#Isabel and Nicki Hoffman

[haveamagicalday]

Duel of the American Girl Dolls: Historical Fun and Hobbies Accessories (Round 1)

This is a poll in the Duel of the American Girl Dolls. Other polls can be found here

[timetravelingcourtney]

For those of you wrapping your minds around 1999 historical dolls, some fun facts:

My grandma was a depression child like our girl Kit.

Grandma was a military steno pool secretary during Molly and Nenea’s storylines. (Infamously when she got the initial messaging that the war was over she called all her girlfriends and told them to go buy pantyhose.)

My mom is a boomer like our girl Maryellen and spent some of her youth as a self proclaimed Navy brat in Pensacola Florida.

I was born during Julie’s storyline.

I was about the same age as Courtney but did not get a Molly because PC was not on our radar. I still had and played with Barbies.

I was in graduate school during Nicki and Isabel’s storyline.

My kids, including my son, have read all the historical AG books and even now in their advancing middle school years will ask, “so was that like Felicity time or Caroline time”.

Eras.

[apeekintothepantry]

Happy Pokémon Day! February 27th is the anniversary of the first two Pokémon games’ release in Japan, and it’s a minor holiday in my house, as a fun excuse to make Pokémon inspired food, watch some Pokémon shows or movies (we’re going to watch Netflix’s new Pokémon Concierge this year!), and get excited about upcoming games and releases. This year, we’re making a Pokémon Sword and Shield inspired burger-steak curry and I’m making a dessert from the Pokémon Cookbook by Victoria Rosenthal. It’s one of my favorite fandom cookbooks – all the recipes are vegetarian or vegan, to get around the awkward question of where does the meat in the Pokémon universe come from?

But that’s not all we’re making! Ever since Nicki and Isabel were released, I’ve been dying to do a post about them and Pokémon’s infamous “Jelly Filled Doughnuts”, better – and more accurately! – known as onigiri.

Pokémon was released in the United States in 1998 via two Gameboy games: Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue. The games quickly caught on to be one of the biggest pop culture phenomenon of the late 90’s and early 00’s, and as a kid at the heart of this explosion, I can’t overstate how much of a big deal it was. One of the great things about Pokémon – and probably why it has such lasting, widespread appeal – is that there are so many ways to interact with the franchise, and the marketing doesn’t skew hugely towards one gender or the other. Cool, tough Pokémon like Charizard got pretty similar billing to cute, pink Pokémon like Jigglypuff, and there were so many options for potential favorites that it was easy for any kid to find some creature to attach themselves to.

One of my petty complaints with Nicki and Isabel’s collection and books is the almost complete lack of mention of Pokémon and other anime that was really popular among kids in 1999. I know AG probably didn’t want to shell out for licensing deals with Nintendo or The Pokémon Company, but their stories just don’t feel accurate without discussing their prized binder of Pokémon cards or begging their parents to take them to see the Pokémon movie in theaters. Maybe the authors were just a little too old to get caught up in Pokémania?

I’ve also always thought its close overlap with the Beanie Babies crazy helped get millennial children like me very into the “gotta catch ‘em all” aspect of the franchise. Is this why I’m such a crazy toy collector as an adult? Who knows.

The Pokémon anime was one of the main ways kids like me got hooked on the franchise, because not everyone was allowed to have a Gameboy of their own (me), and not everyone liked video games, but even if you didn’t like video games, the cartoon might appeal to you. Although it was far from the first Japanese cartoon to air on US television, Pokémon was one of if not the first truly mainstream favorites of the 1990’s. 4Kids, the company in charge of dubbing the show into English, decided that American kids wouldn’t understand or be open to certain aspects of the show that reflected its Japanese roots, and so made a lot of strange choices in rewriting the script. One of the most notorious was deciding Brock’s rice balls were actually jelly filled doughnuts:

Onigiri – also known as omusubi or nigirimeshi – are balls of rice with a variety of fillings inside. They’re often compared to sandwiches, as an easy, quick, cheap meal or snack that combines carbs and other ingredients. While the concept of taking a rice ball and stuffing it full of other tasty treats goes way back to ancient Japan, the triangle shape became popular in the 1980’s thanks to a new machine that automated the filling process. Further developments over the last 40 years have created unique ways to prepackage onigiri without making the nori wrapping sticky. The ones we made were an attempt at recreating the “Hawaiian” (spam and pineapple) rice balls from our favorite food hall back in DC. One of my favorite pandemic indulgences was getting take out from the food hall, which often included a sampler of some of my favorite onigiri, and I haven’t been able to find anything close to similar where we are now. One of the many reasons I’m excited to move!

Even as a kid, I wasn’t convinced the food in the anime was fried dough with fruit jelly inside, because they sure look like rice. I also think 4Kids didn’t anticipate that Pokémon’s widespread popularity would inspire many of its fans – including me – to become absolutely obsessed with Japanese food and culture. I would’ve been more excited if they’d just been straight with me and shown more Japanese food on the show, and then probably begged my parents to make it or take me to a restaurant that made it. While I can’t confidently cite numbers of how many other people were first exposed to Japanese culture and food through Pokémon and franchises like it, I do think it’s a bit of a missed opportunity to highlight how things like this exposed kids like Nicki and Isabel to parts of a culture outside their own!

[oddball-n-the-dolls]

American Girl cannot stop you from repurposing Z Yang to be your 1999 Seattle Girl

[genievillain26]

Doll Day Snow Day

[americangirlstar]

New Hoffman Twins promo images with their new Y2K Outfits.

[samantha-and-nellie]

2, 3, 4 for the ask game! (My sideblog is beautifulwillfulldead btw, I changed my name)

2. which american girl looks the most like you?

honestly, none of them. just like you #57 with the bobbed hair is probably the closest, but the shade of brown hair is wrong and so is the eye color. from the historical line, if you gave rebecca or ruthie a bob, we’d be in the general realm of what i look like. but yeah, no great match for me!

3. which girl do you think you’d get along the best with and why?

well, only working from the historical line here, i am pretty similar to sam, so i’d hope that i’d get along with nellie! and based on the type of people i’m friends with irl, kit, kirsten, addy and julie seem like strong contenders.

4. which girl is your least favorite and why?

still thinking just about the historical line, there’s nothing that endears me to the twins, but i also haven’t read their books so i feel like that answer doesn’t fully count. probably controversial, but molly (while someone i liked as a kid) is a character that really grates on me now. there’s just so much in her that needs to be the center of attention, and i simply don’t find her the most interesting character. that being said, she’s still a child and has a lot of growing to do, so this is not me calling her evil or something.

[mydollsaregay]

Last night, I was thinking about the twins and was able to put my finger on what was still bugging me about them.

Despite it making us feel old, the 90s IS history (hell, yesterday is history!). AG is saying it, but I’m not sure they… mean it?

From the hints of the girls’ stories I’ve seen so far, the only anchoring historical event seems to be y2k. Everything else is nice enough, but certainly not unique to the 90s, and could be given to a goty instead.

Honestly? Y2K is not enough. It’s a little too safe. Yes, it was a big deal to the people who lived through it. However, it was literally just New Years, but cooler (and with a lot of programming work in the background to change years to be stored as four digits). What are the lasting effects that kids can recognize today? Because I see very few that can’t just be chalked up to the passage of time.

There was a lot more to the 90s than fashion, pop culture, and the biggest new years ever, but it kinda seems like those are the only parts AG is interested in portraying. When you put y2k up against some of the other historical events that other American Girls live through, even just the ones from the 20th century, it seems pretty silly. Second wave feminism, the Great Depression, the civil rights movement, and now….. new years but the number changes a bit more than usual!!!!!! Like. Cmon.

Even if they were wedded to portraying y2k, columbine, the effects of which are VERY much felt by kids today, happened that same year. But I kinda doubt AG will have the guts to even discuss it in the girl’s stories, which is really sad (and honestly one of the biggest downsides to more modern historical dolls - the history they’re covering is still too touchy for a lot of parents to be comfortable with).

Also, by pushing the girls to be in the late 90s, I’m betting AG is trying to worm their way out of having the 2000s girl live through 9/11 (i.e. watching it on tv) and the start of the war on terror. Which like. I get WHY (still too touchy for parents) but it’s really frustrating. 9/11 and it’s aftermath is arguably one of the most impactful events in American history, it’s stupid to dance around it. Felicity gets to live through the actual revolution but god forbid a more modern girl actually live through recent historical events.

[girlsofmanylands]

Comparison of the new Hoffman twin grin pin stickers (middle) and the OG pin stickers. The new ones are so much bigger and thicker, much more like doll sized pins! And as you can see they made many updated versions of OG pin designs!

[haveamagicalday]

Duel of the American Girl Dolls: Historical Furniture (Round 1)

This is a poll in the Duel of the American Girl Dolls. Other polls can be found here

[agbob-dollpants]

Hello! I’m sorry I haven’t posted in a while! Today, I just wanted to show off some pictures of the new AG 90’s twins Isabel and Nicki Hoffman! :) ✨💿🛹🎾

I got these 2 on February 24, which was 2 days after they were released, at the AG Place Columbus! 💘

I have renamed Isabel to Shiloh Michelle, and I have renamed Nicki to Aviva Nichole! 💿 I had to rename them because I already have the Nicki and Isabelle GOTY dolls.

You can find all of these pictures on my Instagram: agbob_dollpants! ✨

[doll-princesse]

[kirstenstrunk]

We better be getting leaks of a tradmarked name for an Asian historical doll imminently. I'm not even playing, I'm deeply annoyed by all of this. If we really have to put up with two more white, blond, (barely!) historicals, then the next doll announcement out of AG's mouth has to be an Asian historical.

[oddball-n-the-dolls]

Honestly when I first learned about AG’s 90s twins, I expected them to be identical twins but with wildly different hairstyles, in order to make them unique enough to justify buying both dolls

Like how Lanie and Isabelle are identical except for their haircuts

[americangirlstar]

American Girl + Percy Jackson PicCrew (3/?)

Maryellen Larkin, daughter of Hephaestus

Melody Ellison, daughter of Demeter

Julie Albright, daughter of Ares

Ivy Ling, daughter of Tyche

Courtney Moore, daughter of Hephaestus

Isabel Hoffman, daughter of Iris

Nicki Hoffman, daughter of Iris