Azone body review

WARNING:  this doll body has molded nipples, and I was unable to find a way to show them without being a little risque.  Now that that's out of the way, I'm ba-a-a-ack!  My allergies have made me unusually sick this spring so taking a week off was a must.  I'm only now getting my voice back, in fact.  Having completed my "sabbatical" I'll be continuing this business of weekly postings for a couple more months, but it'll largely be more random musings than anything.  This post ties in loosely with the Obitsu-Made to Move body comparison, as it deals with the new body I got for my Licca-chan doll.  Plus I missed Licca's birthday (it's apparently May the third), so I thought I'd make it up to her with a post.

Licca's new body is an Azone body, which I've been dying to review.  I was hoping to review one of these bodies as part of a Kyoko Sakura review...but have y'all seen prices for a retired character like Kyoko???  Well...okay, I'll admit that the cheapest Kyoko I found on Mandarake was priced about the same as my cheapest ball-jointed doll (Chloe), but I need another doll like I need a hole in the head so I decided to improve one I've already got.  Licca got the Azone body, and instead of throwing away her old body I gave it to Kohaku-chan, one of my Licca-chan clones.  The old Licca body isn't great, but it's an improvement from Kohaku's old body, which was stiff as a board and had feet that were too small for shoes of any sort.  Notice that Kohaku is wearing shoes now (she's wearing Only Hearts Club clothes and shoes), and notice that Licca is now a bit taller than Kokaku, meaning that this particular Azone body is a bit larger than Licca's old body.

This body is a size small, by the way.  Most of the rebodied Licca dolls I've seen have the extra-small body, but this small body works fine too.  If I'd bought just the body it would've been about twenty bucks, but I also wanted these.

Again, I still could've gotten away with a cheaper body and one extra set of hands, but there were two sets and being the pig that I am I wanted both sets.  So...one body plus eleven pairs of hands plus shipping and handling ended up equaling fifty-seven bucks and some change.  My job now is to find out (for myself and for y'all) whether it was fifty-seven bucks well spent or not.  Miss Emily has a nice review of a full Azone figure (head and all), but Tsumugi's shoulders are different from those on Licca's new body (spoiler alert).  Tsumugi had a respectable amount of movement in her multiple joints, but she also had some limitations that I think Licca will now be able to dodge.  But first things first:  here's what the body looks like from the front, side, and back.  The main problem with this body may already be obvious from these pictures.

The Etsy dealer offered these bodies in three colors (light or "natural," tan, and dark), and since Licca has a pale head I got a "natural" colored body.  This proved to be a wise match, as the head and body match nearly perfectly.

Azone bodies are made of some type of hard plastic...I'm not really sure what kind.  It feels like hard vinyl and has a nice heft to it, especially when compared to the lightweight Obitsu bodies that I'm used to handling.  The plastic is very matte, especially when compared to Licca's old body, and the proportions are more realistic, especially in the arms.

I included a peep at the Azone neck knob during the Sunshine family review, but that was three months ago so here's another peep.  Licca's old neck knob is conical, and the Azone knob is a short, slightly tapered cylinder.

Both do an equally fine job of holding the doll's head on, and unfortunately neither one allows for any head-tipping.  I own very few Asian fashion dolls who can tip their heads.  The difference in plastics creates a lot of friction and thus even turning Licca's head is a challenge.  It can be done, though.

Moving on, the Azone body is taller and curvier than Licca's old body...

...but the two are still close enough in measurement that Licca can wear her old clothes.

Well, okay, that pink dress is a little short, but not obscenely so.  Shoes are problematic, due in part to the shape of the foot (I think it's wider than Licca's original foot) and due in part to the ankle joints, which I'll discuss in a bit.  But for now let's forget shoes for a minute or two or ten and focus on joints.  My particular Azone body has fourteen joints, sixteen if one counts her swiveling wrists (I do) and eighteen if one counts the double joints at the shoulders (I don't usually).  Since I've discussed the neck already the shoulders are where I'm going to start, and those are actually a good place to start because Licca's new shoulders are different from the shoulders of Miss Emily's Azone doll (here's the link again if y'all don't want to scroll upwards).  Tsumugi has shoulders that rotate but don't move laterally, while Licca has shoulders that can move laterally. 

These shoulders are double-jointed, and that is what allows them to swing outwards in addition to back and forth.  See the T-shaped bit in there?  That's the mechanism that makes the shoulder double-jointed.

In between the shoulder and the elbow is this rotating joint.  It doesn't look like much, but it serves its purpose well.

Believe me, if not for that rotating upper part, the lower arms could not rotate at all.  The elbow has no rotational movement.

The elbows have good motion in both directions, though the second configuration of the joint allows for a sharper angle.

Miss Emily often had a problem with Tsumugi's arms coming apart at the elbow.  The doll wasn't broken; it was just the way the joint behaved.  As far as I can tell this problem has been rectified with the new bodies, as Licca's elbow joint has not come undone once...nor was I able to deliberately take it apart.  In theory I think these elbows COULD come apart, but I don't really want them to.

Moving down the arm, I'm not sure if I should consider these wrists jointed or not.  The hands pop in and out of the hollow lower arm, like so...

...and thus they're able to rotate like so.

Since this rotation allows for the hands to be that much more expressive I guess they count as joints.

I could stop here and talk about hands, but since those are add-ons I'll skip those for now and move down to the torso.  Jeez, I hate the word "torso"!!!  Anyway, the torso has some nice molding, with clavicles and the aforementioned nipples on the front, and a slight spine depression and a gluteal cleft for the back.

Oh yeah, there's also the ever-popular bellybutton, but otherwise this body is pretty tame.  The nipples aren't huge or gross-looking, nor do they show underneath Licca's clothes.  I'm told that when Barbie was a new thing she DID have nipples that showed through her clothes.  The original mold had the nipples filed off, but once in a blue moon someone does find a #1 Barbie who looks like she just entered a wet T-shirt contest.

Juvenile anatomical discussion over, this torso has one joint, a waist joint that's cut at a slant.  It looks nice when it's turned to the side a little...

...but if it turned all the way around it looks just a teensy bit WEIRD.  Licca has a Monster High swayback when she's turned all the way around.

The hips are a bit of a disappointment...okay, they're more than a bit of a disappointment compared to the vastly improved shoulders, but in all honesty they're just as mobile as the hips of an average person.  Licca has great forward movement, enabling her to sit...

...but she can't do side splits OR front-back splits.  This is as close as she gets to either.

Licca's new derriere is molded in a way that prevents front-back splits, but I'm a little disappointed that she can't do side splits.  That would've been nice if she could.  But then again, she couldn't do side splits with her old body either!

Alrighty, I can deal with the hips only moving forward.  That's the way that most hips move anyway, LOL.  Unfortunately the lack of mobility is the absolute least of the hip joint's problems.  If you'll look closely it's possible to see that one of Licca's legs is longer than the other.

This makes it very hard for me to stand Licca up.  I either have to move the left leg outward as far as it'll go or bend it at the knee slightly...and neither of these methods work well for reasons I'll soon reveal.  I thought at first that the problem was the hip, but it turned out to be something else...

The legs have a joint between the knee and the hip, just as the arms have a joint at the upper part.  As with the upper arm joints these thigh joints only rotate, but they allow for a lot more poses.  Licca can sit cross-legged with these joints, though I've read it's a no-no for the fairer sex to sit like this in Japan.  However, Licca no longer resides in Japan and can thus sit cross-legged to her heart's content.

Licca is also capable of sitting in a more ladylike manner, with both her legs off to one side...

And lastly, those thigh joints make this pose possible, a pose that I've always loathed for myself (it hurts my knees).

Speaking of knees, Licca has very pretty knee joints...at least from the front.  The joints are cut on the diagonal and look surprisingly natural when straightened OR flexed.

The back of the joint doesn't look quite as nice, but that's to be expected.

Motion in these knees is fluid and natural, with Licca being able to kick her leg back a little bit past ninety degrees.

That's not a very sharp angle, not as sharp as LIV knees or Obitsu knees or Made to Move knees, but it's better than what Licca's old body had to offer.  She can kneel now.

Lastly, Licca has jointed ankles.

The range of motion is pathetic, though.  There's a little bit of rotational movement, but not much, and the picture below shows the extent of the back-and-forth movement.

The left ankle is also poorly seated in its joint, making this area both flimsy and even harder to pose than usual.  This turned out to be the cause of Licca's uneven legs.  I was all set to blame that hip joint, but the ankle is the culprit.  So now Licca and I have something in common:  a bum left ankle.

Now that that little conundrum is out of the way, let's go back to hands.  These are the body's default hands, the ones that I would've gotten regardless of whether I ordered extra hands or not.  They're very graceful, with splayed fingers and nice little molded nails.

So I got one nice pair of hands regardless, but as I said above I'm a glutton and wanted both extra sets as well.  Set A has five pairs of hands.  There are these graceful curved hands which are good for a number of things.

There are these chop-chop hands that make for good karate poses...or good salutes, take your pick.

There's these hands that say "I love you" in sign language.  I'm trying to teach myself sign language, so these are greatly appreciated.  Licca's backstory says nothing about sign language, but I can always pretend that my particular doll knows it.

There's the ever-popular thumbs up sign.

And lastly there's these grip hands that can hold small items.

Set B has four pairs of hands, three of which are fists of some sort.  The first set of fists is cocked back at the wrist slightly.  These look like a fist that's preparing to knock on a door.

These look a lot like fighting fists, with the thumbs tucked to the side and all.  Good thing Licca isn't the fighting type.

These hands are sharply flexed inward at the wrist.  Miss Emily compared these to the hands of Monty Python's Mr. Gumby, and I have to say that's a good description. 

In truth these unusual fists are "cat paw" fists, which come in handy when I have Licca dressed up in her "I Love Cats" outfit.  Purr-fect!!!

The last hands are my favorite positive gesture, the peace sign.

Being able to move her arms is an improvement in and of itself, but now instead of simply gesturing in some direction Licca can change hand position to point or wave or knock.  She can express her agreement with something...

...or her displeasure.

She can shield her face from the light.

She can hold the Quints like Olivia Hope can.

She can play Rock, Paper, Scissors.  Rock...

...paper...

...scissors!

Licca can also strike Sailor Mercury's "attack pose," as I call it, something that my Sailor Mercury doll couldn't do.

Actually it looks more like she's doing the Charleston.  LOL, Licca can do that too, though!  One thing Licca CAN'T do well...is stand.  Her loose ankles make that all but impossible, especially when she's wearing high heels.  Even when I do get her into a standing position her ankles collapse, leaving her teetering on her heels like so.

Flat shoes go a little better, but standing her up is still a challenge.  As an aside, see the gap in Licca's left ankle (our right)?  That exacerbates the problem.

Thank goodness for all the cute ways that Licca can sit!

Alrighty, so I've established that Licca is a lot more mobile than she was, though she still has some frustrating shortcomings that I don't think a body like this should have.  Just for the heck of it I took this body apart, just to see how many places it came apart at.

That's a lot of places, folks!  If I were to count the neck joint this body could come apart at eleven sites, though I don't recommend taking those ankles apart.  It's hard to get the peg lined up with the hole it's supposed to go into.  Notice that Licca's hips are even, by the way, confirming that the problem in her left leg is that ankle joint.

Final word?  I like these Azone bodies better than Licca's old Takara body, and I like them better than the Obitsu bodies that Emiko and Rosa Lee wear, but this particular body is not without its shortcomings.  Licca can't move her legs sideways or backwards any distance, and she can't stand on her own...and those ankles...I wish that these feet popped on and off like the hands instead, because those damned joints aren't worth it.  Tsumugi's ankles appear to be alright so I apparently just got a bum-legged body, but if any of y'all are considering rebodying a Licca-chan doll keep that bit in mind.  On the plus side, the superior posing of this body and its high-quality plastic make it a definite upgrade over Licca's old Takara body.  Licca can sit on a shelf or in a chair way better than she could, and her arms are much more expressive.  I enjoy being able to swap out hands to suit my fancy, and I love the fact that this new body can still wear Licca's old clothes.  Most of the rebodied Licca dolls I've seen are on the extra-small Azone body, but this small body will work too.

As a last little tidbit, I'm wanting to rebody Elly-chan, Licca's little clone friend.  She has a stiff plastic body like Kohaku once did, and said stiff body limits her play value.  Maybe an Azone body will work for her.

And maybe it won't.  Elly's head is the perfect scale, but her head hole is way too big for the neck knob.  I think I've cobbled together a modification, but I don't want to wreck a sixty-dollar body so I'll try the modification with a Blythe body instead.  Y'all have not seen the last of Elly!

Joy to you and me,
RagingMoon1987