2019 Friends Sets - Rumors and Discussion

[Klaus-Dieter]

@Digger of Bricks reports in the 2018 topic that there'll be the following Friends sets for winter:

41354 Andrea's Heart Box

41355 Emma's Heart Box

41356 Stephanie's Heart Box

41357 Olivia's Heart Box

41358 Mia's Heart Box

41359 Heart Box Friendship Pack

41364 Stephanie's Buggy & Trailer

41365 Emma's Art Studio

41366 Olivia's Cupcake Cafe

41368 Andrea's Talent Show

__________________________________________________________

What do you think?

I'm absolutely not interested in all these "boxes". Another cupcake cafe sound boring - the only exception would be if it was two floors big (which I highly doubt). Whether the Art Studio will be on my buy list or not will depend on its size - if it's only a small scenery without house around, then it'll be a pass. Hopefully the Talent Show will this time be placed in some sort of studio BUILDING.

But shouldn't there be a new family house for 2019? (2015-2017-?)

Edited August 28, 2018 by Klaus-Dieter

[Lyichir]

The "boxes" sound like they could potentially be interesting, especially if they imply a set that folds into a container to store the contents of the set like the brick-built briefcase from the Fantastic Beasts theme.

[Fenghuang0296]

I highly doubt that's all. It'd be a very small wave. The only explanation for that would be if TLM2 also incorporated Friends stuff. 

A good house or two would be nice; my village needs more. 

[Mylenium]

Sounds all super-boring. Been there, done that a hundred times. Really seems LEGO have run out of ideas for Friends or simply don't care.

Mylenium

[Aanchir]

On 8/30/2018 at 6:03 AM, Mylenium said:

Sounds all super-boring. Been there, done that a hundred times. Really seems LEGO have run out of ideas for Friends or simply don't care.

Mylenium

People say the same thing about City, Star Wars, Ninjago, etc. when they have sets that feel repetitive, but the reality is that they remain some of the top sellers. From our perspective as AFOLs, repeats of stuff we've already had a chance to buy can feel boring and pointless. But for a theme to be successful it has to keep bringing in new fans (especially kids), and a lot of the sets potential new fans get most excited for are the same sorts of sets that kids in the past have been most excited for… like police stations and fire trucks in LEGO City, or X-Wings and Millennium Falcons in LEGO Star Wars, or dragons and motorcycle duels in LEGO Ninjago, or cafes and houses in LEGO Friends.

In other words, it's not really a matter of "running out of ideas", it's that even ideas that have been done before can sometimes remain some of the most popular ones to choose from.

And anyhow, another thing unifying themes like City, Star Wars, Ninjago, and Friends is that they're BIG. Most people are never going to buy every set that comes out in a particular year from any of these themes. And that means that it doesn't take a whole lot of "new and different" sets to keep long-time fans engaged. There's more than enough room to have the "new and different" stuff AND the "old reliable" stuff.

I suspect there are a lot of Friends sets for next year that we have yet to hear about, and after the variety we saw this year I'm excited to learn more about what's in store!

[Mylenium]

Friends is not "big". You just need to check any of your favorite (physical) stores to see how sets sit on the shelves for months and the massive discounts could further serve as indication that otherwise they wouldn't sell at all. Friends isn't even mentioned among the top five in the latest semi-annual report. I'm sure it's making LEGO some money, but it's not saving their butt, either. And say what you will, that point with constantly repeating themes could be argued either way. With the current lack of quality in the designs I don't think LEGO are luring in that many new users even with traditional subjects...

Mylenium

[Aanchir]

12 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Friends is not "big". You just need to check any of your favorite (physical) stores to see how sets sit on the shelves for months and the massive discounts could further serve as indication that otherwise they wouldn't sell at all. Friends isn't even mentioned among the top five in the latest semi-annual report. I'm sure it's making LEGO some money, but it's not saving their butt, either. And say what you will, that point with constantly repeating themes could be argued either way. With the current lack of quality in the designs I don't think LEGO are luring in that many new users even with traditional subjects...

Mylenium

There are quite a few LEGO Friends sets on the Target.com LEGO best sellers list. And the Smythstoys.com LEGO best sellers list. And the Amazon.com building toys best sellers list . Anecdotal accounts of clearance sales are hardly ever a reliable way of knowing how well the theme is doing, and I can't tell you how many clueless comments I've read from people who thought Ninjago was in its death throes because they always saw Ninjago sets on clearance.

That said, I'm wasn't even using "big" to refer to popularity, but rather to the sheer number of sets in each of these themes. If a theme has 20 to 30 new sets per year it's no big deal if 10 of them resemble stuff from 3 to 5 years ago. Whereas if there are ten or fewer new sets per year and five or more of them are repeats, there's less new stuff to keep older fans (or fans with hand-me-downs from older siblings) invested.

Of course, I'd agree that Friends isn't saving LEGO's butt, but that's because they're not in a situation where they need saving. Even with growth stalled they're still one of the most successful toy companies out there, far from the situation in 2003 where they were losing money on the vast majority of their products and needed major successes like Bionicle to make up the difference. When the company as a whole is financially stable, none of their themes can be said to be "saving" them — they're just pieces that make up the larger success strategy.

Edited September 6, 2018 by Aanchir

[Mylenium]

Depends on the markets, I guess. Playmobil and Mattel stuff are way more popular here in Germany in the girl-themed markets. And I wouldn't take quantity of sets as indication of anything. Let's face it: You could scratch half the sets from the list and it wouldn't make much of a difference in terms of actually usable sets. Friends feels just as artificially inflated as Star Wars...

Mylenium

[Klaus-Dieter]

Thanks to Hothbricks we finally have got now a nearly complete list of the winter wave sets:

41354 Andrea's Heart Box (84 pieces)

41355 Emma's Heart Box (85 pieces)

41356 Stephanie's Heart Box (85 pieces)

41357 Olivia's Heart Box (85 pieces)

41358 Mia's Heart Box (83 pieces)

41359 Heart Box Friendship Pack (199 pieces)

41364 Stephanie's Buggy & Trailer (166 pieces)

41365 Emma's Art Studio (235 pieces)

41366 Olivia's Cupcake Cafe

41367 Stephanie's Obstacle Parcour (337 pieces)

41368 Andrea's Talent Show (492 pieces)

41369 Mia's House (715 pieces)

[Lyichir]

Parkour? That's pretty cool as a concept for a Friends set.

[Lordofdragonss]

Let's hope the cupcake cafe will have a new pieces to make cupcakes.
I/m also happy that best girl finally gets house!

Edited September 14, 2018 by Lordofdragonss

[Aanchir]

19 hours ago, Lyichir said:

Parkour? That's pretty cool as a concept for a Friends set.

I suspect that might just be a translation quirk — "parkour" comes from the French word "parcours" meaning route/course, and Hoth Bricks is a French website.

Interested to see what style of architecture Mia's house has! I don't really know what to expect.

[Soupperson1]

I think a return to the original of template of Friends is probably to gain new friends and then they’ll venture off into more unexplored territories. Anyway my thoughts on the sets are:

* I’m interested to see what makes a Heart Box a Heart Box and is it even brick built? :P I think an exclusive animal in each should be expected, as I don’t think giving each girl one pet (for the most) across multiple sets worked out well. At the very least we’ll probably get new recolours across  these smaller sets and maybe even new outfits for the mini-dolls. 41359 Heart Box Friendship Pack is the most interesting to me though since all the five girls have their own, will they really give the most expensive set to two new characters?

* 41364 Stephanie's Buggy & Trailer sounds like it could be anything from a remake of the 2012 Pet Patrol or 2013 Olivia’s Beach Buggy. I wonder why they chose a buggy over a regular car as those seemed to sell pretty well. Maybe the medium sized piece count suggests a side build the buggy can interact with? I think Stephanie’s lifeguard outfit is a likely inclusion as it’s been promoted in various promotional materials.

* 41365 Emma's Art Studio would be promising if it had a larger piece count. At least it’s a new concept and we’ll probably get some interesting recolours, builds and even stickers for the art. I wonder what’s keeping them from making a museum?  

* 41366 Olivia's Cupcake Cafe is the strangest set title to me because we got a café just last year and from what I can tell it didn’t sell that well. Perhaps the Cupcake part of the title really sold the 2016 set or something? XP I’m confused why Olivia is baking now, but I guess all the others baked at one point so why not her? Thankfully this suggests she’s the employee so she won’t be wearing one of those horribly designed tops they’ve given her so far. A new cupcake case mould would be welcome as all the accessory packs seem to have been retired. I also hope LEGO learnt it lesson about pairing up the girls and keeps it to a minimum, I really don’t understand the need when they all come in $10 sets. Could we finally get a hazel eyed girl or a grey eyed one who isn’t grinning evily? I can only hope. :P

* 41367 Stephanie's Obstacle Course is probably the most unique sounding of all the sets, but once again last years Sports Arena sold pretty poorly and Im not sure how different this will be. It’s a pretty large piece count so I can’t imagine it just being obstacles. I think our token boy is almost guaranteed to be in this set, hopefully he’ll have Olivia’s skin colour for something new.

* 41368 Andrea's Talent Show sounds intriguing but once again we just had her performance stage last year. The piece count for this set is huge so I’d be shocked if it wasn’t a building. I’m not sure how a theatre esc design would work with  Friends though considering all the buildings have open backs and large windows at the front to let in light.

* 41369 Mia's House is obviously a must buy for most Friends fans. I’ll be interested to see if they keep it as close to Olivia’s house in design as possible to try and ride its success.

 I originally thought this was a bland list but all the sets sound interesting when you start to think about them. I’ll be interested to see how different they all look from their previously released counterparts.

[LegoMyMamma]

18 hours ago, Soupperson1 said:

* I’m interested to see what makes a Heart Box a Heart Box and is it even brick built?

Hope for those to be brick-built too.

Here's one I created a while back:

[Lyichir]

The heart boxes might use new heart-shaped plate pieces that I saw on a part database recently (before they removed all the 2019 parts). There was a 6x6 heart plate (basically a 4x4 plate with 2x4 semicircles on two sides). That said, I don't know for sure if those are for Friends—they might be for the mini-doll faction in The Lego Movie 2, like the 3x3 heart plate seen in several of the sets that have been revealed for that theme so far.

[Dorayaki]

Based on the piece info, the possibillity for the boxes being something for daily uses or different plays but not a minidoll scale building is possible. Or could be interesting if both uses are available. Probably there's gonna be a TV episode that shows Emma is creating the boxes to be a friendsip gifts to the main Friends.

Aside from the boxes sets, so far it doesn't hear like something very extraordinary from past regular Friends sets. Just we didn't see Mia's house in the original series, tho her brother Daniel has appeared in a previous tree house set.

 

I also wrote the article about the TV show series which might help understanding the 2018 story canon. Just still based on the set info, it's hard to tell if any of theses sets have a themed story (maybe wait til the next summer wave?)

Also as noted in the article, I think there should be a set featuring Alva and her hi-tech inventions in Heartlake City. If none of the upcoming sets involve this, I'd say TLG is dissapointing little new fans and wastes this reboot.

Other than that, hope that Olivia's mother and Jeremy can be in the respective sets next year.

Edited October 17, 2018 by Dorayaki

[Soupperson1]

On 10/17/2018 at 1:14 PM, Dorayaki said:

Aside from the boxes sets, so far it doesn't hear like something very extraordinary from past regular Friends sets. Just we didn't see Mia's house in the original series, tho her brother Daniel has appeared in a previous tree house set.

 

Also as noted in the article, I think there should be a set featuring Alva and her hi-tech inventions in Heartlake City. If none of the upcoming sets involve this, I'd say TLG is dissapointing little new fans and wastes this reboot.

Other than that, hope that Olivia's mother and Jeremy can be in the respective sets next year.

We say Mia’s house in one of the books, she had a younger set of twin siblings too. It’ll be interesting to see if Daniel will be seen in the house or not.

I thought they initially stated that the reboot would focus less on side characters not available in sets, obviously that was a big lie. XP I find it really irritating that they showcase various characters that little kids who watch the show will never get their hands on in physical form. 

I really don’t like the show’s (reboot and non reboot) trend of trying to force a villain into this peaceful theme. I think characters like Vicky and Lacy are fine as they just start off as kind of rude and become nice. That’s the reason I don’t want Alva in a set. 

I think Olivia’s mom is likely coming soon, though I can’t see her showing up amongst these sets. Jeremy seems unlikely as I can’t see them focusing on a male pop star over a female one, though I guess if he was to appear in a set it would be 41368 Andrea's Talent Show. It would be a bit annoying as he would be yet another blue eyed boy when we have so few eye colours for male mini dolls and we’re still missing Olivia’s skin tone to appear on one. We usually only get three or two male minidolls per wave and one is almost guaranteed to be Mia’s dad.

Edited October 21, 2018 by Soupperson1

[Dorayaki]

On 10/21/2018 at 11:44 PM, Soupperson1 said:

We say Mia’s house in one of the books, she had a younger set of twin siblings too. It’ll be interesting to see if Daniel will be seen in the house or not.

I thought they initially stated that the reboot would focus less on side characters not available in sets, obviously that was a big lie. XP I find it really irritating that they showcase various characters that little kids who watch the show will never get their hands on in physical form. 

I really don’t like the show’s (reboot and non reboot) trend of trying to force a villain into this peaceful theme. I think characters like Vicky and Lacy are fine as they just start off as kind of rude and become nice. That’s the reason I don’t want Alva in a set. 

I think Olivia’s mom is likely coming soon, though I can’t see her showing up amongst these sets. Jeremy seems unlikely as I can’t see them focusing on a male pop star over a female one, though I guess if he was to appear in a set it would be 41368 Andrea's Talent Show. It would be a bit annoying as he would be yet another blue eyed boy when we have so few eye colours for male mini dolls and we’re still missing Olivia’s skin tone to appear on one. We usually only get three or two male minidolls per wave and one is almost guaranteed to be Mia’s dad.

Well, as the post mentioned, the deletion of past characters also include family memebers. And actually, some of the Friends side stories were not ensured to be part of the main canon, since all the "younger siblings" never made physical apperances, not to mention the minidoll kid issue. 

I would like to know if grandparents are shown in family sets one day. Weird enough, in the originla canon Mia's grandmother runs Sunshine Ranch and Andrea's grandmother owns Heartlake Hotel, neither character was made to be physical in respective set.

 

Personally I think the introduction of political villains from both original series and reboot was meant to show that Heartlake is a charming place and the girls don't want those people to change it. The hero versus villain thing is rather something TLG prefer, tho. I don't mind physical villain figures in Friends as long as LEGO City and LEGO Elves can, to me, the advertising works best when kids can enjoy re-creating the story in physical play. The other reason I want an Alva era might be due to my wish for a minidoll robot .

I think Jeremy is a neutral addition to any music-themed set with Andrea. I actually think you just explain the reason why Livi was sent away, just for that TLG want to focus more on Andrea's singer than Livi's.

 

As for more male additions with dark tan skin, at least we have Dean in the main cast. Liam shows up in the reboot lineup but not sure if it is a random choice.

That reminds Matthew from the original series had the most cameos in both cartoon and sets among the physical minor friends.. Kinda a shame TLG tries to replace him with a new love interest for Emma .

Edited October 23, 2018 by Dorayaki

[Klaus-Dieter]

I found another sets list with additional sets and set names of which some could give us a better hint of which is included (set names in brackets are translations by me):

41354 Andreas Herzbox (Andrea's heart box) - 7,99 €

41355 Emmas Herzbox (Emma's heart box) - 7,99 €

41356 Stephanies Herzbox (Stephanie's heart box) - 7,99 €

41357 Olivias Herzbox (Olivia's heart box) - 7,99 €

41358 Mias Herzbox (Mia's heart box) - 7,99 €

41359 Herzbox-Freundschaftsset (heart box friendship box set) -19,99 €

41360 Emmas mobile Tierarztpraxis (Emma's mobile vet office) - 9,99 €

41361 Mias Fohlenstall (Mia's foal stable) - 19,99 €

41363 Mias Outdoor Abenteuer (Mia's outdoor adventure) - 14,99 €

41364 Stephanies Cabrio mit Anhänger (Stephanie's cabriolet with trailer) - 19,99 €

41365 Emmas Künsterstudio (Emma's art studio) - 24,99 €

41366 Olivia's Cupcake-Café (Olivia's cupcake cafe) - 29,99 €

41367 Stephanies Reitturnier (Stephanie's horse show) - 39,99 €

41368 Andreas Talentshow (Andrea's talent show) - 49,99 €

41369 Mias Haus mit Pferd (Mia's house with horse) - 69,99 €

41383 Olivias Hamsterspielplatz (Olivia's hamster playground) - 9,99 €

__________________

My thoughts:

1. Whether the cupcake cafe and the art studio are worth buying them, can only be judged after having seen pics. And I hope that this will be really soon!

2. I planned to maybe buy Mia's house. But since there'll be a horse included, I don't know.

Edited October 26, 2018 by Klaus-Dieter

[Dorayaki]

While wouldn't be surprised to know Mia has horse in the reboot as well, we haven't seen Olivia's police horse who has made numerous cameos in the first year of cartoon. so that's weird to see other girls with their horses in sets first

[Soupperson1]

Just2Good has stated that the new Friends line isn’t selling as well as expected. Why do you guys think this is the case? 

Personally I think that lack of appropriate media supporting this launch I think is kind of ridiculous.

1. Most of the sets are much less curvy then before, I think this makes them stand out less.
2. There’s not enough characters in the sets. While it was no secret that the original Friends line lacked secondary characters, I think it was really jarring this year how many sets more than one friend comes in. 
3. It isn’t really easy to make yourself/your family in minidoll form. LEGO’s studies from 2012 stated that girls like to play in the first person, so I always find it odd how limiting the amount of minidoll faces and hair choices there are. We have yet to see a hazel eyed face and our first grey eyed face was introduced with Vicky and has an evil smirk. Olivia’s skin tone was not given  a face without glasses which I also find a missed opportunity. XP To add, I don’t think the stylized faces help customization either. Why it’s nice for us AFOLs to have each girl stand out perhaps the bland look limited kids imagination less. It works with Barbie anyway. Oh and also please LEGO release more hair colours for minidolls, I know minifigure hairs can be used on them but little girls will likely only collect minidoll related sets. 
4. The girls look different to the show and box art. Mia’s hair is orange in the show and her shorts are blue, Olivia’s hair is nearly always in a full braid, Andrea’s skirt is turquoise and Emma’s skirt is almost completely light blue. 
5. The show isn’t availble in English online.
6. There’s no webisodes, which seemed to be really popular with the core demographic. The show still isn’t avaible in English online. XP 

It should also be noted doll lines rarely last, I think Barbie and American Girl are the only two that have stood the test of time. (Not counting Disney Princess of course!) I think TLM2 will certainly give minidolls a boost. 

[Fenghuang0296]

We'll, the new sets look great. I know people were upset that there seemed to be no Farm incoming in City, but it looks like Friends is filling that role nicely. Between this and the harvester in City, and some hefty modifications, my Thanos will retire peacefully!

Also, Mia's house looks amazing! I'm definitely going to get that for my village. 

[Dorayaki]

On 11/19/2018 at 2:46 AM, Soupperson1 said:

Just2Good has stated that the new Friends line isn’t selling as well as expected. Why do you guys think this is the case? 

Personally I think that lack of appropriate media supporting this launch I think is kind of ridiculous

I think I kinda made research about how the current series is doing. I wasn't too sure about it's availability in English countries, just at least in foreign regions the mainstream cartoon series is svailable in Japanese and Chinese, etc.

Unfortunately I think Friends' history in media is not getting as much attention as Ninjago or other action themes in the AFOL community, so it's hard for others to comment on this. I think the current storyline is good in its own way, it is indeed insteresting and more organized in the settings. But we know this reboots remove some of the characters and settings from the previous one. I'm curious whether this does displease KFOLs who've been supporting the old series. I would just say the biggest mistake is removing Livi who was a very potential character in the original series.

For character designs, I'm not too picky but I do agree Olivia's new hairpiece should be a braid like the one from the cartoon, while Andrea's skin color issue has been there for long time. The lack of characters for play in physical sets is kinda a problem for all minidoll sets to be honest. It is obvious given by the licensed meterials and the storyline of Friends.

The other problem is like the Dr Alva case I mentioned above, there is actually a contradition between the sets and storyline. The storyline kinda wants to become more action/adventure oriented, but the physical sets, still more about building the beautiful Hearlaky City, don't give quite much room for you to achieve that kind of play when it doesn't necessarily come with the scene or key character (like villains) you need. I think TLC should try to pay more attention and give sets that can better reflect on the cartoon so that the media advertisings can work out it best. This should be what they learned from Ninjago and TLM series.

 

As for other competing brands in the toy market, I heard that the new Polly Pocket series target at similiar customers and they also have adventure elements in their new story, which might be similiar with the current Friends one.

Edited November 25, 2018 by Dorayaki

[dr_spock]

 

2019 January Wave set pictures at Friends Bricks Heartlake Times...

http://heartlaketimes.blogspot.com/2018/11/2019-lego-friends-sets-january-wave.html

 

[Fenghuang0296]

I think the real standouts from this wave are the farm-themed sets, which will be an excellent source of parts for MOCs, Mia's house (though, to be honest, now that I get a closer look at it I don't like it as much. The purple is really garish and contrasts badly with the dark flesh.), and Emma's Art Studio. The Art Studio in particular is a must-buy; it's a two-storey building that's only twelve studs wide, but it still looks nice enough that I'd happily put it in my village with no modification required. And the graffiti on the side is gorgeous. 

Edited November 27, 2018 by Feng-huang0296