Chinese New Year sets

Discussion of official LEGO Castle Theme sets and products
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Bruce N H
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Chinese New Year sets

Post by Bruce N H »

Hey all,

Related to [url=http://classic-castle.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=27127]my post[/url] in the Castle MOC forum on Chinese New Year related MOCs, I just noticed on Brickset two great new sets released for Chinese New Year. This may be old news, but I just saw them and thought I'd point them out. They are set in modern era, but with the traditional architecture these could be relevant to Asian-themed castle builders just by swapping out the figs.

[url=https://brickset.com/article/48328/review-80 ... emple-fair]80105 - Chinese New Year Temple[/url]
[url=https://brickset.com/article/48328/review-80 ... emple-fair][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49386341 ... 3994_w.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://brickset.com/article/48328/review-80 ... emple-fair][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49390397 ... 3ab4_w.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://brickset.com/article/48328/review-80 ... emple-fair][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49389026 ... bb83_w.jpg[/img][/url]
Brickset has a full review [url=https://brickset.com/article/48328/review-80 ... emple-fair]here[/url]. As I noted above, the architecture here is great, especially all the detail on the main central temple. Lots of other great details that would be great in an Asian-themed castle setting, like those trees, the lamps, the fireworks, and various architectural elements. While most of the figs are modern, two of them (shown above) are in traditional dress and could fit in a castle era creation (maybe swap out the heads because of the eyeglasses).

[url=https://brickset.com/sets/80104-1/Lion-Dance]80104 - Lion Dance[/url]
[url=https://brickset.com/sets/80104-1/Lion-Dance][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49363353 ... 23f8_w.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://brickset.com/sets/80104-1/Lion-Dance][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49364283 ... e019_w.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://brickset.com/sets/80104-1/Lion-Dance][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49364072 ... 2685_w.jpg[/img][/url]
More great architecture, and here almost all of the figs could easily fit into an Asian-themed castle MOC with no modification. Plus those lions are adorable.

Last year LEGO produced three fig-scale sets for Chinese New Year ([url=https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Seasonal/sub ... e-New-Year]see them all here[/url]), but unfortunately these were not available in the US (or maybe later they were? at least when I first looked I could not get them, and I really wanted the kinetic sculpture of the dragon). These show up on LEGO.com as available to order, but currently (January 28, 2020) one is listed as out of stock and the other is on back-order. Hopefully LEGO is learning their lesson that these sets could be really popular and will continue to make them and make them more widely available.

BTW, not fig scale and not very castle-y, but the sculpture [url=https://brickset.com/sets/40355-1/Year-of-the-Rat]40355 - Year of the Rat[/url] is super cute.
[url=https://brickset.com/sets/40355-1/Year-of-the-Rat][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49378795 ... 18c5_n.jpg[/img][/url]

I know China is a huge market, which probably was part of LEGO's motivation, but I think there would be a huge benefit if LEGO continued to make sets centered in different locations and cultures from around the world, but also made them available to everyone. E.g. I see there is another new set (completely non-castle-relevant) based on the [url=https://brickset.com/article/48356/review-10 ... ter-united]Manchester United football stadium[/url]. More like these, please, LEGO.

Bruce
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ffilz
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Re: Chinese New Year sets

Post by ffilz »

Last year I found someone on Bricklink from Taiwan selling the New Years dinner set for a price plus shipping that made it a reasonable investment. I felt really lucky. I maybe should have got the Dragon Dance set also. The later Dragon Boat Race set I picked up at our local LEGO store. I've received my Chinese New Year Temple set and the Year of the Rat set already, but waiting on the Lion Dance set (which is really exciting to me, starting 5 years ago, my family has been attending a Lion Dance at our church, our kids really love it (when we first attended, our oldest was 1 and we weren't sure if she would be scared so we hung out near the door, she loved it, and then she loved going up on stage and checking out the costumes). Portland OR also has Dragon Boat races so that set will be fun for us when I get a chance to build it all out.

I'm glad they are releasing the sets worldwide but clearly they underestimated the popularity. They also should have released them earlier (and had the free Year of the Rat set the first week they were available).
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