Magnificent eyes, dreamy and blue

A face as fresh as morning dew

Ravishing locks, be they blonde or brown -

It's no surprise she's number one!

Name her and you almost hear the sea

Enchanting creature, we love thee!

Who's that girl?

Actually, Marine is none other than Jenny herself, or more precisely, Jenny Excelina. In 1986, with the accompanying explanation "Jenny gathered a few friends and started a modelling club", appeared the 1st generation "Jenny's Club". Its members were Jenny herself, Ellie, Flora, Julia, Sheena and Excelina. But the children, who are the main consumers of Takara Jenny dolls, were not gullible, and demanded to know how Jenny and Jenny Excelina who's another version of Jenny, could possibly be members of the same club and appear side by side. So Takara decided to change the name of Jenny's Club Excelina and create a new character, Marine (early boxes are marked "Jenny Marine"). There is a rumor that the original owner of the name was a member of a band called JennyV, whose videos were often playing at the Jenny Shop at the time. Jenny Excelina was a different, more sophisticated version of Jenny, more to the taste of adult collectors. Children protested that her skin tone was too white and made her look ill, so it was changed to a slightly more natural-looking color. For a time Excelina disappeared from Takara's line-up, but due to her popularity with adults, she made a come-back targeted at collectors. Indeed, in recent years she has only been available from specialty shops and Internet, and has not been part of Takara's standard line-up. "Classic" Excelinas are announced for the end of this year, but in a limited edition.

Who's Cheko Marine?

Apparently this doll represents Checkoslavakia (thanks to David Hammon for the information!). The last year before the Jenny Shops closed they had started a series of international Jennys and friends. David remembers that there was a Brazil Jenny (suntanned doll in mardi gras costume) and also a Swiss Aya (lots of curly blonde hair, blue eyes and a "Swiss Miss" style outfit). Cheko Marine has a special eye print (see picture below).

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.............Left : Cheko Marine eye print..................................... Right : September 98 Castle Marine eye print.

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The pictures above are from "Jenny's Collection". Left : early 1986 Marines had lower eyelashes like Jenny Excelina. Later the same year, the lower eyelashes disappeared (right). Both these dolls have "sparkles" in their eyes less widely spaced than usual ; apparently at the time the Maba Barbie, very similar to Jenny, made her appearance, and Takara decided to alter the position of the "sparkles" to make dolls from the Jenny series more distinctive. Later dolls have normally spaced "sparkles".

Here's a tentative list of the different versions of Marine that have appeared until now. There could be a lot must be missing, in particular there must have been several Castle originals!

1986.... Jenny's Club Marine

1987 ...Beauty Cut Marine (with straight and wavy wigs)

1990 ...Jenny Shop re-edition

1994 ...Jenny Shop Cheko Marine

1995....10th anniversary Marine

..."........1995 kimono Marine

1996... 1996 kimono Marine

..."....... Schoolgirl Marine

..." (?)...Takara-bako original Blue Marine

1997....1997 kimono Marine

..."........Licca-chan Castle original Marine

..."........Takara-bako original Cheko Marine

1998 ...(Jul.)Limited Edition Marine (replica, in black swimsuit)

1998 ...(Sept.)Licca-chan Castle original Marine with brown sausage curls

1998 ...(Oct.)Hajimemashite friend Wedding Marine

Follow this link (to Maiei and JCC's homepage, where I found a lot of the info above) to see many great pictures of the different versions of Marine.