represent, I'm not sure if she's really going to end up being for blind people. Fashion dolls seem like a medium that vision-impaired folks are a lot less likely to enjoy or engage with. Are there lots of blind doll fans out there, or is Claire more of a character for the sighted? Education is vital for disability acceptance, but I'm not sure who this doll's audience is really meant to be.
As I expected, the character art on the back of the boxes shuffles around to put the character at hand in the center of the lineup. I like that Claire ended up between Rae, her magical counterpart, and Willow, the other character representing disability.
Claire's brief bioo focuses on her magical talent and personality without discussing her blindness, which I think is a fair approach. Characters that feel like preaching or a special lesson can be counterproductive to just depicting them as people who have X or Y aspect as part of their day-to-day.
Here's the doll unboxed. She makes a more cohesive first impression than Rae, though Rae's hair was better in person than I expected while Claire's is worse.
I'm a little mad about Claire's name. "Claire de Luna" is obviously a play on Claude Debussy's classical music composition "Clair de lune", but I happen to have privately wanted to name a moon themed character "Clair deLuna" myself, so that's a chance taken from me. "Claire" means "clear" in ways that might suggest clear sight or vision for a celestial seer, though, again, I'm not sure if it's productive or unwelcomely ironic for a blind character to be treated as the visionary type. Her discipline with so many visually-oriented means of divination is also confusing. How is she reading the stars or using a crystal ball in her experience?
Claire's hat appears to be one piece, and is midnight blue with starry and moon designs on the top.
Inside, the brim is painted with the zodiac constellations...ugh.
I am not an astrology girlie in any way. I don't like the way astrology can breed profiling, stereotype, and reductive self-perspective. Nobody is X or Y way because of when they were born. People are complicated and we should be open to that, rather than attributing someone's behavior or personality to arbitrary factors. I dislike essentialism, even of the celestial kind. I'll have to let this one go because I do like the stars and I do like Claire. But astrology has too much baggage in my mind.
The hat has prongs inside that seem to be designed to grip the head a bit. It's actually quite similar to something I suggested last year as a better idea for the Witch Weaver's hat attachment--arms that would hug the head from behind.
I don't think Mattel reads my blog, though. If they did, the dolls' necks would have universally sport highly-functional tilt articulation.
Claire's hair is center-parted saran in a blend of midnight blue and black. The fiber is a bit puffy and looks to be fried as usual these days. I want this to be silkier and less voluminous.
Claire comes with a pair of midnight blue translucent circular sunglasses. These can be both eye protection and a cosmetic choice for blind wearers, as unseeing eyes can be clouded or unfocused in ways that sighted people might be judgmental toward, finding the visual distracting. (And that is not actually the blind person's problem, but that's how it goes.) I think the shades for Claire are just right, looking very chic. Lunar-phase symbols trim the outer edges of the lenses.
It took me a moment to realize, but gosh, it's refreshing that sunglasses are not standard-issue for Moonspell Magic. Claire's are the ideal scenario, in that they're logical for the character and also happen to look good. Too often in mainline Monster High, we get ugly translucent shades that don't suit the fashions.
Claire's face is beautiful.
Her skintone is shimmery brown which is a touch lighter and more orange than Rae's. Claire's background doesn't seem to be confirmed yet, but perhaps she could be Indian or otherwise Desi. Maybe her blue colors are reminding me of Robecca Steam, who is Indian. I've also seen Claire interpreted as Black, and...I don't interpret her that way, but I also can't really say that's incorrect until any further information is provided. And if it turns out that she is intended to be Black, then I'll stand corrected. Claire has thick black eyebrows and ombre lips which fade different shades of purple.
Claire's eyes themselves are asymmetrical. It's confirmed that one of Claire's eyes is a prosthetic, with the description stating her left eye has some limited light perception. Assuming the product description correctly refers to her left and not ours, that would mean the colorful almost stained-glass eye with the purple pupil is the prosthetic, though I don't know why it feels stylized to appear clouded.
I first thought the colorful eye was trying to look visually "blinded", but I guess it's just not a real eyeball at all. Blindness is a spectrum and people can have different degrees of visual perception, and not all impaired eyes look the same, so the realistic left eye being impaired makes sense, and the other eye being a prosthetic could make more sense than Claire's two natural eyes looking drastically different. As a girl with one eye and limited perception therein, her disability aids make complete sense. It just might not be immediately obvious that her design depicts a stylized prosthetic eye and a biological eye that can't see much...but that's okay. Disability isn't always immediately "readable" and someone's needs may look counter to their appearance. I second the opinion that Claire's prosthetic eye changing across her dolls, like G3 Frankie's prosthetic legs, would be fun--and it would also be a good visual signifier to the sighted that would make it obvious that Claire wears a prosthetic, and on which side.
The makeup is asymmetrical, with a moon mark beside the colorful eye.
Claire's earrings are particularly bad hair snags, depicting mirrored crescent moons with dangling stars. The earring pins aren't angled on a different plane from the charms, so it doesn't matter which ear they go in.
Claire's costume is an open sheer coat/robe over a cropped tank, belt, and skirt, and thigh-high boots.
The coat has long dangle sleeves and no closure, collar, or edge trimming. Holographic silver foil print that matches her earrings covers the sheer black fabric. The sleeves don't have the flow and drapery they deserve.
The tank top is midnight blue satin with ribbon straps. It looks good.
Claire's skirt is midnight blue with silver foil print, while her belt is silver. Both belt and skirt contain imagery that evokes tarot cards, fitting with her magic discipline of foretelling. This makes sense to me for Claire, since Braille-edition or otherwise identifiably-embossed cards could easily be used by a non-fantasy blind psychic.
Claire's skirt is a bit bunched up the way it's sewn, and it feels less than intentional.
The boots are pretty simple, and slightly Clawdeenish with their black, purple, and moon themes. The purple is a lavender shade that's the least successful element of the design, but I love that the crescent-moon heels have realistic profile "man in the moon" faces.
Claire comes with a very recognizable blindness disability aid--a cane for guidance purposes. The cane is lavender for the most part, with a black handle and a molded loop strap that can hang around her wrist or her fingers. The lavender color coordinates the shoes better.
The handle also has a single finger loop, horizontal when the cane is stood upright, and this slides around Claire's index fingers to very naturally show her holding the cane forward along the ground to feel for obstacles. This is a secure fit, too. Claire can easily be picked up holding her cane like this without it falling off her hand.
I'm delighted this accessory displays/poses so perfectly. There isn't a perfect hand grip for Claire to hold the stick upright by the end, but displaying her walking with it is much more important.
I'm annoyed that the witches' unique magic accessories aren't designed to be handheld, but Claire's crystal ball is acceptable because this would sit on a table, anyhow. The stand is slightly spiky in its shape and the ball is opaque pearly glitter purple.
I wonder how Claire will be explained to use this. Maybe she has a trusted sighted reader who can see into the crystal, and Claire has the gift of interpreting the images described by the witness? Or else maybe the crystal is magical enough in this universe to transmit images into Claire's mind when she lays her hands upon it, psychometrically. Honestly, psychometry (spiritual information received by touching psychically-imbued objects) would be the very best way to portray Claire as a blind clairvoyant, as the sense of touch is so vital to navigating the world without eyesight.
Claire's textbook for "Fortunes" has the title in Braille under the English. This would, of course, be a Braille edition inside if the pages opened.
Braille is really a remarkable tool, and I've heard of some sighted people learning it for the novelty of being able to read without light. The writing system that preceded Braille has been sometimes attributed to being developed for just such a purpose.
Claire has the same bottle sculpt as Rae, and so, I realize, does every doll in this debut lineup. Perhaps these bottles are for the cauldron play scenario, like you mime the witches pouring these into the cauldrons before you add the water?
Claire's purse is silver and circular with fringe, and this paint and sculpt design is the same on both sides. It puts Rae's bag to shame and makes her look all the more unfinished.
The bag is also open on top.
Claire's cauldron is blue and sculpted for her theme.
A choker floats up on a white crescent moon display.
Maybe Claire gets protagonist privileges, because the necklace fits with her costume and also suits her!
Claire has G3 Draculaura's short and curvy body sculpts.
I'm surprised it took so long for Drac to lose her monopoly over this body type, and I'm glad to see it on someone else. Carina looks shorter in some pictures, but she might have the Twyla/Cupid skinny short build instead. It's not the Drac body.
While it's corroboration that Moonspell Magic's take on mysticism is very on-trend and perhaps not super inventive, Michaels releasing a mystical collection just before these dolls was great news for my purposes, with their designs being extremely Claire-coded. Last Halloween, they had a bunch of stuff that could have been tailor-made for Draculaura, but this summer, it feels like it's all there for Claire de Luna!
Claire is silver-toned rather than gold, but that couldn't stop me. I like a lot of these pieces, but the one that made the most sense to me was the little cabinet in the bottom right of the first picture. A witch student would need a good place to put her magical implements, and while I liked the velvet curve-topped trinket shelf, that didn't suit a diegetic staging with Claire, and the curve-topped cabinet in photo 2 has a mirrored interior back wall that neither Claire nor I would benefit from (I typically avoid reflections in my photoshoots as much as possible!) The collection also included some velvet ottoman benches that would suit 1/6 dolls, but the midnight blue version felt too large for my needs.
Claire looks great with the cabinet.
Inside, she could have a glasses stand and various supplies.
I repeated the crystal-ball gimmicks I used last January for the unfortunate Living Dead Dolls Romani depiction, and I'm grateful to Claire for providing a better character to stage the imagery with. I used the same novelty desktop crystal, and for some photos, including above, swapped the frosted ball for an Easter egg with cotton inside and the Skullette figurine head from Ghouls Rule Draculaura's skeleton.
Claire wasn't touching the ball because I wasn't sure she could actually reach it, but I got it to the edge of the table and from there, she could make contact with the crystal.
Here are a couple of simple portraits.
Then I took a really pretty photo using a moon picture on my computer as a backdrop.
I turned this into a diptych with Rae.
The cabinet also color-corrects to suit a picture with Rae. The beams of light around the moon design coordinate with her too. This composition makes Rae look more cohesive than anything else. She has such potential to be a lovely pink and purple and gold doll, but the costume design just isn't perfect.
Claire is just about perfect visually. I'd be quite comfortable tossing out the lavender color, but she's very strong as a design. Her hair quality is disappointing and her hat fell off a lot in photos, starting to make me wish these pieces had chinstraps or much tighter grips. Claire's cane and sunglasses are great designs, and the functional display of the cane is wonderful. That was the most important thing to make work, but I wish the hat did too.
Last in our spotlight is Willow Thorne.
On her box, she's between Rae and Carina.
Here she is unboxed.
I'm partial to a garden aesthetic, and Willow's deep green and purple are an attractive combo.
Her hat shape is obviously not unique to her, but it suits a gardener witch. Plant motifs and a moon buckle are sculpted on the top. I'm guessing Rae is the only one whose hat doesn't have the moon detail because she's the sun witch, and Willow and Claire's hats both have it.
Under the brim, moon and plant designs are painted.
Willow's hat has prongs like Claire's (and I'm assuming, Carina and Layla's), but her hat doesn't seem to fit as well as Claire's does on her. These hats certainly can't stay on if the dolls are shaken or inverted, regardless, but Claire's hat seems to be more snug and secure.
Willow's hair is monotone purple with a slight reddish tone. It's side-parted to Willow's right and the saran feels marginally nicer than Claire's, but not perfect.
What I really love about Willow is her face. There's a lot of personality in her sculpt and paint. She looks both dreamy and cheeky. I can see her as wistful, but also as a straight-talker who knows exactly what she's about.
She has light brown eyebrows which I wish matched her hair, and purple, pink and green eyeshadow with some white lash highlights. Her eyes are green with daisy reflections, and daisies are painted around some of her freckles too. She has a cleft chin and smiling lips with a two-toned shading effect--dark purple on top, light on bottom. I don't usually gravitate toward freckles, and I especially wasn't sure about the flower designs, but I think they significantly shape Willow's vibe in a way that makes her endearing. Willow's skintone is light and has no red or pink hue to it.
Willow has asymmetric matched earrings with a moth motif, reflecting a moonlit garden theme. On her right, she has a dangle with a moth and either a moth wing or some seed pods below it.
The left ear has a stud version of the moth, and also includes Willow's hearing aid. The hearing aid is lavender and wraps around the ear while a bud is depicted entering her ear canal.
When I reviewed Neon Frights Twyla, I was very disappointed in her noise-cancelling earbuds, as they only held onto the ears by wrapping around and were very easily pushed off by the hair around them. Given that they were a disability aid for her, it felt like a big letdown that the doll pieces didn't work.
I'm very glad to say Mattel corrected this by the time they were designing Willow. Her left ear has two piercings--one for her stud earring and one for her earbud, which securely slides into the ear on a pin before the cuff wraps around the top of the ear.
It's definitely not my place to say Willow shouldn't cover her hearing aid, but her hair does hide it pretty well, and it could have been nice to have the left side tied back so it was more visible.
Willow's costume is a cropped top, a belt, trousers, and sandals. The top is a gorgeous off-the shoulder green piece with an opaque bodice and sheer versions of the same printed fabric for the sleeves. The neckline is trimmed with black lace, while the sleeves are bell-cut and slightly awkward in certain poses--a bit like the Witch Weaver's.
Willow has a purple belt which looks woven from plants and has a pouch for collected herbs. They don't share a universe/continuity, but I feel like Willow and Spelldon would be fast friends, given their shared practice of earth magic.
Willow's pants are also bell-cut, and are black with foil print down the front of moths, magical sparkles, and plants. The material is a synthetic Mattel has hopped onto a lot recently.
The shoes are basically fully hidden by the pants--again, like the Witch Weaver. Willow has the most silhouette elements in common with them out of the whole Moonspell line.
I almost wonder if G3 Drac and the Weaver were soft launches for the Moonspell ideal.
Willow's sandals are petal-like and lavender-colored.
Willow has a purse with a moth design, and this made it very clear the lepidopterans on the outfit were not, in fact, butterflies.
Like Rae's, the purse is unpainted and has no openings.
The special magic accessory here is a cleverly-molded terrarium bottle that Willow is not designed to easily hold.
The interior pieces are molded in through the bottom, and the hollow plastic is visible underneath.
The textbook here is for green magic, and the design looks vaguely Celtic.
I could see Willow being Irish, where green, plants, and the mystique of nature and its spirits are prominent cultural markers. Or maybe she's just learning from mages in that region.
Willow's identical bottle happens to be the prettiest I've seen of the five. It's got a slightly pearly color shift from green to blue as it catches the light.
I didn't do Willow's cauldron and just got the necklace out dry.
Like with Rae, the necklace isn't designed for this outfit. The lace neckline gets in the way.
What a waste. I think I made some bad picks for necklaces. Carina and Layla look like they're set to wear theirs perfectly.
I was very surprised to see Willow is actually no taller than Rae. She has the standard G3 baseline body type. She sure looks lankier, though. I think her costume design extends her arms and legs and torso in subtle ways to give her a literally willowy presence, so very clever work there.
I suspect Willow isn't taller because molding the Frankie/Venus body type an untextured humanoid left leg was too much for Mattel. Frankie has all the pieces a tall Moonspell doll would need except the lower left leg, and that might have been insurmountable for Mattel. It shouldn't have been, but as with Ever After High, I don't think splurging on the body molds is at all on Moonspell Magic's docket.
Here's Willow outside with some plants. The garden is in early decline, so this doll didn't release at the best moment for photos.
And here's the meeting of Thornwillow and Willow Thorne!
Here's a day shot of her working in nature.
I had to do a night garden shoot with Willow, but invisible bugs were eating me alive earlier in the day, so I suited up with gloves, a raincoat, and mask to take these pictures.
And here are some portraits.
Here's a quick shot of the plant witches together.
And here's all of the "flat hat" witches, excepting Carina and Layla, who I don't currently have.
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| Draculaura's hat is not a Mattel piece. It's a fanmade 3D print that matches the hat model which was paired with this costume in the first G3 cartoon. |
I think the Witch Weaver fits the Moonspell vibe better than G3 signature Draculaura, but Drac would be the most likely narrative link between doll lines, while the Weaver isn't part of the toyline canon. Every time I take out G3 signature Drac, I'm re-reminded what a good doll she is.
When it came time to shoot the cover photo, I was kind of glad I hadn't picked Carina, because the trio of Rae, Claire, and Willow made for easy staging--an outdoor scene with each magic attribute behind each witch--sunrise on Rae's side, Willow in front of a tree in the middle, and Claire in front of the fading night sky on the opposite side to Rae. I set up a stone for them to work on and laid out their cauldrons, and left Claire's ball and Rae's candle on the stone surface since they can't hold them well. Claire is pouring her bottle while her hand is on the cauldron rim as a guide for her to feel where to pour, and Willow is holding her plant bottle. I would have put all of the necklaces on the cauldron stands, but I lost Rae's when I was ready to take the photo, and the necklaces aren't good enough to highlight. The background is digitally erased and replaced with the sky graphics I needed, while I tweaked the color and shading of the photo to suit the lighting idea.
So, what do I think about Moonspell Magic?
I enjoy the concept and aesthetic well enough. I like magic as fantasy even though I don't believe in it for real, and the dolls have a pretty style. I'm admittedly partial to the Halloween cliche, but this concept is a worthy one.
Of the three, Claire is the easy favorite. She's a well-designed protagonist with a really slick ensemble. I also think her representation of blindness is impressive, even as I have concerns about the magical pairing. We'll have to see how her powers and vision impairment are played as two parts of her character, but I am impressed by her central role in the cast, and her disability aids are great doll pieces that work well and complete her nicely. She's also the only one of the three whose necklace suits her clothing cut. She's gorgeous and a good toy.
Rae feels like the weak link as expected. Her fashion design just doesn't feel on, and I'd love to say she made the most of a limiting mandate to be pink, but she doesn't. I see the dawn theming, but this costume just doesn't work, and Rae feels unfinished with the lack of paint apps on her pieces. Willow has similar blank spots in her design, but she doesn't feel nearly as lacking for details as Rae does, and Willow's outfit suits her perfectly. What I do like about Rae is her face, hair, and personality. She seems gentle and smart, and she has the right grace to carry off her costume despite it all. I also remain endeared to Rae as a light-bringer of a witch, and her potentially representing the sun as hope is a beautiful way for dawn to be her theme. An energetic bold midday sun witch would be fun, and I wouldn't mind different Raes reflecting different phases of the day, but the comfort of the morning sunrise is a sweet theme for her which I do think is tonally successful even if I wouldn't dress her quite this way.
Willow may be the doll I have the least to say about. Rae is flawed but compelling, while Willow is pretty solid, but perhaps less interesting. She's pretty and has a very characterful face. Her depiction of hearing loss is great to see, and her hearing aid being secure in her ear is exactly correct. I also like her costume design, and while I really wish Willow was on a tall body, her look does convey her a slightly gangly look despite her standard frame. I love her color palette and garden aesthetic...I may just have burnt myself out on garden photos for a little while.
The cauldron gimmick of wave 1 is inoffensive and I like having the props around. No standard-issue sunglasses is also nice, and I prefer purses to backpacks for fashion dolls, so that's good too. I'm disappointed that the unique magical items for the dolls aren't designed with handheld compatibility in mind even as the bottles and textbooks are. I wonder if the open ring on Layla's crystal case fits around her fingers or not, but it'd be unfair if it did and the other witches were unable to stably hold their pieces.
I'm curious about the longevity and possible concepts for Moonspell's future. We have one wave of some of the wave 1 cast getting second dolls, but I'm curious about what other characters could be added to the line. Many things could be a magical theme for a witch, but it seems like the Moonspell gang is taking it relatively seriously and rooting it in real traditions, and it also seems that they've covered most of the bases in five characters. They didn't do bone magic, but that's too dark for Moonspell, I imagine. It's controversial in real life, too. What else? A water witch? A hearth witch too for a water/fire duo? A riches witch? A boy doll? Yeah, almost certainly not.
How much potential Moonspell Magic has left is yet to be seen, but I'm excited for 2027 to have the Bratzillaz facing off against these newcomers. It's going to be interesting.
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