[REVIEW] 70629 - Piranha Chase

[turk187]

On 11/30/2017 at 5:19 AM, makoy said:

Apparently, as more people get their hands on this set and more people complain about, the more that I feel it's a bigger oversight than I initially thought.

Apart from that, as with my verdict, it is really a great little set.

Don't let that head put you off. I switched out the head for her CMF figure and it fits in fine. The black was unnecessary. The rest of the set is fine.

[makoy]

18 hours ago, turk187 said:

Don't let that head put you off. I switched out the head for her CMF figure and it fits in fine. The black was unnecessary. The rest of the set is fine.

It already put me off but it is not the only thing that dictated my final verdict. If you see one of the images in my review, what you wrote down is exactly what I did. I swapped the head of the CMF Misako with LID's head, and moved on. I also think it's better that way.

However,  If TLG wish to adhere with their claimed quality standards, then the issue with the light ink on black minifigure needs to be addressed.

[turk187]

5 hours ago, makoy said:

It already put me off but it is not the only thing that dictated my final verdict. If you see one of the images in my review, what you wrote down is exactly what I did. I swapped the head of the CMF Misako with LID's head, and moved on. I also think it's better that way.

However,  If TLG wish to adhere with their claimed quality standards, then the issue with the light ink on black minifigure needs to be addressed.

Your review has images where you compare the LID figure with the CMF figure but you never show or mention a head swap. TLG should have just left out the black head when they saw the result, its  a mark against them, but they rarely make mistakes like this.

[Oederland]

On 6.12.2017 at 2:43 AM, makoy said:

Hi Oederland, thanks for dropping by and adding your thoughts into my review. I have several Sushi chef and I have several variants of Sensei Wu from TLNM but I have not seen those issues you mentioned? Maybe you had a bad batch or something? There are some variation in production and this could be the issue with yours.

The colour difference on the Sushi chef parts is really a subtle one, so it might well depend on how critical one is. The Sensei Wu torso part is definitely not "whiteish white" in my case, but a bit of beige, and it's consistent.

49 minutes ago, turk187 said:

TLG should have just left out the black head when they saw the result, its  a mark against them, but they rarely make mistakes like this.

Certainly, one can replace the head. But TLC should have noticed that the printing does not work out already on the very first prototype. So why not e.g. print black on a yellow head, use a grey head (in which case the colour difference might be less pronounced), use a yellow head without the details? I would also not agree that it's a rare issue. The printing "mismatch" issue also holds for Ivy Walker from 70620 (the white on the legs is not white - the upper part printing also doesn't really merge well with the legs), Edna Walker from 70614 (again the brown-tan colour on the legs and the torso has been photoshopped (see here for a comparison between official "photo" and how the minifig turns out to be). The same holds for the tan "rice farmer" minifig variant = Shen-Li from 70609 / Jamanakai Villager from 70620), although in this instance, the issue on the legs is much less pronounced. If it's impossible to print certain colours on certain parts then just don't do it, print dark colours on brighter parts, whatever, and if one really has to, then show the minifigs the way they turn out to be.

Edited December 7, 2017 by Oederland

[turk187]

2 hours ago, Oederland said:

The colour difference on the Sushi chef parts is really a subtle one, so it might well depend on how critical one is. The Sensei Wu torso part is definitely not "whiteish white" in my case, but a bit of beige, and it's consistent.

Certainly, one can replace the head. But TLC should have noticed that the printing does not work out already on the very first prototype. So why not e.g. print black on a yellow head, use a grey head (in which case the colour difference might be less pronounced), use a yellow head without the details? I would also not agree that it's a rare issue. The printing "mismatch" issue also holds for Ivy Walker from 70620 (the white on the legs is not white - the upper part printing also doesn't really merge well with the legs), Edna Walker from 70614 (again the brown-tan colour on the legs and the torso has been photoshopped (see here for a comparison between official "photo" and how the minifig turns out to be). The same holds for the tan "rice farmer" minifig variant = Shen-Li from 70609 / Jamanakai Villager from 70620), although in this instance, the issue on the legs is much less pronounced. If it's impossible to print certain colours on certain parts then just don't do it, print dark colours on brighter parts, whatever, and if one really has to, then show the minifigs the way they turn out to be.

You're obviously paying much closer attention to this stuff than I am. I just build them and stick them on my shelf.

[makoy]

@turk187 it is in my Flickr album but I realised that I posted it in 2018 forum, not in my review:
 

If there's any take away from this --- is that there is a consensus among LEGO set reviewers that LID's head is horrendous. I hope that TLG take this feedback sincerely so they will not overlook the issue again.

@Oederland Ok, I get what you mean now. There's definitely going to be some variation in colour shading. I think it is just more pronounced on darker shade of plastic when lighter ink is applied on them (e.g. LID's minifig head case). The issue can be controlled because there are many cases that it could have been worse, but the final result is actually acceptable. The issue with the Sushi chef is that the yellow ink for bald head is brighter in my copy... at least the yellow ink is consistent with the yellow ink on the torso "skin" colour. For economical reason, it is cheaper to use ink so I understand why it looks that way. I don't believe the production use colorimeter to measure the variation of the colour shades so, at least in my standards, this kind of colour variation is fine.

[WhiteFang]

Finally bought and built this. I love the trishaw but as for the Piranha Mech. It is cute but I transform into parts pack as I intend to keep those Mech out of my ninja universe. I used Series 12 Battle Goddness head and replace it with the Lady Iron Dragon. I fully agree that is an unacceptable flaw by my minifigures standard. 

[josykay]

Nice set, and I love Lady Iron Dragon... But the head printing obviously ruins it. Does anyone know, if newer versions, with better qualities exist? Because that way... I am not really interested in her... Although, her quiver, hairpiece and body parts are still very nice.

[Good Old Dude]

I bought it today,It's a great set!

[Faefrost]

It's a nice little set for the price. I bought it largely as I wanted the civilian Ray and the Rickshaw to add to the "Ninjatown" portion of my modular city. I quite like the Rickshaw. With some very minor tweaking you can also use it to recreate the scene from the original Ninjago Pilot where Wu tells his students "we will take the Horse Carriage!". The Piranha Mech is a well executed delight, and possibly my favorite villain vehicle from the movie sets. It's nicely compact but does what it needs to and has a good mix of believability and absurdity. At $19.99 this would be a must have set... except for that godawful Lady Iron Dragon fig. The fig is so bad it knocks a star off the set. There was no excuse for that head in todays age. Heck if you just replace the black head with movie misako's head it looks much much better.  The figure in no way benefits from the black sides to the head. Note they used a recolor of that same hairpiece for Harumi in the season 8 sets, with a yellow head and it looks fantastic.