Because the Japanese never miss a chance to put out-of-place mascot characters into any public gathering.

Wow, way to totally misread my point. I'm theorizing about some dolls, not US society's ills in general. Dial down the attempted racism straw man please.

Although in defense of the admittedly super-skinny Monster High characters, they are also very small- busted. So at least they don't create unrealistic expectations in that department.

Well, of course the West missed the point - that's what we do best over here! ;)

That's partially true, in that adult designers often bring their own personal artistic preferences to the table when making toys. However there is a LOT of product testing and experimentation done before any new toy line is greenlit, so if girls are gravitating towards this style of doll in the prototype play-testing…

I really hate the Bratz doll line, which made the realization that I actually kind of like the Monster High doll line somewhat unexpected. I guess I'm just a sucker for any shout-out to classic Universal monsters - even overly pretty fabulous ones.

Yes good point. Still very popular, and possibly influencing this generation of toy designers, if not all the children they are designing for. I might be wrong, of course. :)

As I said it kind of started with Disney's original princesses in the first place, so that Western aesthetic aspect is a valid point. However, the most extreme examples of "BESM" had already reached their peak in Japan in 1970s shojo manga such as Candy Candy and The Rose of Versailles. It took a while for that…

Haha - well, I did say I don't know for sure.

I agree that there's no excuse for so radically changing Merida's character design just to make her fit in with the more generic glamorized vision of the Disney princesses, and at the end of the day, Merida is really a Pixar princess anyway.

Roads? Where we're going, we don't need... roads.

That depends on the location and size of the private school, as well as its history and reputation. There are obviously some private schools (or more often, charter schools) that do not provide a full range of quality education. But there are also many respected private schools that yes, are religious in their…

Riiiight, because no one ever sends their kids to private religious schools simply because those schools offer a higher quality education than other local public schools — they just do it because they're science-hating zealots. You got it all figured out.

They should have sent up Keroppi the frog instead. I like him better.

"Seam" to be the same thing — I see what you did there?

A very enthusiastic "seconded" with regards to River Song. The sooner she fades away, the better.

In a word, yep.

Yeah, The Hobbit stubbornly rides the line between good and disappointing a little too closely to be on either list

I didn't see a single shot in that trailer that wasn't derivative. Quite a feat.

Regarding the "coming back to Earth" movies of 2013, specifically Oblivion and After Earth, it seems like we'll have more bland, CGI-laden formula films to avoid next year as well.