Patience

I like some fashion of the stiff Style dolls but I'm not willing to pay the full since I don't like dolls, so I waited for the discount. Finally, I got them for 50% off. The patience paid off.

I let some of my dolls with the Lea/Kayla face mold (which is still my favorite) wear it. I like it on them more than the original dolls but their skinny legs are starting to disturb me just a little.

Northstar

Although it was expected that the Northstar figure will be a peg warmer, I didn't wait for the price to drop. I wanted to get him right away simply because he's gay.


I don't know a lot about the character aside from he's gay and is(was?) a member of the X-men. I thought that the story line for his coming out is contrived--having found a baby out of nowhere, then finding out the baby has AIDS which made the baby some sort celebrity and then someone tried to kill the baby for being an AIDS celebrity after the perps gay son died of AIDS without any aid which led to the scene below and Northstar eventually coming out.


It wasn't the best story. It's forgettable really. It didn't made me like Northstar more. Even the much publicized gay wedding didn't have enough meat. Sure there was a lot of action but I didn't find it romantic. There wasn't enough suspense even when partner almost died because you know he won't, because you expect the wedding scene later. But it is cute.


Currently there are lot of unsold Northstar figures in every major toy store. There are a lot of reason not to buy--the high price, the old poorly articulated body, the absence of his twin sister etc. Just wait for the sale.

Distribution

I could have bought the gray Beast figure for P500 (original price was P750) but I wasn't able to find one at that price on the primary market. I got my blue Beast on the secondary market. I was wondering where the stores are keeping their stocks such that there will be some units left which they are now forced to sell at a much lower price of P200.


The sticker at the back, with Thai characters, could be a clue. Maybe these were initially shipped to Thailand and when it flopped there, they decided to sell it here. Since people who badly wanted (I'm not included) the figure already bought it from somewhere else, they have to lower the price. If they distributed it properly (right time and location), they could have made people like me pay more.


Hasbro has a distribution problem and they need to fix it. But Mattel is worse. They haven't distributed any dark-skinned doll here since the 1st wave of the stiff Style dolls, except for the resort Grace.