Rainbow High is an American franchise of fashion dolls created, produced, and promoted by MGA Entertainment in 2020, additionally featuring animated media. Rainbow High dolls have medium build bodies with large heads, and repeat the same model as previously established high school doll lines such as Monster High, Ever After High, and MGA's own, Bratzillaz. It was a milestone for MGA to have a multi-media franchise consisting of an animated series, doll line, and it's own website.
Despite Rainbow High being created after it, due to the explosion of popularity MGA then decided to rebrand Rainbow Surprise under the Rainbow High brand.
There is no exact documentation of when the prepositional development and idea of Rainbow High began besides it's predecessor, Rainbow Surprise. The name Rainbow High was first trademarked in 2019 possibly proving the idea was first in early drafts late 2018.
Products & History[]
Rainbow High launched in 2020; due to the current pandemic at that time, the doll market was very dry and mostly filled with molded-on, cheap, gimmick toy surprise items, and due to this when Rainbow High kicked off, it was an instant success, it brought back high-quality clothes, and brand new elements never seen in mainstream toy lines before.
It included 10 characters who were Violet Willow who is often considered the protagonist, Ruby Anderson, Poppy Rowan, Sunny Madison, Jade Hunter and Skyler Bradshaw; added with Avery Styles, Amaya Raine and Bella Parker who saw her release date later than the other characters.
Controversies[]
Diversity[]
Rainbow High has been criticized for their lack of racial diversity, especially in Series 1. While Sunny is Black and Skyler is non-white, both still have lighter skin tones in comparison to the realistic spectrum of skin color, and additionally they are often whitewashed in their official art and stock photos. The other four girls all have the same light white skin with minor variations. Series 2 addressed this problem by adding Karma Nichols, a doll whose skintone is somewhere between Skyler's and Sunny's, and Krystal Bailey, with the darkest skin tone so far. Kia Hart, a special edition doll, also has a skintone in the Skyler/Karma range. More diversity in Series 4 lowered this issue significantly, with many praises for the dolls' diversity and representation.
Quality Control[]
The dolls have also been widely criticized for their "bad" or "lack of" quality control. This didn’t occur until the release of Series 3, and significantly increased after Series 4. The dolls are mass-produced, causing quality control issues to occur. The dolls’ quality control issues led to many complaints of MGA’s quality control in general to be labeled as "extremely poor" and "rushed". This was not the case before dolls starting being mass-produced, and became a huge issue when rereleases occurred, leading to Rainbow High being the center of this.