New LEGO Pokémon sets announced, with the first Pokémon minifigures!

I think they look great, but we are not getting them in Asia.

@darthnorman said:
"The Pokéball costs 250€ but $300, but Rayquaza costs 130€ and only $120.. make this make sense, please."

yes I noticed that. Crazy!

Love the pokeball, munchlax and arcanine. I'll wait for a big discount but will be picking those off.

The head/hat looks too big on the buildable figure for me.

Those look great. Prices don't seem too bad.

The minifigs look great.

Pokeball, Up-Scaled and Arachine are the ones I'll get

Arcanine looks so good, first Pokemon set I might pick up.

I saw the Rayqayza leaked a while ago, definitely looking forward to it!

The Pokéball looks awesome, but dear God the price >_>

The pokeball looks like a very expensive polly pocket. And the Arcanine reminds me of the Firefox animal.

Again with the sphere concealing an interior though, why wasn't this option use with the death slice, lego?

That Pokéball is giving me Polly Pocket vibes. Also reminds me of the Technodrome.

No interest whatsoever in Pokémon but will probably get the Up-Scaled Minifigure!

these look good, especially the Eevee and Pikachu minifigs - but that upscaled Ash looks creepy and he is clearly holding a cube, not a ball!

Does anyone know if the Ditto GWP that was previously available through the Pokémon Center site will become available on LEGO.com at some point?

I got the Kanto Starters set brand new for £399 last month. I’ll be waiting for a similar discount before taking the plunge on these.

So much better than the most recent wave! WONDERFUL!

Who is Pokémon?

Why don't they recolour 72154 in grey and call it the Death Star? Just kidding!

@darthnorman said:
"The Pokéball costs 250€ but $300, but Rayquaza costs 130€ and only $120.. make this make sense, please."

Maybe It depends on where they are produced

Pikachu and Eevee figures are cute, but not a fan of the Pokemon in any form. Easy pass for me.

Don't think I've ever seen Munchlax before (or it is a terrible rendition....), but based on its own merits it looks cool!

Less impressed with the other sets. The pokeball looks fine, but in the end it's just a tiny vignette in a huge, very expensive shell. As for the minifig, I don't recognize the character (but that might be on me) but in itself it feels kinda weird to have a scaled up version from a minifig we hadn't seen before. And nothing to say about the other two.

I think the Pokeball would have been better with Ash. I know they will likely make an Ash minifigure soon but it’s still odd to not include him.

i’m so glad the only pokemon sets i can buy in my country are obnoxiously huge and expensive

I fear the website will collapse when these are out.

I really like the Rayquaza set btw, not so much the minifig that comes with it but the build itself. I guess you could rotate Rayquaza so that he is facing forward or even downward. And the Sky Pillar could become a great display stand for future trainer minifigs and their moulded Pokemon.

Why does the grey haired guy in the Poke Ball set look like he wants to take me to his private island?

Dustin Henderson

How is Pokéball a “moment”?
How is the Delta Episode not a moment?
Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship level set naming.

In Portugal the Pokeball it's 259,99 € !!

@SpaghettiDish said:
"How is Pokéball a “moment”?
How is the Delta Episode not a moment?
Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship level set naming. "

The scenes depicted inside are moments. Try to keep up.

The Pokéball is NOK 3500!?!? Nope!

$300 Pokédex battle pack.

Yay, Mario minifi…wait, what?

@Crux said:
"250 Euros? For that money I could buy mice, yellow paint, and jumper-cables in bulk."

And hire a lawyer. Well, a mall lawyer. Um, a strip mall lawyer.

The Rayquaza set looks pretty cool, and is the first of the entire line up to REALLY grab me, but the rest of these feel meh. I'm super confused by the minifigure selection for the flagship set. I didn't even recognize the third character at first, and really, a random picnicker? Not the other player Green, or your rival Blue? Even a common and memorable encounter like Nurse Joy or Team Rocket would make sense, or do some anime love with Ash. An unnamed background-civilian is such a waste of a quarter of the entire line's minifigs!

@The_Boba_Brick said:
"Does anyone know if the Ditto GWP that was previously available through the Pokémon Center site will become available on LEGO.com at some point? "

??
We had 40892 as a gwp and 40911 as an insiders reward

Sort of mixed feelings about the minifigures... some work better in the minifigure style than others (Professor Oak looks great thanks to his iconic large eyebrows, Red looks okay despite a fairly ordinary face, and Zinnia leaves a lot to be desired with her face, hair, and outfit all translating somewhat poorly to the flat graphical style of minifigures). And the Pikachu and Eevee look pretty good, but without any articulation or much playability besides positioning them. Ultimately they leave me grateful that the majority of sets opted for brick-built Pokémon instead of a human minifigure-based approach.

As for the sets themselves, the Poké Ball set with hidden diorama looks pretty good, as do Arcanine and Munchlax. Rayquaza and Sky Pillar feels a little lacking, which is a shame, because Omega Ruby is one of my favorite Pokémon games and I loved the Delta Episode featuring Zinnia and Rayquaza.

What a spectacular performance to make a spherical ball out of LEGO parts for a mear 300 bucks and not just half one or a thin slice. I think we can all rejoice now that the theme is saved and we can stop complaining. We even get 1 out of 3 exclusive minifigures as a key chain, something that SW fans surely never get...

Wow this is an awful comment section

None of these are really for me, but I know some who are excited. I’ll just wait for the keychain.

I will say decision not to include Blue in the Pokéball is baffling

I love the big Pokémon figures and bought the previous sets but Rayquaza has me confused since it has the minifig and all. I would have referred to have the Pokémon only. The big ball does not interest me.

@dalexandrov123 said:
"Call me a hater at this point, $300 for another Dust Collector™® shelf display slop with exclusive minifigures of very popular characters is ridiculous. It should have been two $30 sets with the lab and the pokemon battle."
I think you can do better. They could have included both of those concepts together with the Kanto starters for $50. The question is, why didn't they? Because the people who want these are adult collectors and not children, and adult collectors can (and many will) pay more. This isn't an argument between Lego apologists and angry fans, this is two groups of people who have the same view of what's happening and are responding differently.

Munchlax looks quite good for a Pokemon I don't really care about. Arcanine similarly looks sharp, even with what looks like limited articlation. They seem to be doing well with brick-built display Pokemon, ignoring the price for the display stand ones. Makes sense with how well Creator has been making animals themselves.

Rayquaza looks great to me, definitely will pick it up. The display certainly augments it, and it doesn't have a ludicrous price like Pikachu or the Kanto starters from it. I wish that Zinnia had a Pokemon of her own for it though, maybe a small brickbuilt Salamance or Tyrantrum. Also her hair looks weird, wish there was another piece for that.

@SpaghettiDish said:
" @Andrusi said:
" @SpaghettiDish said:
"How is Pokéball a “moment”?
How is the Delta Episode not a moment?
Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship level set naming. "

The scenes depicted inside are moments. Try to keep up."

“Iconic trainer moments” - The name of the subtheme.

“Poké ball” - The name of the specific set.

Try to learn some manners when attempting to correct people online. You are being awfully rude.

"

When you reach this far to find something to complain about, you accept the risk that people will be mildly impolite to you on the Internet.

Oh, good, I see LEGO has blindly gone ahead and opened not one but TWO Pandora's boxes with these sets.
One, minifig-scale, custom-molded Pokemon (Pikachu and Eevee). Now they'll have to make ALL the most popular Pokemon at that scale.
Two, they put (what I assume are) the Pokedex numbers on the box for Munchlax, Arcanine, and Rayquaza. To be fair, Eevee had this first, but now they've made it an official line. Now they'll have to make ALL the Pokemon as large scale figures.

This may sound excessive if you don't follow Pokemon, but the hardcore Pokemon fanbase is insane. Everyone will want THEIR favorite Pokemon in a set, and they will claw your ears off to make sure you know. And they will buy it at full price, no matter the quality. They're basically addicted, which is how the Pokemon Company gets away with selling so much rubbish.

LEGO: "Look in the box. What's in the box?"

(For my part, I might've gone for Rayquaza if it was $30-40 and didn't include that useless plinth and minifig. As it is, nope.)

Looking at 40868, it seems that Lego should have come with a couple of new parts: (1) 2x2x1 2/3 one eighth of a sphere and (2) the inverted equivalent or a new plate to connect part 1 upside down. Lego already has the 3x3, 4x4 and 5x5 variant of part 1. These would fit with the existing curved slope parts and be useful in many places (notably for more large Pokemon sets). The ball is too much of a rounded square. I can see that Lego do not want to produce too many specialized parts but this would fit very well with the existing portfolio.

Edit: The part apparently already exists: design 5906 1/4 SPHERE 2X2X1 2/3, W/ CUTOUT, NO. 1. What a wasted opportunity to make a decently round Pokeball.

Of those sets, I like 72150, 72154 (for the minifigs, I hope they will appear in smaller sets soon) and 72168. As is becoming the norm nowadays, Lego is always padding/stuffing sets with parts extensive/expensive useless bases. Eevee (no useless base here) is already off by nearly 20% here after only a few months (at 35% off, I'll get it). I'll wait to see how it goes for those before committing. The only one so far where I think the base is necessary is 72163. Munchlax base is nice-ish but probably more than half the set. It's a shame, but most likely, we "trained" Lego to behave like this.

The minifigure scale Pokemon are static models and have no playability factor. That's why the SmartBrick sets are for children because the Pokemon are pose-able. Not much playability in a one piece Pokemon brick.

Adorable is an adjective, but the Munchlax has that creepy stare...

I want a pokemon collectible minifigure series with those minifigs and their small pokemon. Hopefully we get some lower priced sets with those figs at least.

@watcher21 said:
" @The_Boba_Brick said:
"Does anyone know if the Ditto GWP that was previously available through the Pokémon Center site will become available on LEGO.com at some point? "

??
We had 40892 as a gwp and 40911 as an insiders reward"

Set 40887 was offered as a GWP with sets pre-ordered through the official Pokemon Center website. I'm wondering if it will became available again or if that was it.

Arcanine is the best of these by far, a day one buy. Rayquaza is quite good, a bit expensive and the face is a bit strange but still a solid 8/10, the Zinnia minifig is excellent as well and I'm glad to see more recent (2014) Pokemon characters acknowledged.

Poke Ball is a beautiful set and the functionality is great, but it is a $200-225 set at most. The ball isn't even that big. I'll sadly pass unless I can find a good discount.

Munchlax... just why? I would've enjoyed Snorlax, but Munchlax is a strange choice and the model looks extremely small for how much you're paying.

Upscaled Red... exists. At least the price isn't bad for those who want him.

@Andrusi said:
"Zinnia's an unexpected choice for one of the first Pokémon minifigs, but I guess she *is* associated with a Pokémon that can actually be brick-built at minifig scale and she didn't require any newly molded pieces."

Yeah Zinnia is a weirdly deep cut for the first batch of minifigs! I guess they're saving Brendan & May for whatever and Archie & Maxie for Kyogre & Groudon.

@Andrusi said:
" @SpaghettiDish said:
" @Andrusi said:
" @SpaghettiDish said:
"How is Pokéball a “moment”?
How is the Delta Episode not a moment?
Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship level set naming. "

The scenes depicted inside are moments. Try to keep up."

“Iconic trainer moments” - The name of the subtheme.

“Poké ball” - The name of the specific set.

Try to learn some manners when attempting to correct people online. You are being awfully rude.

"

When you reach this far to find something to complain about, you accept the risk that people will be mildly impolite to you on the Internet."

WELL I NEVER.

OK but that Arcanine build looks beautiful!

I'm confused by the emphasis on Red. It kinda makes sense as a generic figure in a battle scene, but why as the upscaled figure?

@Andrusi said:
" @SpaghettiDish said:
" @Andrusi said:
" @SpaghettiDish said:
"How is Pokéball a “moment”?
How is the Delta Episode not a moment?
Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship level set naming. "

The scenes depicted inside are moments. Try to keep up."

“Iconic trainer moments” - The name of the subtheme.

“Poké ball” - The name of the specific set.

Try to learn some manners when attempting to correct people online. You are being awfully rude.

"

When you reach this far to find something to complain about, you accept the risk that people will be mildly impolite to you on the Internet."

When you feel the need to be even the slightest bit impolite to anyone on the internet over having a slight criticism towards a billion dollar company's awkward and unnatural branding, you should rethink your priorities.

As a casual fan….why are Earth did they not start with Ash?

These are creative, eye-catching, and bold. They will appeal fans of LEGO and fans of Pokémon, and both. But … someone somewhere is laughing at fans falling over themselves to agree with each other that 10p per piece is a good deal. Enjoy your underwhelming £230 ball. If you want to impress your friends, buy the £70 scaled up fig and customise it to a fig of your choosing. You’ll have more fun than staring at that ball. The ball. Don’t look away from the ball.

More $100+ sets than pocket money sets. Lego know what they are doing and are clearly targeting the long time fans.
That pokeball is a joke for the Au$430 price. A $30 vignette at best inside a not very good looking shell.
Why do munchlax and rayquaza have more parts in their bases than the Pokemon themselves.
Save me lots of money but a shame to see kids still missing out on minifigure scale sets and the Lego version of Pokemon, getting Pokemon cubes instead.

@Vindicare said:
"As a casual fan….why are Earth did they not start with Ash? "

Ash is the anime character, based off Red, the original video game character.

@The_Boba_Brick said:
" @watcher21 said:
" @The_Boba_Brick said:
"Does anyone know if the Ditto GWP that was previously available through the Pokémon Center site will become available on LEGO.com at some point? "

??
We had 40892 as a gwp and 40911 as an insiders reward"

Set 40887 was offered as a GWP with sets pre-ordered through the official Pokemon Center website. I'm wondering if it will became available again or if that was it. "

Ah my bad
Seems a regular set if you look at the box art.
And am seeing some similair sets so 80% chance it's a normal set

Honestly, why does LEGO have this license?!.. MEGABlocks or whatever that brand is called was just right for it!
Now that we have another BIG theme, can another big theme leave so we could get some spaceshelf for a vintage set theme that concentrates on space, castle and adventurers or something like that? That would make me happy.
All this licenses bore me to hell!!! Terrible, i get nightmares..

LEGO just became a slut for everything since even dragonball is on the rise or KPop demon hunters, what the heck!

And the interesting stuff is hidden by paywalls...LEGO Starts to get me out of the hobby of buying new sets. I probably moc until i die but i buy less and less each year to come when this madness continues...

I don't think I'll be picking up any of these sets because they're absurdly expensive ...

... but damn it. Those little minifig-scale Pokemon are just the cutest little things and I want them.

@Oli said:
"Honestly, why does LEGO have this license?!.. MEGABlocks or whatever that brand is called was just right for it!
Now that we have another BIG theme, can another big theme leave so we could get some spaceshelf for a vintage set theme that concentrates on space, castle and adventurers or something like that? That would make me happy.
All this licenses bore me to hell!!! Terrible, i get nightmares..

LEGO just became a slut for everything since even dragonball is on the rise or KPop demon hunters, what the heck!

And the interesting stuff is hidden by paywalls...LEGO Starts to get me out of the hobby of buying new sets. I probably moc until i die but i buy less and less each year to come when this madness continues..."

The Mega Blok Pokémon sets were awesome for my son when he was younger. You could build "minifig" sized Pokémon for 6$ a piece and then a large Pikachu as big as the Lego one was like 45$. Quality was good and no one cared that it wasn't "Lego". They look great!

@TheBrickBulbasaur said:
"Wow this is an awful comment section

None of these are really for me, but I know some who are excited. I’ll just wait for the keychain.

I will say decision not to include Blue in the Pokéball is baffling"

The comments sections on this site has been a disaster for the past few announcements.

40868 is showing up for me as October 1st both in the Portugal and US stores...

@BrudderandHisBricks said:
" @AcademyofDrX said:
"AFOLs should understand that Lego now sees minifigure collecting, correctly, as primarily an adult hobby and only to a lesser extent for children. Sets for children are about playing with bricks, sets for adults are for collecting and displaying. "Why won't they make what I want cheap?!" Because adults have more money to spend than kids."

When I was a kid, I think I played with the Minifigures themselves more often than with the sets they originally came with. I remember seeing kids at my school in the 4th grade bring Minifigures in their lunchboxes to play with or swap at lunch. To say children only play with the bricks is ignorant.

While I can understand some characters like the Picnicker or even Red being exclusive, Professor Oak is such an important character to the franchise, and having him be locked to a $300 set honestly sucks. It’s the equivalent of having Yoda remain exclusive to a single $300 Star Wars set. Kids want their favorite characters in Minifigure form and Oak definitely falls into that category."
I used to play with minifigures when I was a kid, too. That was about four decades ago. Professor Oak is a character from thirty years ago. Professor Oak fans need to schedule their colonoscopies! There aren't any kids around here wanting this stuff, there are just a lot of adults who for some reason think or pretend that they are speaking for kids and not themselves.

Hah, i think upscaled Red is a clever idea. I mean he will fit with the buildable pokémon.

I also like the Rayquaza set. Good Rayquaza and good location build to make it look like a playset (but still is more of a diorama)

Also i think that it is smart they went for two different dimensions in this theme. The upscaled dimensions for making all those pokemon builds and the minifig dimensions for making really huge pokemon like Rayquaza (and where the smaller pokemon are just pieces to fit with minifigs)

Press release has some errors, as usual. Arcanine is $110, and Rayquaza is $130. I guess Lego decided that initial prices were just barely on the side of a good value, and they had to fix that. :|

@LANmustgo said:
"I can't resist leaving a comment, but there's probably not much of a point. Most everyone on here seems to have been indoctrinated into "most Lego sets are 100+$ statues and that's awesome." Scares me quite a bit. 300$ for a poke ball the size of a softball is the most ludicrous ask yet. Have fun with that set at that price... or not...because...what the heck are you going to do with it? The press line that "Pikachu and Eevee figures elevate the set further" is absolutely bonkers. Two dollar store trinkets in a luxury priced joke. Is this site populated by almost exclusively millionaires? What is going on?"

Look, it’s fine to prefer lower cost sets (I do!) but “most sets” aren’t over 100 dollars even just in the Pokemon theme, let alone from Lego as a whole. The big expensive sets get more attention from Lego fandom but they’re so, so heavily outnumbered by sub-100 playsets, and this is extremely easy to check. Even just in Pokemon, which does have a lot of big sets, they’re still outnumbered roughly three to one.

Possibly you get poor responses to posts like that because you’re making claims that are literally untrue!

@Kre_O said:
"The minifigure scale Pokemon are static models and have no playability factor. That's why the SmartBrick sets are for children because the Pokemon are pose-able. Not much playability in a one piece Pokemon brick."

My kids absolutely hate the smartbrick sets and they love Pokemon. They've been hoping for minifigure scale pokemon because they want to build battle scenes/etc. There is a TON of playability in a one piece non-poseable pokemon. I had a ton of non-poseable toys growing up, it's all about imagination.

I used to work part time at a toy store and one of our best sellers was the various CMF lines. Kids absolutely loved them. What can I say, kids love the minifigures.

@AcademyofDrX said:
"I used to play with minifigures when I was a kid, too. That was about four decades ago. Professor Oak is a character from thirty years ago. Professor Oak fans need to schedule their colonoscopies! There aren't any kids around here wanting this stuff, there are just a lot of adults who for some reason think or pretend that they are speaking for kids and not themselves."

My kids are into pokemon and they and their friends all know who Professor Oak is. When you look at most popular generations, Gen 1 wins hands down, followed by Gen 3, Gen 4, then everything else. Like I said, I used to work at a toy store and all the pokemon kids knew ALL of the professors.

@Hiratha said:
" @LANmustgo said:
"I can't resist leaving a comment, but there's probably not much of a point. Most everyone on here seems to have been indoctrinated into "most Lego sets are 100+$ statues and that's awesome." Scares me quite a bit. 300$ for a poke ball the size of a softball is the most ludicrous ask yet. Have fun with that set at that price... or not...because...what the heck are you going to do with it? The press line that "Pikachu and Eevee figures elevate the set further" is absolutely bonkers. Two dollar store trinkets in a luxury priced joke. Is this site populated by almost exclusively millionaires? What is going on?"

Look, it’s fine to prefer lower cost sets (I do!) but “most sets” aren’t over 100 dollars even just in the Pokemon theme, let alone from Lego as a whole. The big expensive sets get more attention from Lego fandom but they’re so, so heavily outnumbered by sub-100 playsets, and this is extremely easy to check. Even just in Pokemon, which does have a lot of big sets, they’re still outnumbered roughly three to one.

Possibly you get poor responses to posts like that because you’re making claims that are literally untrue!"

Depends if you include the Smart Brick sets.....which most of the world won't get (yet).

Apart from that what you're saying is not wrong, but nevertheless it is obvious Lego is going for significantly bigger and pricier sets than Mega did. Just because they can.