Review: Ninjago The Visual Dictionary
Posted by Huw,
As I mentioned yesterday, Dorling Kindersley UK has just sent me a copy of this book to review although it's not due in the shops until October 1st.
If you have any of DK's other Visual Dictionaries this one will be familiar: it's a large, thick hardback with a box attached to the front cover to hold the minifig. The book itself is 96 pages long and filled with beautiful photographs on plain white or black backgrounds, the majority of which are official images supplied by LEGO.
Before taking a look at the book's contents, let's revisit the minifig.
As stated yesterday, it's Zane Rebooted who also appears in 70726 Desctructoid. So, although it's not unique to the book, it is fairly rare particularly in the USA where 70726 is a Target exclusive and, let's be honest, is not that great a set, so is probably one that not many people have bought.
I suspect it would be unfair to criticise DK for not including an exclusive minifig with the book given that the decision what to provide was almost certainly down to LEGO and not DK, who I am sure would have loved something unique.
It's actually a very nice minifig, with an excellent torso print front and back.
It's also a 'genuine' minifig, made in a European or Mexican LEGO factory. Interestingly the back of the book claims it's made in Denmark, Hungary, China, Mexico and Czech Republic. I can't believe that its five parts have each been made in different factories, can you?
Excluding Brickmaster books, this is Dorling Kindersley's second book on Ninjago, the first being a Character Encylopedia released in October 2012. Since that first book there has been two years of set releases so this book covers the entire Ninjago product range, from 2011 to 2014. It's bang up-to-date, covering the latest set releases, foes and the 'rebooted' incarnations of the Ninjas.
The book has four chapters: Friends, Foes, Specialist sets and Beyond the Brick, as well as a timeline of sets and a minifig gallery which I'll mention at the end.
The first chapter, Friends, covers the four main Ninjas (as well as Lloyd, Sensei Wu and Nya), and their vehicles, then discusses Ninjago City, bases, dragons and mechs.
After discussing the Ninja's main adversary, Lord Garmadon and why he is evil, the Foes chapter provides information on the skeleton army, each of the four snake tribes, 2013's enemies the Stone Army, and finally 2014's Nindroids, the latter two of which were not of course in the Character Encylopedia.
From a collectors and AFOL point of view, the final two chapters are perhaps the most interesting. Chapter 3, specialist sets covers spinners, battle arenas, booster packs, trading cards (although sadly not a complete reference) and finally promotional (polybag) sets.
This page is particularly interesting although not at all enlightening to Brickset readers because the information on set availability has been lifted directly from Brickset. I can say that with some certainty because the information we have in the notes section of 30086 Hidden Sword has been paraphrased in the book but is unlikely to be definitive or complete: the notes we publish are only as good as the information you tell us and there are a lot of countries around the world that we hear nothing about.
Having said that, it's the first time, I think, that availability information has been provided and DK are to be applauded for including it. A credit to Brickset would have been nice, though... :-)
Chapter four, Beyond the Brick, includes an interview with Simon Lucas, Ninjago creative lead. In it, although it will come as no surprise, he confirms that there will be more Ninjago in 2015 and beyond. There are also pages on merchandise ('gear' or 'tat'), fan builds, the TV series and video games.
Right at the back of the book, the 'gallery of characters' has images of (probably) all of the Ninjago minifigs.
The timeline at the front of the book, which shows 'all' sets, is a feature found in recent Visual Dictionaries and is a useful reference for those who don't frequent the likes of Brickset. This time DK has done a pretty good job although there are some omissions which is all the more surprising because the sets that have been missed are mentioned elsewhere in the book, for example the US BrickMaster set 20020 Mini Turbo Shredder and 2856134 Temple Shrine.
It's a great book, one which will delight Ninjago fans, particularly those who do not have the Character Encylopedia. Other than the slightly disappointing minifig and few minor omissions, I can find nothing to fault.
You can pre-order it at Amazon:
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9 comments on this article
What a book! I'll definitely buy this one, thanks for the review Huw
Good review. I'm glad to hear that this book is quality reference material, since I already have it preordered. It's a shame the minifigure is not exclusive, but it will still be a new minifigure for me since I wasn't fully committed to getting either Destructoid or the Scholastic activity book (www.amazon.com/LEGO-Ninjago-Nindroid-Activity-Minifigure/dp/0545685826/) that includes him.
I'm a little bit disappointed not to get the Destructoid, of course, because I don't consider it a bad design, and I have never had a set with one of those tile-shooters. I wanted 70002 Lennox's Lion Attack but never ended up getting it. But since I will be getting the Zane minifigure by other means (and can assemble Min-Droid using my spare Nindroid and Lloyd Garmadon minifigures), I suppose there's not a lot of sense having such a pricy set on my wish list. Not when there are other great sets like 70727 and 70728 competing for my attention!
I'll probably buy this, even though the minifigure isn't exclusive. It looks like a great book. And I do want to get Zane's hair piece. I only have Cole and Jay's hair pieces so far.
You have furthered my thoughts of this being a very cool book. And that's kinda cool having data lifted from Brickset. (FYI, why does this site's name always show up as misspelled on the comment spell-checker??)
^That's down to your browser's spellcheck. Individual sites don't have their own.
Any shots of the pages showing fan made Ninjago mocs?
Something I think that would have been much better is to make the mini-figure in this "White Pythor" OR something a little more unique... Unless they are adding pythor in a different set, Because as huw said, this zane mini-figure comes in a few other sets. But overall this looks like a awesome book! I plan to get it as soon as possible! :D
It looks like a cool book, but I'm not much of a Ninjago fan myself. I hope DK releases a LotR/Hobbit encyclopedia sometime soon!
Good thing i don't have to pay $35 for a minifigure now. I can just make mindroid by putting mini black legs on the nindroid that comes in 70727 . I plan on getting this book. Thanks for the review.