Penny's Box Luluya Cloud Feather Pavilion Series

After getting curious about those blind box dolls that some users on here have been raving about, I had a look at what was on offer to suit my tastes (i.e. bonus points if they're beasts🤗). Of course, there are many conventional beasts available, with ears and tails or even more furry-like designs, but these caught my eye because they are a different type of beast:

https://www.kikagoods.com/products/luluya-cloudwing-pavilion-series-1-8-action-figure-bjd-blind-box

There are seven types of harpy in the series, 6 regular ones and one secret chase harpy. They have PVC hair that doesn't look too bad, with individualised hair decorations, and real clothes, and lovely, lovely wing-arms with character-specific colours. Reviews seemed to be quite positive.

So I ordered three from Hobby Search, which took flight from Japan about 10 days ago and gracefully landed in my home tonight. I am pleased that I did not get any duplicates, ending up with the green one, the pink one, and the purple one.

First impressions:

- Sturdy box that unfortunately cannot be opened without damaging the box, either by making use of the provided tear off strip or cutting it open. The box has simple product and manufacturing information in English, but not the individual names. Anyone care to translate them?

- Contents: The doll comes in a plastic tray holding the nude body and shoes. The clothes are separately packaged in plastic bags, together with some round pasties that apparently are necessary for attaching the shoes to the feet. Also included are an instruction sheet and a character card.

- The character card is shaped like a pavilion on clouds, and shows a photo of the character on one side and the series and manufacturer's name on the other. The card is colour coded to the character.

- The instruction sheet I find frustrating, for two reasons: Firstly, it is common to the dolls and shows the same instructions for each doll, including how to dress them, despite their outfits being different. Secondly, it shows Penny's Box other dolls, some of which are out of production, and those include some cool dragon dolls with a humanoid upper body and dragon lower body. Beyond, that, it is quite complete, one side showing how to swap eyes, wing-ears, attach the PVC wig, put on the shoes, and how to tighten the elastic - besides showing all the parts for the purple doll and how to dress her. The other side shows Penny's Box other dolls in kinda low-res pictures and makes some suggestion for part swapping between heads.

- Also included is a chonky anti-moisture bag of silicate.

Further thoughts after unboxing and dressing up, and perhaps some pictures, will follow later.

 

Edited Wednesday at 05:16 PM by Kemonomimicry

Further thoughts:

• Body: Only the body and legs are stringed, the arms use friction joints. These are fine for posing without clothes, but too weak to properly hold poses when they're covered by clothes, especially with the heavier tissues used on some of the dolls (see later). The stringed joints are a bit better, but have certain positions in which they 'snap' into place and hold poses better than intermediate positions. The ankles are a bit weak, although this is mostly a consequence of the dolls being top-heavy due to the PVC hairdo and oversized head. There are two different types of wings and also two types of ear wings, something I didn't realise when I looked at the pictures. The eyes are basically similar to Volks animetic eyes, are colour-coded to the character (as is the face-up), and come in at least two designs. Some of the dolls have semi-translucent hair or translucent hair ornaments, but not all of them.
• Dressing the dolls: Depending on the doll, you may have to take the arms off. Also take off the PVC hairdo, because it tends to get in the way while dressing. The instruction say to also take off the face, but that wasn't necessary for the three dolls I got. The shoes attach with pasties of double-sided tape, which the instructions instruct to be first attached inside the shoes using tweezers. This isn't necessary, they can also first be stuck on the heels of the feet.
• Clothes: The quality of the clothes depends on the doll.
  • Any ribbon that you have to tie is made from too stiff material.
  • The pink one comes with fairly thick and stiff printed clothes of the type of quality you may find in older 1990s Takara dolls (i.e. looks and feels cheap). This is problematic because her arms have to be inserted into the sleeves and due to the stiff tissue are very hard to reattach to the body or pose afterwards. Also, her skirt is hard to get on and her jacket doesn't fit very well as a consequence of this.
  • The green one comes with better quality clothing that is thinner and fits better, even the skirt that made me go "this won't ever fit around her waist, the waist line looks too small". Also, on this doll removing the arms is not necessary.
  • The purple one has good quality clothing that is soft and thin. It is black, but I haven't noticed any staining yet. She also comes with a black boa that has a wire in it for posing.

Congrats on falling down the blindbox hole, and welcome! 🤗 

8 hours ago, Kemonomimicry said:

The box has simple product and manufacturing information in English, but not the individual names. Anyone care to translate them?

According to a picture in the KikaGoods link you posted, the green one is Yunshang (云裳), the purple one is Zixia (紫霞), and the pink one is Yangui (燕归). Put the Chinese characters into Google Translate and have it read them out to you for the exact pronunciation because the romanization is misleading if you’re not familiar with how it works.

8 hours ago, Kemonomimicry said:

Sturdy box that unfortunately cannot be opened without damaging the box, either by making use of the provided tear off strip or cutting it open.

I’m not familiar with this particular series, but all my blindbox doll boxes can be re-closed by tucking the sides of the upper flap under one of the top panels into the side panels. The pic in this thread demonstrates what I mean (topic unrelated).

8 hours ago, Kemonomimicry said:

Firstly, it is common to the dolls and shows the same instructions for each doll, including how to dress them, despite their outfits being different.

This is typical—there is usually only one version of the instruction manual.

Inquiring busybodies would like to see pictures of your haul 👀 🥺