I got some Azone Pure Neemo dolls for Christmas. I know, that's ages ago. But I was planning on getting one more before I wrote anything about them or did anything with them and so far that hasn't happened. But in the meantime here is what I've learnt about different Azone bodies and sizes.
There are four different Azone Pure Neemo bodies. Which one a doll has mostly depends on the age of the doll. I say mostly because there is an overlap period when the new bodies begin production where certain types of doll will have the old body, while others have the new one.
The oldest body is called Advanced or Advance. I've not seen one of these in person but they seem to have minimal or no articulation. Instead they have interchangeable body parts, so you change the dolls pose by removing body parts and replacing them with others in the correct pose. Which frankly sounds like a storage nightmare.
The next body is the Flection body. The Flection body has lots of joints. The arms move up and down at the shoulders but not side to side. There is also rotation to the upper arm. The elbows are jointed with a hinge. The hands rotate (but don't bend) and can be removed and replaced with other hands in different poses. They swivel at the waist. Their legs move forward and backward at the hip. There is a rotating joint in the upper thigh. Knees bend on a hinge and the ankles are on a ball type joint. But there is limited side to side mobility in the ankle because of the shape of the lower leg. That is a LOT of joints!
The next body is the Full Flection body. Which is confusingly similar to the last body but realistically it's almost the same. The legs on the Full Flection dolls move out to the side very slightly at the hips. And I mean VERY slightly. And there's an extra joint at the shoulder so the arms can move sideways, away from the body. Otherwise these seem to be the same as the Flection body. Of my two Full Flection dolls one has jointed wrists that bend, the other (surprisingly the newer one) only rotates at the wrists, so I'm not sure which is more common.
As far as I can tell this is the only significant difference between Flection (right) and Full Flection (left)
The newest body is the Emotion body and. . . well. . . there isn't a lot I can say about these because other than prototype pictures, I've never even seen a picture of one. Rumour has it they have a ball-jointed waist and all the old joints but with improvements so they can do things like kneel properly. But I don't know anything for sure about them. I'm not even sure I got the name right.
Four different sized Pure Neemos
So back to the Flection and Full Flection bodies. To put it simply they come in four sizes. Extra Small, Small, Medium and Large. To put it not so simply - it's a bit more complicated than that. The Extra Small dolls are simply Extra Small. They're all the same size, 21 cm or 8 and a quarter inches. An Extra Small doll has hands a different size to the other dolls. So whereas hands are interchangeable between Small, Medium and Large dolls, the Extra Small dolls need Extra Small hands.
The other sizes are a little more complicated. Because they're made in two parts. The sizes are often listed as doll size, then bust size. So there could be a Medium doll with a Small bust. Or a Medium doll with a Large bust. And they won't be the same size as each other. Or the same height. Because what's referred to as the doll size is the leg length/size up to the waist. And the bust size isn't just the size of the boobs but ALL of the body above the waist. And there are four different bust sizes that can be used on these dolls - Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large (or LL)! This leads to a lot more variation in sizes.
As well as size differences there are two different skin tones. White (on the left in the picture above) and normal (on the right) which is quite pinkish and not really very dark at all.
The default hands are sort of starfish hands. Wouldn't be my first choice if it were up to me but some of the dolls come with extra hands and packs of extra hands are sold separately as well. My largest doll came with five extra pairs of hands
I'm going to finish up for today by showing how they compare in size to some other dolls. I'll probably write more about these girls soon but I've run out of time for now.
And I'm not sure how well the neck joint would fit, but the "When I read I dream" dolls heads would proportionately be a good fit on the Extra Small body. (I've always felt their heads looked too big for their original bodies) BUT it would make them about an inch taller. Maybe a little less than that. Other Barbie family dolls probably wouldn't work as well unless they were fairly pale because the Pure Neemos are not tan at all!
