Modern Era Dolls from American Girl

After my experience with the underwhelming American Girl advent calendar, I wasn't sure if I'd be tempted back to the brand any time soon.  However, I'm a sucker for new things, and lately American Girl has decided to do something new.  Sort of.

What they did was take a few of their Historical characters, shrink their faces down, stick them on Wellie Wisher bodies, and dress them in modern outfits inspired by the corresponding Historical doll's clothing.  It's a lot of recycled ideas.  I would have been more impressed if the dolls had come with a brand new body type--maybe something with better articulation?  But I'll admit to being charmed by the dolls as they are, so I bought two of them to share with you here:

Modern Era Josefina from American Girl, $90.

My Way Kids by Geppeddo

I got a comment about Geppeddo dolls on my recent 1:12 Phicen review, and it reminded me of the My Way Kids.  It also reminded me that I wrote a review of this brand in 2021, back when I was posting on The My Twinn Project Shop blog.  I cross-posted that review here, for reference, but hid it away as an isolated page that I can link to, but that can't be seen or searched on the blog.  I should have just made it a normal review!  To remedy that, I decided to take a bit of time to spruce up the text, add some more photos, and make it an official TBP post.  Apologies if you've already read this and were hoping for something new!  I'll have something new soon.

I was clueless about the My Way Kids (and the entire Geppeddoo brand, for that matter) until about five years ago.  I stumbled across these dolls while I was doing one of my semi-regular eBay My Twinn hunts.  eBay's recommendation software must have been in good form that day, because a little thumbnail picture from a My Way Kid auction popped up on my screen out of nowhere.  The doll looked like a mini My Twinn!  I was instantly curious:

My Way Kid doll, 2001-2004.

1:12 Scale Super Flexible Seamless Figures by TBLeague (a.k.a. Phicen)

Okay, so it's mid-May already and I have yet to write a review for this month!  Ack!  My excuse is that I've been working on two reviews at once, which slows me down in the short term but makes up for itself eventually.  I also took a weekend to go see my mom for Mother's Day, which was a lot of fun.  And I've been working hard on Lena's house, which I told her would be done by spring (oops).  It's almost ready.

Today I'm going to be looking at some 1:12 scale figures from Phicen, a company that's now going by the name TBLeague.  I like the sound of Phicen better, but I gather there were some trademark hassles that cropped up in about 2017.  For right or for wrong, I'll use "TBLeague" and "Phicen" interchangeably here.  Incidentally, the last time I reviewed a Phicen doll was back in 2017, when I did a three-part Figuring Out Phicen series.  That trio of reviews looked only at the 1:6 scale figures, which are remarkable.

I've been interested in checking out Phicen's smaller dolls for quite a long time.  Almost a decade, to be more precise.  They look highly realistic and are more affordable than the 1:6 equivalents.  This felt like an opportune moment to finally take the plunge, in part because Zuru is preparing to release their own highly-articulated twelfth-scale Minnee line.  I'm eagerly anticipating those dolls, and thought the Phicen figures would offer an interesting comparison.  Even without any comparison on the horizon, these are intriguing little dolls in their own right:

TBLeague 1:12 scale Super Flexible Seamless figure, $47.99.