Life has been very busy for me these last few weeks, so it's been hard to find time to work on a review. There's been good stuff and bad stuff: my dad is moving into a memory care home near me, which is a lot of work and a little depressing, but my nephew got married in Colorado, which was super-fun and a great excuse to see tons of family...and see a new part of the country! I'm sad to report that the Denver Doll Emporium, which used to have a great showroom, is no longer operating as a storefront: just an online business. I remember buying one of my Tonner Cinderellas there--in person--which left a lasting impression.
Anyway, I was thinking about what I could do for the blog this week and then I remembered something! Back in July, my husband and I went on a quick weekend trip to exotic Pennsylvania. We rented a funky old renovated barn with a swimming pool so that I could escape the heat for a few nights. I never go on a trip without dolls in tow, and this time I had my two newest Maru and Friends Mini Pals with me. They had a wonderful time exploring the grounds of the house, and I took about 500 pictures of them in the process. So this week I pulled those pictures out, sorted through them, and am now ready to share these cuties (and their enhanced articulation!) with you:
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| Marceline (left) and Maru (right) from Maru and Friends. |
I started this review in Pennsylvania, thinking I could do the whole thing in the barn, without the help of my lights and backdrop.
Both dolls came in pale yellow cardboard boxes with subtle flower decorations and the Maru logo:
The boxes open with a front flap. This folds to the side to reveal the doll--somewhat inelegantly tied into the box with foam, ribbons, and a hairnet obscuring her appearance:
The inside of the flap has quite a bit of text, all in English:
It says: Magnificently crafted designer dolls with unique facial features that capture the beauty of multi-ethnic kids. Dolls sculpted by master doll artist Dianna Effner.
Meet Maru, the main character of our doll collection. She is a young Hispanic girl who comes to America in search of a better life. Her colorful illustrated storybooks chronicle her real-life story of courage as she adapts to life in America and makes new friends.
The Maru and Friends doll collection is the winner of many prestigious toy industry awards.
There's also a website address for reference.
The website has changed a lot since my first Maru and Friends reviews. One big change is that there are no longer any 20-inch dolls for sale on the site. There haven't been for years. The company actually started with only the 20-inch dolls, and then branched into the smaller Mini Pals later. But now it's only the 13-inch Mini Pals.
Still, the photograph on the inside flap of the Mini Pal box shows three 20-inch dolls:
Good luck finding any of those dolls now.
In lieu of restocking the larger dolls, the company has spent the last six or seven years exploring different variations of the Mini Pal design. At first, the only change was to switch from soft vinyl to hard vinyl. This happened in around 2018.
I ordered Mini Pal Hannah in 2018, but was unhappy with the color of her hard vinyl so I gave her away. I tried again with a hard vinyl doll just after we moved to New Jersey. This time I bought Tanya, and was so disappointed by her green complexion that I sent her right back. You can see a hint of the green in Tanya's promotional photos, but I chose to think it was a trick of the lighting:
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| It was worse in person. |
More recently, in 2021, the company launched a new collection of super-expensive 13-inch collector dolls with hand-painted eyes. Here's an example:
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| Maru and Friends Willow (Ltd. 75), $385.* |
You know I love a redhead, and I'm a big fan of Dianna Effner's work (particularly her Little Darlings) but there's no way I'm spending $385 on that doll. No way. I only paid $350 for my authentic, custom-made Little Darling. But I suppose that was back in 2015...and back when Ms. Effner was still alive.
Anyway, I don't like the collector dolls. Their eyes don't look right to me. Their clothing is beautiful, but it's way too expensive, especially given that the regular playline Maru clothing is so good.
Maru and Friends started playing around with enhanced articulation for the Mini Pals in about 2022. There was a Pinocchio doll released that year with articulated elbows and straight knees, and a Billie Jean doll with jointed elbows, knees, and wrists:
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| Maru and Friends Billie Jean doll (2022). |
I was initially very tempted by Billie Jean. A Mini Pal with thirteen points of articulation? Yes, please! However, from the promotional pictures and some online candids, I could see what kind of body she has. It's one I've seen before, and one I do not like.
I would recognize those knees anywhere:
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| And not in a good way. |
The knees looks strangely deformed and asymmetrical:
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| And like they're melting. |
The same body was used for articulated Biggers dolls like Marilyn:
The knees look the same, don't they?
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| Painfully memorable. |
It's not a great body, despite the fact that it has so much articulation. I also read on Planet of the Dolls that Billie Jean's neck isn't articulated very well, so I had a pretty easy time resisting her.
But I love the idea of a highly-articulated Mini Pal, so I was excited when, in late 2024, Maru and Friends took another stab at the idea.
This time around the bodies stayed the same basic shape as the original Mini Pals, but with extra elbow and knee joints added in. I immediately found the new group of dolls appealing. They cost $99-$125 and are limited to 200 pieces.
Right now there are three dolls with this articulation: Maru and Marceline, who I'll look at in this review, and Luna:
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| Maru and Friends Luna, $99. |
Luna is adorable, but I'd already purchased Maru and Marceline by the time she came out, so I didn't feel any urgency to add her to my group. For some reason she's $26 cheaper than Maru and Marceline, though, so she'd be an economical choice.
The other two dolls arrived in the summer of 2025 and have been waiting around for a year to get their review.
Which brings me back to the barn in Pennsylvania where I was opening Maru's box:
I've always loved Maru's cute little face, and was happy to see it peeking out at me:
I untied all of the ribbons, pulled away all of the foam protection, and posed Maru against the stone wall of the barn:
The lighting was really hard to manage in this space, though, particularly late in the afternoon. So I ended up taking photos of the dolls outside while I was on vacation, and then taking a few studio shots when I got back home.
I'll show the studio pictures first because they're less artistic but more informative.
Here's Maru in the studio:
She comes in a strange outfit. It's a purple woven shorts suit with a ruffled trim and a tuxedo shirt underneath. With silver metallic boots. Is there a ten-year-old on the planet who would wear this? None that I've met. Maybe there's some cultural significance to the design, in which case I feel bad about criticizing it. But c'mon. It looks itchy and restrictive.
Here she is from the back:
There are little sequins in the fabric of the blazer, but they're spaced randomly so I tend to mistake them for bits of fuzz or dirt.
This Maru has the same face mold as the Maru I reviewed back in 2017, but her vinyl is a different color and her face paint is not the same:
Here's a closer look:
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| I love her dark eyes. |
The new doll's bangs sit higher on her head than my older Maru, but her hair is a removable wig, so the height of the bangs is adjustable.
Here's a picture of my older Maru doll for comparison:
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| Maru Mini Pal from 2017. |
One thing that's hard to see in that photo is that the older style of eyebrow was cross hatched. The newer brows are more realistic. Here's the older eyebrow style:
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| 2017 Maru. |
And here's the new style:
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| 2024 Maru. |
The new Maru also has painted upper lashes underneath her applied lashes. I don't feel like this was necessary, although if her eyelashes ever fall off, at least she won't be lashless.
Maru's removable wig makes it even easier to see the little details in her face paint:
These dolls come with a silicone wig cap that helps keep the wig in position for light play and posing. It would be easy to glue the wig in place if you never want to change it or you want to give the doll to a younger child.
Maru has a feature in her lip paint that I'm not crazy about. At first I thought it was a defect. There's a pale area at the center of her upper lip:
It looks like the paint was rubbed away. I actually emailed Maru and Friends to ask about this, prepared to return my dolls, but I was told that it's intentional. It's a stylistic choice to make the lips look more realistic.
I looked at a bunch of Little Darling pictures online, and it seems like some of them have a slightly lighter section in the middle of their upper lip, but I didn't see anything this obvious. I don't really like it, and I'm not wild about the bright pink color of the lips, either. A repaint might be in order.
But I love the wigged hair. The fiber is glossy and smooth and I appreciate how easy it is to try on new wigs! Here's Maru in a wavy red wig that I happened to have lying around:
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| I have a lot of red wigs lying around. |
I think she looks super-cute like this, although the red hair clashes a bit with the purple outfit. Now I want to buy Maru a whole wardrobe of different wigs to try! She could share them with my Ruby Red Fashion Friends Siblies.
The Mini Pals, like the Little Darlings, take a size 7-8 wig:
This particular wig is from ZaZou Custom Dolls on Etsy.
I believe the Mini Pals can also share clothing with Little Darlings and RRFF Siblies (and probably Paola Reina's Las Amigas as well), which opens up a nice range of options. I might have to go looking for a new outfit for Maru someday.
For now, let's take a closer look at the purple concoction:
While I might not understand the style, the construction of this outfit is excellent. The jacket is made out of a high-quality woven bouclé, and the cream ruffled trim is neatly sewn in place:
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| The pocket is decorative: there's no opening. |
The interior is fully-lined with a white shiny fabric. This looks good and also makes it easy to slide the jacket on over the shirt:
Underneath the jacket, Maru is wearing a white ruffled tuxedo shirt with purple flower buttons:
The shirt is also beautifully made, with intricate finishing and working buttons:
Here's a peek at the inside:
The only construction complaint I have with this entire outfit is that the fly on the shorts gapes open. There's a snap at the top, but there's nothing to hold the edges together underneath the snap:
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| Oops. |
Other than the gaping fly, the shorts are great. They have a cream-colored belt at the top and matching ruffled trim around the legs:
The belt closes in back with a metal snap:
I'm not sure that Maru's metallic silver ankle boots compliment the style of her outfit, but they're nice, sturdy shoes in their own right:
They have slippery, working laces that come undone pretty easily, but are long enough to re-tie without giving me conniptions:
One last little piece of Maru's outfit is this pair of white underpants with purple lace accents:
These were packaged separately and I didn't bother to unwrap them. I guess they'd be nice for blocking that open fly.
Underneath her clothes, Maru's body looks a lot like the older dolls, but it has extra elbow and knee joints:
Her joints are all elastic-strung, which I have mixed feelings about. The elastic neck is great. Maru can look up, down, and all around:
She can tip her head, too, for extra expressiveness. And she holds her head poses very well.
The flexibility of the arms is fairly good, but the joints don't hold all of their positions well. I had to prop up Maru's arm to show the range of motion in her shoulder:
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| That arms flops back down when I release it. |
Her arms also spin around, and she can hold those poses better:
The extra elbow mobility is great to have with these dolls, and the joints are strung well. The elbow doesn't bend very much (maybe to a 120 degree angle), but it holds its position:
The hips have some side-to-side flexibility:
And Maru can do full front-to-back splits:
She can also sit on the ground, provided that her legs are set pretty far apart:
Maru's knees bend to about 90 degrees and hold their position well. This means that she can sit in a chair or on a ledge:
Her knees also have rotational movement, so she can angle her toes inwards or outwards:
Even with all of this knee flexibility, Maru can't kneel very well--on one knee or on two:
But she can strike some very nice walking poses while maintaining her balance:
Overall, I love the new joints. They are strung very well. Maru isn't strung so tightly that her limbs kick around, and she's not strung so loosely that she can't stand or hold a pose. She has great stability and a decent posing repertoire.
I know that the elastic will loosen over time, though, and this is a pain. I can already feel the loosening in my older Mini Pals' joints, and at some point I'll have to re-string them.
Here's the new Maru next to my very first Maru:
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| New Maru Mini Pal (left) and original Maru Mini Pal (right). |
Despite them being the same character, there are a lot of differences here. Not only does the new Maru have extra joints, but her vinyl is much harder than the original. The hard vinyl is also more pale, without a yellow tinge. My older doll might have yellowed slightly over time.
As I mentioned before, the face paint is also quite different. I feel like the new doll's lips and cheeks are too bright, but the old doll's lips and cheeks are too dark--like she's wearing makeup or something. Dare I say that I like the new face paint better than the old? It feels like a betrayal of my beloved original Maru. But the new paint has a vibrancy to it, despite the bright pink color and strange lip spot. Overall I think both versions are adorable in their own way.
Now let's take a quick look at Marceline:
I bought her because of her red hair and freckles. Obviously. I could see from the promotional pictures that the wig has a lot of orange in it, and a lot of curl, but I was still surprised by the color and the volume when I saw her in person! It's a bit much.
Marceline's face is great, though. She has her own unique face mold, with realistic blue eyes and a sprinkling of freckles across her nose:
I kinda wish she had freckles all over her face. What she has is dainty and understated, but I suppose that fits the aesthetic of the doll:
Marceline has a pale spot in the middle of her upper lip just like Maru. And her lips are the same bright pink color:
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| I wish that pink was toned down just a tad. |
Marceline's outfit is very pretty, and seems appropriate for a child. She's wearing a floral dress with a ruched waist and a white top:
It almost looks like she's wearing a white collared dress shirt with a floral skirt that's pulled up way too high.
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| Weird, but less weird than Maru's outfit. |
The dress is extremely well made, with working buttons and beautiful finishing:
Here's a closer look at the elastic-gathered detail in the waistline:
And here's a peek at the interior, where you can see how every single edge is reinforced:
Marceline has metallic boots, just like Maru, but hers are gold. They have elastic laces with a bow decoration on top:
These shoes are easier to use than Maru's, and there's no risk of the laces coming untied.
I was very eager to try my red ZaZou wig on Marceline because I like the color of this hair better than the wig she came with:
I like this look, but perhaps Marceline needs a wig with a bit less length and volume?
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| Wild thing. |
The wig looks very nice when it's pulled back and the volume is controlled:
Marceline is a very pretty doll. I feel like the perfect wig for her is out there somewhere. I'll keep searching.
But for now let's go back to Pennsylvania and see the girls outside in the natural light!
Maru wasn't exactly dressed for an outdoor adventure, but she was keen to explore nonetheless.
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| Wedding singer on the top, explorer on the bottom. |
We started walking around in the high grasses right near the barn.
The grass was so exuberant, it was casting shadows on Maru's face!
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| This grass is pretty, but it's blocking my light. |
This was a good backdrop to show off Maru's pretty face and dark eyes:
And Maru was even able to demonstrate her sitting abilities:
I loved this spot for photography, with all of the old barn elements, but Maru was antsy to move on.
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| Emily! Stop taking pictures so that we can explore somewhere else. |
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| Oooh! This is nice. |
This time the vegetation didn't block the light:
And there were lots of fun places to sit and take in the view:
Maru especially liked all of the old stone steps, which offered a great excuse to show off her knee flexibility:
Eventually we wound our way around to a big deck flanked by Japanese maple trees--one of my favorite plants:
I think Maru looked especially gorgeous in this setting, showing off how her fingers can lace together just like the older dolls:
I might have gone a little overboard with my pictures, and Maru was getting tired:
But then she spotted something in the underbrush that we had to go and investigate:
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| What could that be..? |
It was a little gargoyle!
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| Hi little friend. |
Maru wanted to keep it as a pet.
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| Isn't he so cute, Emily? I think he'd fit in our car. |
We searched and searched, and Maru started to get too hot in her heavy purple jacket.
Maru got a second wind once her coat was gone, and we headed up a little hill:
After a thrilling imaginary flight, Maru and the gargoyle landed safely.
We headed back to the barn to meet up with the other girls, and on the way we found, wait for it, yet another statue! Maru was beside herself:
I enjoyed getting to see the two Marus together in the sunlight. I think the newer doll's coloring looks quite a bit more realistic.
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| Can you hold this for me please? I'm roasting. |
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| I wonder what's around this corner? |
At the top of the hill we rested on another deck...
And Maru discovered another statue! This one was a long dragon:
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| Wow, you're impressive! |
Maru quickly befriended this creature as well.
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| His head is soft right here. |
The dragon suggested that Maru go explore closer to the barn, where one of his friends lives.
And, sure enough, we found another statue!
This one was a winged dog-like gargoyle large enough to ride:
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| We're going to fly around the neighborhood! |
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| That was AMAZING. |
Maru was very reluctant to leave this special friend behind.
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| Thank you for the flight. |
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| I'll never forget you. |
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| It's like a big kitty cat! |
This winged cat-like creature was my favorite of all the statues:
Back at the barn, Maru went to rest up and tell her sister all about her gargoyle friends:
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| ...and then one of them let me fly on its back! |
I wanted to take the older Maru out into the garden as well, for old time's sake:
Moving near the stones was a great idea:
So we could see how her hair lights up:
It looks like some kind of honeysuckle to me. I bet the bees love it.
She's one of my all-time favorite dolls, and I especially love how she looks in her red taffeta dress:
When I photographed her in Culebra back in 2017, I left her red dress at home to keep it safe from the sand and ocean water. But I had no worries about using the dress here.
After spending some time with the new Maru, I definitely missed the flexibility of the elbow and knee joints.
But the old Maru is good at standing dramatically and looking beautiful:
Her shoes are too fancy to venture into the vegetation, so we stayed close to the paths.
And while this Maru can't climb the stone steps as well as the newer version, she still took advantage of them as a nice backdrop:
Here are both versions of Maru together near the stones:
I really like the newer doll. She just needs a better outfit.
Last but not least, I took Marceline out for her turn in the sunshine:
The wig she comes with is not my favorite, but I have to admit that I was impressed by how the color shines in the sun.
The stucco on the barn walls was also quite complimentary:
And the wooden barn doors made her hair glow!
Marceline wandered through the high grass:
But this wasn't a very good backdrop for her coloring:
So we decided to move on.
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| Let's go check out those green stones. |
I love how the algae looks with Marceline's hair!
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| This is my artistic portrait. |
And the lighting makes it easier to see the true color of her blue eyes and the pattern of her freckles:
Marceline wasn't interested in looking for gargoyles (she was a little afraid of them...), but she loved investigating all of the different kinds of plants.
She liked the color of the yellow leaves that were falling on the stone path:
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| This goes well with my dress. |
And enjoyed climbing on the vine-like trees that were growing along the ground:
The big balls of purple flowers were her favorites!
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| Whoa! They're so big! |
So I asked her to pose for me in front of them:
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| This is my impressionist portrait. |
And I also got her to pose in the direct sun for a minute...
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| But I want to go see that pretty flower over there! |
Now you can go look at your flower, Marceline.
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| Look at how beautiful it is! It's the color of my hair. |
Marceline also enjoyed inspecting all of the ivy that was growing on the side of the barn:
While we were back near the barn, I had Marceline do a quick wig change. Unfortunately, I brought the wrong wig on the trip. This one is size 8-9, which is too big:
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| My head feels very large. |
I guess I have too many red wigs lying around.
You can still get an idea for how Marceline looks with darker, more natural-looking hair:
I think this is an improvement on the original wig. I especially love how it looks out in nature.
I wish I'd brought the correct wig along. But I might take some time to bring Marceline outside here in New Jersey. The fall colors that are starting to appear would look really nice with that red wig.
Here's Marceline back in her original wig, alongside Maru:
I had a really fun time with this pair. They were the perfect companions for this beautiful setting:
Bottom line? I've been keeping track of the Maru and Friends Mini Pals for a decade now--ever since their release in late 2016. I've had several of these imps come in and out of my collection over the years, but the original Maru has always been a cherished favorite and is one of my forever dolls.
I lost some interest in the brand when they switched from soft to hard vinyl in about 2018. I ordered a few of the hard vinyl dolls and felt like their complexions were all wrong. The hard vinyl Tanya was so off-putting (almost green) that I sent her back. When the collection of ultra-expensive, hand-painted dolls premiered a few years ago, I figured I was done with Maru and Friends for good. But when I heard about the newest girls with their improved articulation, I had to take a chance on them. And I'm very glad I did.
At first I couldn't bond with the new Maru, probably because I wanted her to look like my old Maru, which she doesn't. Not exactly, anyway. First of all her complexion is lighter, with no yellow tones. Her face paint is also quite different. She has rosier cheeks and bright pink lips. Her lips have a pale section in the middle, which is a deliberate attempt at realism that looks like a defect to me. But I'll admit that over time I've stopped noticing that pale area. The new Maru also has a removable wig, in a slightly lighter shade than the original doll's pitch black hair. I really like the new wig: it stays on well thanks to a silicone wig cap, but can also be easily swapped for a new color or style. The new Maru's outfit is bizarre, and doesn't live up to the standard of the original doll's gorgeous taffeta dress. I've never seen a child wearing a bouclé shorts suit over a frilly tuxedo shirt, so I guess I have to give the ensemble points for originality, but I don't have to like it. That said, all of the clothing is very well made and feels durable.
I might not have bonded with the new Maru right away, but once I started playing with her, she came alive. I love the mobility that the new joints offer. It's so fun to have a doll that can sit nicely! I also like the extra expressiveness that the elbow joints offer. And the hard vinyl looks really good this time around. I like the color and the stability of Maru's body. She has a nice weight to her and is very well strung. And as much as the new face paint threw me when I first saw it, I've grown to like this new version a lot--maybe even more than the original. For sentimental reasons the new Maru will never replace the original, but she's earned a permanent place next to her predecessor on the shelf.
While Maru and her incarnations will always be my favorites, I love Marceline, too. She has a cute face mold with a lot of personality. I also like her dainty freckles and greyish blue eyes. Her dress is lovely, extremely well made, and feels like something that a real child might wear. Marceline's wig is a bit bright and exuberant for my taste, but that's no big deal because she can swap into any other size 7-8 wig in a matter of seconds. I appreciate the versatility of that design; a new wig offers a whole new look, so it's like having a bunch of different dolls wrapped into one.
Maru might need a new outfit, Marceline might need a new wig, and I might want to touch up the lip paint on both of them someday. But otherwise these two girls are wonderful. They've re-ignited my enthusiasm for Maru and Friends and made me remember what wonderful companions the Mini Pals can be. After falling in love with Maru a decade ago and then drifting away from the brand for a few years, the joy of rediscovering these well-made beauties feels a bit like coming home.
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