Review: 75689 Emerald City & Kiamo Ko Castle

We’ve come a long way from the flourishing friendship of 75683 Glinda & Elphaba's Dormitory, to a world where the two witches live far apart in their respective high towers—one atop precipitous cliffs and the other in the Wizard’s domain.

Their microscale exteriors hide minifigure-scale playset interiors, as they're very compact and full of hidden secrets.

I’ve enlisted the help of my wife and resident minidoll fan, Catherine (CrankyBricks), to explore the LEGO Wicked sets. Over to her after the break…

Minidolls

Elphaba’s face and hair are common now, but the outfit is unique to this set. However, it’s so similar to the others that only very dedicated fans will appreciate the difference, with subtle gold detailing at the edges of her overcoat on the shoulders and edges of the skirt. She holds the Grimmerie spellbook, which is a frustratingly common piece to have used a sticker throughout the theme.

I’m not sure what warranted a unique skirt piece for Glinda here, as this same dress is already represented in this figure (as well as having a minifigure version now too!). Her slightly concerned facial expression is the same as in 75688 Glinda's Wedding Day.

This is a highly detailed and unusual mould, and interestingly uses dark azure rather than sand blue, as might have been expected. The main complaint can’t go unmentioned: although it wasn’t the main purpose of this set, any set with a flying monkey really should have at least two, since this isn’t a named character but one of a whole swarm.

First seen on the Cupid Series 27 collectable minifigure, and in more colours in 31175 Unicorn Castle, this dark azure version of this element can only be found here. This lovely pair of wings can be connected by an antistud, which means it isn't relegated to only being a minifig accessory with a neck ring, and isn’t made complicated with 1x1 clips. We hope to see it used more!

This flying monkey has taken the same direction as the Cowardly Lion in reverting back to a non-humanoid form for the Wicked version. It now feels like part of the monkey family! This isn’t the first flying monkey representation, though: in 2015, a brick-built menace appeared in 71221 Wicked Witch Fun Pack, and in 2017 The LEGO Batman Movie brought us minifigure-style versions using both bright light blue and sand blue. Two came in 70917 The Ultimate Batmobile to represent the Wicked Witch’s flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz, albeit they were a lot more cursed-looking (which I suppose is not a fault!) and a lot less monkey-like.

Stickers

You don’t see them all from the outside, but a surprising number of stickers are included.

Completed Model

These two main points of interest from the world of Oz are represented in microscale form, and both have a little patch of the yellow brick road to hint that they are ultimately connected across the landscape. The models are of very similar heights, the accuracy of which is hard to confirm, but it does appear that the clifftop castle should be significantly larger if they were to be truly in scale. Both models have zones of minidoll-scale construction, and each has a windowed area for the character to stand at the front.

We’ve seen a few different scales of Emerald City depicted in LEGO, and this feels quite similar to the scale of 75685 Emerald City Wall Art, while of course being much deeper. Sadly, the purple window pane piece was very heavily scratched, as is all too common. There is a beautiful transparent sticker for this piece depicting a window and a blossoming tree, which will look brilliant, but only if you’re successful in applying it neatly.

I’m surprised that the designer went to the effort of the side-built gold curved slopes for the large central tower, given how common the macaroni brick is—did they just want to use 75398 C-3PO’s new parts? Beneath this, the gold bars act as a handle to reveal the first surprise: a hidden compartment slides out from the back. During the build, I was pleased to find that this insert slots together very satisfyingly, and is gently held with the now classic low-clutch ‘clips onto click hinges’ technique.

This section opens up to be the wall of the map room, with a layout revealing all of Oz and annotating regions like Munchkinland. The gap in the sticker was handled quite well—we’re not left with a ‘Jurassic Pa…rk’ feeling here!

That’s just the start: both sides of the Emerald City also open up for some miniature Polly Pocket-like play. On the right, a Murphy bed folds down for Glinda to sleep in, and a tiny cupboard can store some of her reading materials.

The right side contains a dressing table, and a total of five stickers: wall-mounted shelving, a photo of Glinda and Fiyero, a mirror, shoes and handbags. There’s a poor colour match on the shoe sticker, as it looks more medium nougat than dark orange. The details and colour scheme are reminiscent of 75683 Glinda & Elphaba's Dormitory—the light nougat drawers would have improved the aforementioned set, in my opinion.

Kiamo Ko Castle is precariously balanced atop sheer cliffs and is home to the Wicked Witch of the West. The upper part appears to dramatically ‘defy gravity’ as it floats over the lower section, and trees and foliage grow in the gap.

The arches forming this round window pull apart to open up the set, showing the mechanism for the action feature which makes Elphaba ‘disappear’ behind this rotating column. It’s quite hard to place the figure inside with adult-sized fingers. This interior is simpler than the first, with just a doorway on one side and a cave with a bucket on the other. The door frame is new for 2025 in dark orange.

The flying monkey looks as if it's flying out of the forested area of the castle. This section of the build was fiddly and unstable, which surprised me. Usually, the instructions are very carefully designed to be much more resilient to pushing parts on without requiring a second stabilising hand. Perhaps that was a sacrifice made to grant the floating look of the upper part, which would be unfortunate, as in most lighting conditions, the illusion of defying gravity is not maintained.

The giant open window is a bit odd-looking, even with Elphaba standing inside, ready for the action feature where a dial on the other side of the build allows you to ‘melt’ the witch. It’s disappointing that this doorway doesn’t clip closed at the front though. Outside, the basic rock pieces at the sides are remarkably successful, and the white fluffy cloud uses lots of nice new curved slopes.

The transparent bar element strongly holds the rainbow and cloud to form an elegant curve—this looks like a simple technique, but cleverly relies on the perfect clip geometry to be wonderfully effective. Normally, techniques like this aren’t robust enough to make the transition from MOCs to sets, so it’s an achievement. The build as a whole looks better from this side, in my opinion, with simple cliffs rather than the strange opening.

An extra pearlescent crown, tulip, and 1x1 with loop in black are the most interesting elements among the spare parts.

Conclusion

This set is akin to a pair of Disney Mini Collection-like buildings, and although not sitting on plate-built bases as those do, the actual buildings are reasonably similar in size. That means that the £75 price here is fairly equivalent to two of the £35 Disney series sets. When the much greater detail for the playable interiors is considered, this set then compares quite well to those precedents.

The dual nature of these two buildings for microscale display and minidoll-scale play is quite novel. This adaptability might be aiming to broaden the age range or appeal of the set, so that younger children who enjoy playing with them can display them on a shelf as they get older. Ultimately though, as much as they’re compact, the builds still feel far too small overall for £75. I’d expect a semi-microscale set to have a better price-per-part ratio than the wholly play-scale sets like 75690 Glinda & Elphaba Visit Munchkinland. The same was true of 75685 Emerald City Wall Art, so perhaps these are just where LEGO or Universal think they can rake in the cash from fans.

4 comments on this article

By refriedbeans in United States, 22 Jan 2026 18:33

I do wish the monkey was included in another set. It’s odd they’d make such a specific mold and not put it in at least one other set. I like the builds but probably not enough to include them in my Wicked display.

By ecleme11 in United Kingdom, 22 Jan 2026 19:04

Please Lego give us a flying Monkey battlepack! :)

By sjr60 in United Kingdom, 22 Jan 2026 20:37

Please Brickset give us a Minidoll News Preference blocker!

By RogueWhistler in Canada, 22 Jan 2026 20:50

Maybe the poofier dress would have made the yellow brick ledge too cramped?