True colors fly at Rainbow High!note
"Legend says at the end of the rainbow, there's a pot of gold. But the truth is, it's something even more amazing. Only a chosen few with an eye for bold fashions can follow the rainbow to Rainbow High, the colorful fashion school where everyone learns to flaunt their true color."
Originally started as a spin-off to Poopsie Slime Surprise! called Rainbow Surprise, MGA Entertainment has retooled the line into Rainbow High
. Launched in 2020, the toyline centers around the students of the eponymous boarding school, with a prestigious focus on the arts. Each character is based on a specific color and is focused on a certain art field. In early 2022, a spin-off campus called Pacific Coast High debuted with all-new characters, plus Bella Parker, who had been previously expelled from Rainbow High. The setting is an unnamed beachfront city. Later on came a rival school to Rainbow High; dubbed Shadow High. SH established itself with a striking desaturated greyscale-themed wave of dolls with skin colors from pure white to stark black, and soon broadened to include spooky fantastical notes with more colorful nonhuman skin tones and more fantasy-themed character designs, though the kids are still portrayed as normal humans.
A Web Original series based on the toyline released the same year. Released alongside is "The Vi Life", a recap series of shorts hosted by Violet Willow, an In-Universe social media influencer. Both series can be found on YouTube. Since March 2021, the series can also be streamed on Netflix, edited to be fit for a 22-minute episode format.
Rainbow High provides examples of:
- A Day in the Limelight:
- "Poppy Rowan, Keepin' the Beats Goin'" and “A Dorm With A View”: Poppy
- "The Gr8 Hairscape": Jade
- "Double Date Disaster" and "Gurlfriend Take Over": Ruby and Skyler
- Ambiguously Brown: Although some of the characters’ ethnicities can be inferred from their names and bios, many of them are ambiguous. Most have technicolor hair and unusually-colored eyes that don’t correspond to any real-life race whatsoever.
- Ambiguously Gay:
- Aiden, The One Guy of the As, is more effeminate than the other boys at Rainbow High. His sexuality is still out in the open, however.
- Jade and Bella, as fans didn't hesitate to point out that the girls are very close with each other. Their ship name has even been acknowledged by a Vi Life episode!
- Animal Motifs: Poppy and monarch butterflies.
- Ascended Meme: Stella’s first appearance in episode 5 is brought up by Violet in the 7th episode of “The Vi Life”.
- Boarding School of Horrors: Downplayed for Rainbow High. The rules are heavily enforced, handful of them are extremely strict (i.e. if you photograph your own work, you are immediately expelled), and there doesn’t seem to be any guidance counselors around. The teachers (not even the principal!) also don’t step in to resolve fighting between students (case-and-point “Going Viral”). Nonetheless, the students are quite determined about their classes, and otherwise, for the occasional drama outbursts, they all get along.
- Canon Immigrant: The Rainbow High School itself is carried over from the setting of Rainbow Surprise’s short-lived webseries “Really Rainbow Surprise”.
- Casual Sports Jersey: River, as he plays for the Rainbow High football team, wears his varsity jacket.
- Childhood Friends: Sunny and Violet, as they come from the same town (a rare instance in Rainbow High).
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Every character has a themed color that is reflected in their hair and/or eye color and outfit looks.
- Colourful Theme Naming: Tying in with its overall theme of colors, every character is named in some form after their theme color, in either the first name, last name, or both. For example, the first six characters include red-themed Ruby Anderson, green themed Jade Hunter, and purple themed Violet Willow. Orange-themed Poppy Rowan is named after a color of poppy, Sunny Madison is named after the sun which is often pictured as yellow, and Skylar Bradshaw is named after the sky, which is often portrayed as blue. Sometimes this is very blatant — it's clear what color Scarlet Rose has as a theme — or very subtle; Sheryl Meyer, for example, is yellow-themed, and meyer is a widespread kind of lemon.
- Country Mouse: Ruby, though she doesn't have a strong country accent. Delilah as well, who is from the Blue Ridge.
- Darker and Edgier: Compared to Really Rainbow Surprise, the webseries has more dramatic stakes and arcs. However, self-contained episodes do prop up from time to time.
- Elemental Motifs:
- Ruby and fire. It's signature on her designs.
- Sunny and light, tying to her being the "sun" character.
- The Faceless: Subverted for Ms. Morton, the advisor to the main cast's class. Played straight but then subverted for Bella’s role model, Ramona Barnes.
- Girl Posse: The A's: Avery, Ainsley, and Aiden.
- How We Got Here: The webseries begins with Violet vlogging the runway group all freaking out over their first project minutes before the deadline. Skyler and Poppy are trying to contact someone with no success, Ruby is insisting they should search for (missing!) Amaya's help, and Jade claims they wouldn’t be in this mess if Bella was still here. Yes, Bella is absent. The scene ends in a freeze frame of everyone screaming before Violet begins to give context of what’s happening, going back to the first day of school and starting the episode.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The As are the domineering clique of upperclassmen at Rainbow High, but they're still kind to the freshmen.
- Law of Chromatic Superiority: Of all the runway group members, Ruby takes on the role as The Leader in most moments due to her being the red ranger.
- Amaya has the longest character arc because she has all the colors as her motif.
- Magical Realism: Occasionally, colorful effects will be added throughout Rainbow High with no explanation given. This is especially true whenever music plays, courtesy of Poppy.
- Skyler and Amaya will draw fashions in a matter of few seconds and some shimmering clouds. Even if they have only a pencil, the designs will be colored and the models will have detailed features. Everyone just rolls with it.
- Meaningful Name: Most of the characters' names derive from puns and plays on words relating to their theme colors; this also doubles as Colourful Theme Naming.
- Mythology Gag: There are many references to their origin line, Poopsie.
- One of the Poopsie llama characters appears as a sticker on Sunny's phone case. Three Fantasy Friends also appear as the "Hi-Hi Kawaii" characters from episode 3, with alterations to their designs to match Sunny, Poppy, and Skyler.
- The mascot Ruby and Aidan design in "All About Aidan" is a unicorn that looks like a grown-up version of Rainbow Brightstar of the Poopsie line.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Stella Monroe is a spoof of Marilyn Monroe and her iconic pink dress seen in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
- The One Guy:
- Aiden is the only boy member of the As.
- River Kendall, the first Rainbow High boy doll, is the only boy in the wave 2 roster.
- Perky Goth: Jade Hunter
wears a spiked collar in the show, wants a therapy tarantula, and has a style typically referred to as edgy. She also specializes in makeup and is rather upbeat. - Pink Is Feminine:
- Bella wears light pink and has a more girlier fashion sense, but is good with a hammer (since Set Design is her biggest passion).
- Ms. Morton's theme color is rosy pink.
- Stella's theme color is fuschia.
- Kia has pink (along with white and red) to go with her "Valentine's Day" motif.
- Pom-Pom Girl: The Cheer line has everyone as this. It’s for a plot point, the Cheer project happens the episode “Bring On Rainbow Cheer”.
- Punny Name:
- Poppy mostly specializes in composing pop music.
- Sunny Madison.
- Avery Styles dresses in every style.
- River's last name, Kendall, comes from "Ken Doll", which is fitting for the first boy doll in the line.
- Race Lift: Skyler has a darker complexion than her doll in the webseries.
- Serious Business: You can be cut from the school if you fail a project at Rainbow High.
- Ship Tease: Amaya develops a crush on River in “Bring On Rainbow Cheer”. It’s mutual.
- Shout-Out:
- The designs of the characters's clothing take inspiration from Real Life designer brands (Supreme, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc.) with the names replaced with "Rainbow", "Sparkle", the like.
- Sunny's hairstyle resembles that of Sailor Moon's, only without the accessories and with different bangs.
- Jade's green hair and baggy clothes bring Billie Eilish to mind.
- Bella’s “California Dream” shirt references the vintage era of another fashion doll clad in pink. As mentioned before, River’s last name is taken from “Ken doll”. These instances are MGA’s friendlier ways of referencing their competition, unlike last time.
- The 1980s Cheer uniform takes cue from the cheer uniform of Monster High, which is known for codifying the High School AU toyline trend in the 2010s. Even the Rainbow High logo font is similar to its own.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In the ending of “Shining Star”, Krystal selects only one girl out of the runaway group, Ruby, to be on the cover of The SCENE and the other girls congratulate her despite all of them wanting the position.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Amaya, Skyler, and Violet look strikingly similar to Rainbow Dream, Blue Skye, and Amethyst Rae from the previous Rainbow Surprise line, with some key differences.
- Tag Line: For the toyline, "Collect the Rainbow". In the series, "Turn Your Color Up!"
- Team Power Walk: Anytime the As come on screen together. With the scene's lights dimming, pulsing effects by their sides, and even runaway music playing in the back.
- There Are No Adults: Downplayed. There are adults in the universe, which include Lou Wright and Ms. Morton (and the offscreen Ramona Barnes), but they're minor characters.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Two pairs: Jade and Bella and Ruby and Violet.
- Unreliable Narrator: Violet narrates the recap series “The Vi Life” and puts her own input on the events ever so often.
- Wham Episode:
- “Bella’s Night Out”: Bella gets expelled and Amaya is finally introduced to take her place.
- “Enter Amaya”: Continuing on the previous episode, it’s revealed while Sunny, Skyler, Poppy and Violet show eagerness in getting to know Amaya, Ruby and Jade are bitter over how quick Bella’s leave was.
- “Bring On Rainbow Cheer”: Amaya dyes her hair and a romance is teased between her and River.
- “Going Viral”: It’s revealed that the “Vi Life” episode that covered Bella’s expulsion went viral for all the wrong reasons. On the brighter side, Bella isn’t shown to have hard feelings against Amaya for taking her place in the group.
- "Amaya's Time": River and Amaya go on their first date.
- Wham Shot: "The Final Runway Show": Bella is back.
