Review: 21101 Hayabusa CUUSOO #002

[CopMike]

There was a package waiting today when I got home. I opened it and this was inside:

Japanese candy and a new Lego set !

I apologize for the sometimes bad colored pictures, the light in Sweden isn´t that good this time of year ?!

Set Name: Hayabusa

Set #: 21101 and CUUSOO #002

Theme: CUUSOO

Parts: 369

Minifigures: 1

Year of Release: 2012

Price at Release:Yen 6,615, when later possibly availiable through S&H - USD 49, EUR 49

Links: Bricklink, Brickset

INTRODUCTION

As it has been discussed before this is the second set in the CUUSOO series. It was just recently released in Japan and you can read the press release from TLG here.

There you can read: Hayabusa (“falcon” in English) is an unmanned spacecraft built by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), designed to travel to a small near-Earth asteroid named Itokawa and return sample material to Earth. Hayabusa’s mission began in 2003 and ended successfully in 2010.

Enough of that, let´s go in for a closer look of the set.

BOX

The box has the same clean design as the first set, the Shinkai 6500 submersible. It´s bigger though, mesuring 30x30x10 cm compared to 26x19x7 cm. It looks nice imo!

Front view.

Back view.

Close-up of the Hayabusa project manager J Kawaguchi.

Side views at the same time!

INSTRUCTIONS

Nice booklet one containg 92 pages. The first 12 and the last 6 has a lot of information about the real spacecraft, its journey and mission, and other fascinating things. The instructions are printed on white paper so the building steps are easy to follow.

Front view.

Back view.

Page 5.

Page 12 - about J Kawaguchi.

Same page, close-up on his message to you as a builder!

Page 86 - from the original designer Daisuke Okubo.

Page 87 - the TLG designer Melody Louise Caddick writes about the design.

Page 42.

Page 84.

Part list.

THE PARTS

There are 5 polybags with parts and one sticker sheet. Black, grey and yellow are the most common colors.

The polybags.

Plates and panels.

Bricks, plates, dishes etc and minifig parts.

Smaller plates, slopes etc.

Mostly tiles and techic parts.

The small stuff.

There are some new colored parts, the 1x1 round tile in trans-blue and the 3x3 radar dish in metallic gold.

And of course the cool minifig !

The sticker sheet.

BUILD

The build is easy, fun and done in modular parts of the spacecraft. Here´s an assortment of pictures:

The stand a.k.a part of the asteriod Itokawa.

Stickers applied, yeah that is funny !

The heart of the spacecraft, the main module being built:

And now the solar panels:

And the stickers gets sticked .

Some parts on the underbelly of the module and then the solar panels:

Flip it over again:

The Death Star´s ray dish High- and Low gain antennas:

And then we install it and do a check - One two, one two - microphone test !

And finished:

The two faces of Kawaguchi. I wonder if that´s how he looked when it launched !

RATINGS

Parts: 7/10 - Ordinary parts & colors mostly, but the golden 3x3 radar dish is nice!

Build: 8/10 - I enjoyed it even if it´s simple. But because it´s a model of a real thing and the way the booklet look, I´ll go this high.

Design: 7/10 - Simple but quite true to the original in this small scale.

Minifigures: 6/10 - It´s just the business man from Alien Contest with different hair. But it´s a real person portrayed and I think it resembles him a lot so .... I love it. (I wrote this first: 9/10 - It´s exclusive, it´s a real person - I love it.)

Price: 7/10 - For the parts 5/10, for the instructions 9/10.

Playability: 5/10 - Let´s face it - it´s a display model. But you might be able to swoosh it!

Overall: 40/60 - If you can and have the $$$¥¥¥ - Go get this. To me it´s a coming classic. But I don´t think it will be real expensive collectors item in the future - I mean get it for yourself for the fun of building/owning it !

Edited April 27, 2012 by Rufus
Indexed

[Piranha]

Great review Copmike!

I did not know that a minifig was going to be included, also interesting that they didn't make him flesh but opted for original yellow.

The packaging gives us a good idea what it might look like for future CUUSOO releases.

The model itself is a really nice and detailed rendition of a very cool project that was launched.

[def]

Thanks for the review! I've pondered buying this quite a bit. As you wrote in your tally, it's based on a real thing, and that makes it a curiosity to me.

Unfortunately, 2011/2012 is a really good year for sets, and there are a lot of other sets I'd quite like to get (even though I've spent a few hundred dollars already since Christmas ), and it'll be hard to put this ahead of the rest of my buy list. I do think it is a nice design, and more interesting than the first Cuusoo model, the sub.

The mini-figure is exclusive, but not really special, in my opinion. It's just an Aliens Attack fig with the hair switched, and your pic of the back side proves it.

If the 2012 summer wave is lackluster, I'll try to get it though. It is very out of the ordinary for LEGO sets.

[Aanchir]

Great review! I feel this set was really well-designed. They managed to simplify it and make it much sturdier than the model from the original proposal, but the end result is still full of amazing details. I like all the information in the instruction booklet as well.

[just2good]

Excellent review of this rare set!

I know this is going to be released in the US for a very short time, but I'm still pretty hesitant on buying it for $50. Some of the pieces are cool, and the minifigure is quite awesome.

[Sir_Basil_Ashton]

Thanks for sharing. Your review has piqued my interest in this CUUSOO offering. I really like that in addition to being a model, there is information about the real spacecraft. I'm not sure if I'll get this for myself when it's released but I am seriously considering getting it for my brother-in-law as a gift. He's a big fan of space and does work on some level for NASA. I already have plans on getting his daughter (my niece) into LEGO but things may go smoother if I can get her Dad into it also. My other sister complains because I've bought her kids LEGO and sent her oldest daughter a Master Builder Academy membership for Christmas.

[JackJonespaw]

Nice! I find it kind of odd that Lego is using the AC face for J Kawaguchi. Oh well. I might pick this set up if I get the money. This is a great set!

[Ceroknight]

Thank you for the review!

This is a nice little model, but its release time was a bit off I think, with all the other fantastic sets released

[CopMike]

Minifigures: 9/10 - It´s exclusive, it´s a real person - I love it.

The mini-figure is exclusive, but not really special, in my opinion. It's just an Aliens Attack fig with the hair switched, and your pic of the back side proves it.

I find it kind of odd that Lego is using the AC face for J Kawaguchi.

My bad, you are so right guys! I was to excited to notice that (and I don´t really have a lot of AC)! It´s basicly the Alien Conquest Business Man with another hair like you def mentioned.

The head is this:

I will now go back and edit my opinion about the fig !

[jonwil]

Nice review.

As for the fig, I suspect that the parts chosen were the closest match out of the parts the designers were allowed to use.

This is an extremely small volume set so they aren't exactly going to make a new head design that will only be used in this set.

[mkolandian]

Thanks for the review. I will surely get one when it will be available at s@h.

Bye,

Max

[ZetoVince]

Nothing interesting here... unfortunately... too poor concept (who's interested in spacecrafts that looks like SATELLITES and who needs a poor structured spacecraft which looks like SATELLITE standing on his office?), too simple structure (no new building techniques) and only plain colours... the only value will be collecting this just because it's the second and last CUUSOO set of the dark era (before CUUSOO became worldwide concept)...

Edited March 14, 2012 by ZetoVince

[SilentMode]

I think the concept is worthier of a release than certain other, possibly game-related approvals, and I think it's been very well presented and designed - but I don't think I'd get one either. I'd buy a space station (definitely the ISS if it's ever released), but not a satellite.

In terms of parts, the black panels and the round tiles are the highlights.

[snail2go]

Once again, the quality of reviews on this site impresses me.

Looks really neat, especially the blurb at the beginning.

Let's hope the CUUSOO sets keep coming!

[snefroe]

well i guess it's a nice thing to have, even though it doesn't have much appeal as a display set.

[Behind the Camera]

Great review! As for the set itself, it really does a great job capturing the likeness of the original satellite. The inclusion of the minifigure really adds to it as well (even if it is just the Alien Conquest businessman with different hair).

[HuskerDont]

Nice review and a nice set. It appears the the 1x1 round tile in silver is a new color as well.

[Holodoc]

well i guess it's a nice thing to have, even though it doesn't have much appeal as a display set.

I would add: It's a nice thing to have if you are a "must-have-everything"-collector...

Which I don't call myself.

And for the Cuusoo idea: I had to vote "below average" - there are so many brilliant ideas on Cuusoo (see my sig ), why this? (You don't have to answer, I know the reason)

Skip this one - next set please!

[Hrw-Amen]

So where can you actually buy this as it is not on TLG website for shop at home?

[Sid Sidious]

Does the set come in the bubble wrap and bow, as well as the candy, or did you have someone send it to you from Japan and they put those in there?

I think this is a nice set, but the submarine is cooler.

[CopMike]

So where can you actually buy this as it is not on TLG website for shop at home?

Bricklink is a good start!

Does the set come in the bubble wrap and bow, as well as the candy, or did you have someone send it to you from Japan and they put those in there?

I think this is a nice set, but the submarine is cooler.

TLG doesn't include candy - but the person in Japan that sent me both my sets did, haven't eaten them yet though :laugh!:

[prateek]

Great review. This set is pretty nice, but not one I would buy.

[L@go]

I just received three sets today and promptly built one. I quite like the design and size of it, and the minifig is a great addition, even if it's not that special. The paperback booklet is nice, too.

The 1x1 round tiles are flat silver, if anyone was wondering.

[questforcastle]

Thank you for the review and the poll!

I recently brought home the Hayabusa from a trip to Japan and got around to building it this week. It was a nice build, took me an hour or so, taking my sweet time. It was a bit mixed-feelings though, the rocky base was really nice and perhaps even a bit bold by clean-lined LEGO standards, but the dull solar *panels* not so much. The manual and all the Architecture-like detail there is great, though, and it included English as well as Japanese. It was also quite different from the CUUSOO original submission, which was a bit disappointing. I voted Above Average for both.

My photos and a mini-review here: https://questforcastle.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/cuusoo-hayabusa-ii/ & http://questforcastle.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/cuusoo-hayabusa-i/

Overall, as a just-out-the-dark AFOL learning the tricks of the trade again, I did enjoy building the set!

[rollermonkey]

I'm going to Japan next week. I wonder if the clickbrick store in Palette Town will have this?