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There's a Chinese New Year parade in Hong Kong with floats (actually TLC has already taken part with an own float as well there). So it is not an event that you might only encounter e.g. in San Francisco, but it is still quite specific.

Seems they ran out of ideas. The Lunar New Year Ice Festival set looks like leftovers from Winter Village. I wouldn't mind, but even the implementation is boring, why not a nice ice sculpture instead of this mess with the slide? The small vignettes are okay, but that's it then. Not sure why they go with this cheap yellowish gold for the Caishen minifig and his treasures. Chinese brands like Decool and Pantasy are able to produce golden parts, but TLC can't?

Thank you! I only follow news for China Toy Expo, Toy & Edu, and Hong Kong Toys & Games Fair, didn't think of other more general fairs. Update: There is already a first preview report about the booth, see https://posts.careerengine.us/p/6185264db493c74ff4770ff1. No photos of the sets are shown, but one can see the displays used. Aside from the tiger costume minifig we can also expect a Caishen / God of Wealth minifig and a few more less interesting minifigs with interesting accessoires though (@ moderators: if this link is considered a leak please remove it, thank you).

If I may ask - which fair do you have in mind? The China Toy Expo was planned for late October, but it was shifted to Feb 23rd to 25th. I'm not aware of other Chinese toy fairs at the moment, but this doesn't have to mean much.

I could imagine that we get another dragon dance set and/or another reunion dinner set. After all, these are probably the most common associations with CNY together with lion dances. Since TLC has introduced their CNY theme in 2019 various Chinese brands have come up with their own sets as well. Actually TLC was not the first one, BanBao had released a dragon dance set with two dragons and a pailou (gate) a few years before, but this remained a single set - so it's really TLC which turned it into a major theme when it comes to bricks. Although there's a great variety of sets it boils down to just a few topics, reunion dinner, dragon dance, lion dance, decorated entrances. There have also been three pop-up books, a few brick-built figures similar to BrickHeadz (Chinese gods including Caishen, people dressed as lions / dragons) and a few music boxes (a dancing lion, rotating kumquat trees, a pavilion with a reunion dinner inside). Despite the many sets there are more or less only three "unusual" sets, 1) a square with some traditional Chinese architecture for lantern festival 2) a departure platform with a train (static) for when people go home to visit their families 3) a theatre pavilion. So while there is room for "creative" sets also with regard to content you risk that the association with CNY becomes too loose. Then again, with 80107 TLC has shown that they are options. I guess people were especially attracted by the set for being an Asian garden setting with some architectural elements and not so much for being a CNY set. After all, the statue and the banners could easily be replaced by other elements and then there would be no obvious relation to CNY / lantern festival anymore. Still, it also works well as CNY set.

Last year pictures became available in early November (if I remember correctly, which also corresponds to when this thread was started).

Can we already take for granted that the series continues into 2022?

Please keep in mind that the original novel has a strong focus on religious aspects. Based on the term "monkey kid" I was assuming TLC would focus on the first few chapters in which Wukong fools around with the other monkeys, trys to become immortal, fights with certain demons, shows up at the Dragon King's palace to obtain the pole weapon. This is basically what the mentioned sets by Chinese brand Winner focused on. Enlighten / Qman in turn had a single set reflecting the waterfall where the monkeys live, and the others were about him fighting against certain demons in the later chapters, including the Bull Demon King. The sets were all more or less like mythological sets should be, except two weird vehicles in the Enlighten theme and as far as I recall one weird vehicle for the Winner theme. Enlighten and Winner also had large brick-built mech-type figures, however, the traditional characters can transform, basically growing in size massively. Thus, these mech things aren't non-mythological at all. Now, TLC should be well aware of these sets, and I have strong doubts that they would come up with something similar just because those brands could make fun of TLC, stating that it's now them whose ideas are stolen. None of the two Chinese brands had focused on the journey itself, with the Buddhist monk, the sand monk, and Zhu Bajie (in fact, there were three other Chinese brands who released corresponding minifigs, but really just minifigs). However, I'm not sure whether TLC would like to come up with a Buddhist monk. I mean, we got a temple fair for Chinese New Year, but there is no temple. It's the entrance to a temple at best. The temple fair also doesn't have to do anything with a real temple fair. They would sell amulets or whatever, but not toy bears. There wouldn't be stalls with tiled roofs. However, two of the stalls resemble those small "towers" (bell tower and drum tower) which can readily be seen inside the temples. Thus, they do refer to certain elements, but it's far away from any religious meaning. Changing the context, e.g. switching to a certain sci-fi universe, might well help to solve that issue for the monkey kid theme as well. The characters could still be recognized as what they are in the novel, but they wouldn't be identical. It's also worth a note that it's a bunch of sets. Maybe it starts with the monkey being born, and then being shifted into another era. Or it's really a kid that turns into Monkey King, and fights against certain demons. Maybe the kid has to play different levels, some of these are in a mythological setting, others in a sci-fi setting (in which that bull minifig would fit very well), others take place nowadays. Or it's a complete mess, with some miracle leading to characters from different eras being confronted with each other. In any case, based on the logo, and based on the many sets, I could imagine we get different variants of the main characters.

As the brand was mentioned in this thread: The monkey king theme by Chinese brand Enlighten / Qman was introducted in late 2018. Enlighten / Qman has been around for a while, in fact since the late 90ies, and they have been doing several Asian-themed sets for a while now. This includes characters from Thee Kingdoms era (Enlighten 1501A and 1501B), typical wuxia characters (Enlighten 1504) and a few other "Asian" minifigs like a Buddhist monk. In 2017, they have released a whole theme based on famous novel Investiture of the Gods. It's futuristic with weird vehicles and such, but it includes several nice characters like e.g. Jiang Ziya or Nezha. Enlighten / Qman has received an official licence for the Nezha anime introduced last year, and they have another official licence for the anime Legend of Deification, with the movie being scheduled for Chinese New Year 2020 but now postponed due to shutdowns / coronavirus. The sets for the animes are sold under the "keeppley" brand, a new brand with which Enlighten / Qman tries to target somewhat older kids. For these themes, they use their new minifigs with super-large manga-style heads. Apart from that, Chinese brand Winner had a theme focusing on monkey king well before, dating back to 2016 or 2017. Thus, if anything, then TLC has tried to copy their Wukong minifigs (just like their official logo for their new theme sharing some "interesting" similarities with the Dragon Ball logo), as they are interested in growing big in China, and themes dedicated to Chinese culture should be helpful for that purpose (just like Chinese New Year). In general, the Chinese brick brands have advanced massively in the last one or two years. E.g. concerning CNY, they have introduced a bunch of original sets, and unsurprisingly, they focus on Asian culture in other contexts as well. Search for e.g. Xingbao XB-25002 to get an idea (there were ships like that in historic China, although the colour pattern might well be a bit over-the-top), there are modulars by Xingbao, there are sets with more traditional, historically accurate sceneries by Panlos and Sembo while Cayi has focused on characters from Chinese opera and so on and so forth. Thus, TLC has to throw in their own material to stay on top. Concerning the new theme, the monkey face in the logo looks like a "traditional" monkey king. Of course, it could well be combined with futuristic elements, or it could also be some kid from nowadays dressing up as a monkey, or being somehow transformed, ... The leaked bigfig could well be Sha Wujing. Traditionally he has black hair, but in more recent movies (there's a bunch of those) he also appeared with blue skin and red or reddish-brown hair (see the trailers for The Monkey King 2 and The Monkey King 3). Also check out this picture. Seems TLC was heavily inspired by Chinese movies. Anyway, it's funny to see that Chinese brands are turning to officially licenced themes (Wandering Earth, Shanghai Fortress, Detective Chinatown 3, The Rescue, The Untamed, Three Lives Three Worlds) while TLC switches to "inspirations" if "useful".

The monkey king looks weird. This red sausage-like thing extending from his hair, is it an extra long tail seen from a weird angle or is it meant to represent the feathers / hair decoration? In case of the latter, then TLC really did a very poor job. It should look like this: If one prefers less flexible parts, one could go with something like this: Anyway. Funny to see how TLC fails where "cheap" Chinese brands have created unique molds like those two seen above. The armour piece is also just plain boring, a Chinese brand has already released a monkey king with a unique, shiny golden armour several years ago, and last year another Chinese brand has released a monkey king with the gold ring (which allows the monk to control the monkey king) being part of the hair piece, not just being printed on the head. But let's see, maybe the printing is nice at least. Most of the other minifigs look interesting though, especially the flamingo piece. Just disappointed about the monkey king...

I was really looking forward to this set, but I can't help the designers of the set either have never seen a dragon dance in action before or they just didn't care. The mechanism is in no way incredible when considering how a dragon dance works. I'm not talking about sophisticated performances of a dragon dance. But considering the price, and assuming that the product is completely produced and packed in the Lego factory in China (which should decrease costs massively), I would have expected TLC to invest at least a bit more time into the mechanism, as this is the only play feature of the set. You can't do anything else, e.g. take off the minifigs and the dragon and let them run through your town or whatever, as it's only separate sections of a dragon. Now ignoring those big black bars, and ignoring that TLC was not willing to include additional minifigs for the remaining bars (and also unable to adjust the design so that four minfigs are sufficient to carry the dragon), you get a very bumpy up-and-down motion. The most ridiculous feature is the rotating pearl though. Well, it's great to see how one can "change directions of motion" with bricks, but this doesn't have to do anything with the real thing.

Articulated medium short legs have been released by clone brands years ago. The Chinese brand SY already had one in 2014, possibly earlier. Dunno why it took so long for Lego to come up with something equivalent.

Off-topic, but maybe a clarification, "winning" depends on point of view. That company had to change their logo and some boxarts, but that's it then. They can happily copy products like they did before. It was certainly not that all those brands are going to disappear (in fact, the number is increasing).

Interesting to hear different opinions, but let me ask a few questions: How long do children play with TLC Castle sets or castle sets in general? I would guess that it becomes "uncool" at some point, just because that's how children often behave. In case they have played with something at the age of 6 they might no longer be interested e.g. at the age of 10 because they want to show that they have "grown up". Children get in touch with the concepts of "classic" knights, pirates, cowboys very early (at least in Germany, at least based on my own childhood and that of my friends), be it a book or as a fancy dress, and they will stop at some point - either by turning to conceptually related PC games, books, series, or continue with that type of toy, but "upgrade" to a (vaguely) related theme with "cool" features like Ninjago, Nexo Knights. With regard to recycling, I'm not sure whether there is any difference between the two brands. The "Fantasy era" was certainly different, but the last two Castle lines were pretty conventional overall (leaving aside any juniorization aspects). I'm not saying that there were no new play features, but there wasn't really anything new which made the series appear like an innovation. Playmobil in the meantime also had some conceptual repetitions, but they also had new ones (the 2014 one is certainly a "Fantasy" one, while the one before was a "classic" one). And TLC in general is really master of recycling, consider tons of helicopters, police sets, ATVs and so on ;) Anyway. It's not simply about when a new line is introduced and how close it is to the previous one. If there are no sets or toys of a certain type at all, then children will skip that theme completely or go with that brand which is available. At least I can't imagine a kid looking for classic castle stuff in 2015, failing to find any brick-built theme, to switch to Castle a few years later just because TLC has decided to reactivate the theme. With regard to quality and costs, I have no idea about Playmobil material. It might well be cheaper, but you also get "more material" with a Playmobil fig compared to a TLC minifig. But leaving this aside, and even if a small TLC set has to cost xyz % more than a Playmobil set, then TLC could still provide a greater variety of small sets. Not one ~ 10 € Castle set, but several ones at the same time. Leaving aside that I don't believe in Lego having to cost as much as it does. TLC has made lots of profit, which is perfectly fine for a company. But considering the bunch of clone brands, with some of them even having more complex printing by now (more colours, back-printing on the whole legs, detailed side printings, ...) and still being much cheaper, I conclude that Lego is overpriced. Yeah, there's copyright infringement with regard to the minifig, the clone brands might just copy excisting molds, but TLC has been using the minifig and various molds for decades by now, so you can't claim that they have to spend any more money on that. It's basically just copying their past ;) The last time I checked the "Bricks & Parts" section their brown horse (without saddle) was about 5 €. This is just ridiculous. You get about 8 clone brand horses together with saddles for the same price. And well, this could be a problem in case of any Castle theme. For a Castle theme, you want to have lots of knights and horses and stuff, but in case that's unavailable (or only indirectly through large and expensive sets) then your parents will buy different toys.

It's important to be aware that Playmobil has a different strategy. Their sets are available in the shops for a much longer time than TLC sets, e.g. the two castles 6000 and 6001 were introduced in September 2014 and are still in the shelves. They also release a lot more smaller sets than TLC. Some details: The Playmobil Knights theme introduced in 2014 consists of eight sets within the range 8 - 25 € plus the two large castle sets (100 and 150 €). These sets were released at the same time, not split into different waves. In addition, there are usually several ways to get additional sets related to Knights, although not directly linked to the included fractions. E.g. in 2014, they also offered four sets with a mounted knight each, with a unique heraldy (10 €). Now and then they offer sets of two minifigs that help to expand the theme. They also have adopted TLC's CMF concept with their series of blind bags, most of the time with at least one minifig fitting into a Castle theme. Finally, there's a long tradition of so-called "special" or "specialPLUS" sets which cost about 3 - 4 €, usually providing a minifig and equipment (in the sense of TLC's polybags), in case of Castle / Knights usually with unique heraldy or otherwise "interesting" (e.g. a hunter). In the last few years those "special" sets haven't provided that many Castle minfigs though. The "Super 4" theme (it's accompanied by a TV series and basically mixes several themes = Castle, Pirates, Sci-Fi, Fairy Tale) introduced in September 2015 featured some more sets that fit into a medieval setting. Again, the emphasis was on small to intermediate sets, four sets between 4,30 - 11 €, one set with among others a king for 27 € and the largest set, a transportable caste, for 55 €. Thus, it's easier to become attached to the Castle theme in case of Playmobil, as it's easier / more likely to receive small presents, keeping the theme attractive. And the theme is available all the time (similar to TLC's City). Basically Playmobil Knights is like the old TLC Castle, which also offered a great variety of small sets. Personally, I also have to admit that the last few Castle themes turned out to be a bit boring. I have mentioned some clone brands before, as I think this is very useful to see what other companies offer. Why has TLC never ever released anything like e.g. a throne room like this set? Castle is much more than the usual "wall section / tower" and carriage sets with rather crappy design, the infantile catapults. It would be so easy to offer a great variety of sets, as LEGO is about BRICKS (in contrast to Playmobil). Then again, the main focus nowadays seems to be rather "special parts", not generic pieces.

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.

No, it's certainly not historically accurate, but I'd say it was never meant to be so given the huge exaggeration. The wheels should be somewhere within half the size to two thirds of that of a human. The roof is also much too high / far off from the head of a sitting minifig. Considering the overall size it might have been better to go with the roof and platform being six studs wide instead of only four. The use of the two red car parts is a nice idea, the rest looks a bit dull (independent of the scaling), especially the back. The rickshaw puller is another beautiful civilian minifig. It's great to see that TLC has come up with several of those for the movie theme, but I fear we will never see them in any smaller sets (which could have been great for "army building" / generic Asian dioramas). Overall, I'd say it's a nice set. Rickshaw, certainly a bit ridiculous, but I guess this is what children like. Unfortunately I don't remember how it looked like in the movie, but even then it's easy to imagine funny scenes in which the poor guy has to give his best to escape from the baby shark mech. The printing issue is really inacceptable for TLC though. The Lady Iron Dragon minifig just looks like a minifig from one of the poorer clone brands, in which the company decides to photoshop the photos to end up with a more appealing look and to hide the poor quality (which TLC has already done before themselves on e.g. the two icecream sellors from the Lego Movie set though). It is also not a random trivial minifig but probably what one could call the only new *main character* from that wave, which makes it especially annoying (although there should be no quality issues like this even on the most boring and uninteresting minifig head). If it were impossible to print yellow onto a black head, then they should have turned to a grey head to reduce the issue (like they did before as seen here), or they could just have gone with a yellow head. It seems TLC just doesn't care about this any more, they make an attempt and that's it then. The sushi chef from CMF series also has some apparent colour inconsistencies, with the (printed) yellow of the (white) bandana piece not really matching the yellow of the head, and CMF Sensei Wu also looks somewhat weird with the upper body part being a yellowish white and the "whiteish" white of the skirting robe. Of course, it's much less of an issue in those instances, but I feel disappointed nonetheless considering their price. I've also observed the inconsistent clutch power as mentioned by makoy in different minifigs from the recent CMF series. So well, I don't know whether it's a good idea to encounter clone brands by keeping the TLC sets expensive and reducing quality at the same time.

A brand called Winner has released several sets, small ones and large ones, around the "Journey to the West" legend / novel. Then there is a Enlighten minifig series focusing on the "Three Kingdoms" era, which has also been done by JIESTAR and some of their subbrands before (those are really very "basic" though), a whole Enlighten theme interpreting "The Creation of the Gods", a recent Enlighten minifig series focusing on another very famous novel, "Water Margin". Finally, there are dozens of minifig sets by different brands about the "King of Glory" online game, which includes various historic characters (although most of these are really very modern interpretations, e. g. a poet appears as a rock star ;) ). In any case, these legends are very famous in China, also the main characters. Thus there's no reason why a company like Lego should not be able to focus on one of those stories, as they are really part of the culture. For Lego, it could be useful to release similar sets when focusing on the Chinese market (like Oxford has done with its themes on Korean history / legends), but it would be difficult to sell those in other regions. In principle, they could try to market the theme differently in non-Asian countries. E.g. the Winner "Journey to the West" sets mainly consist of animal minifigs, thus in principle similar to Chima. People in Western countries wouldn't have to know what the minifigs represent as long as the theme is attractive. But still, it might be much easier for an international company to more or less market the same sets the same way world-wide. And with themes not directly linked to certain legends they are much more flexible. In case they run well, add another wave with e.g. "ice age" animals or give them certain upgrades. It would be difficult if one had to take into account another market in which the sets have to have a specific cultural meaning. Finally, there's also always the danger of cultural insult. E.g. in some of the Oxford sets, historic Korean warriors (the set names refer to certain commanders) fight against what turns out to be Japanese invaders. This works well as these Oxford sets are basically restricted to the Korean market (I've tried to order some of those sets via Chinese shopping sets, turns out to be impossible). Now imagine Lego releases something similar by accident, some minifig actually represents a stereotyped stranger, maybe some Western guy traveling to the East. As another example, Enlighten has released a Teutonic Knight, including a body printing of the Cross of the Teutonic Order (which seems to have been that famous that it was copied by another Chinese brand ;) ). If Lego were to release anything similar they might have huge problems. This is probably also the reason why TLC's historic themes never really refer to history directly or in a way where there is no real conflict (like the conquistador minifig, which did not have any counterpart within the series), but interpretations of knights, pirates with arbitrary fractions. I mean, there really is a difference between e.g. Chinese thinking of their historic culture and e.g. Europeans. It's no issue to have toys that represent certain commanders from eras in which thousands and thousands of people were killed. Now think of a TLC kingdoms theme maybe focusing on the wars between England and France. Very unlikely to survive the first weeks. Just my two cents, as I think this is an interesting aspect.

Yes, e.g. the ghetto blaster should be easy to identify. However, so far I have only seen opened boxes, and then it might become tricky to "find" a certain minifig as the three versions might already be gone. I used to buy a few random bags for the first few series, and search for minifigs that I really wanted in case I didn't get them by chance, as I quite liked the "surprise" aspect. However, with current prices I keep it at a minimum. I'm not a collector in a strict sense anyway, there are minifigs that I like (e.g. those I mentioned fit into what I call "underground/street culture minifigs"), but in case it's not that easy to find them I just skip them. I mean, for slightly less than 3 € (thanks to my girlfriend in China ;) ) I could also get e.g. a unique punker minifig from Enlighten including a policeman and a policecar or for < 1 € a unique rockstar minifig with some stage equipment (just in case, Enlighten produces only unique designs for quite some time in contrast to clone brands like Lepin, although some of the Enlighten sets are clearly inspired by TLC sets) . And now tell me that TLC bricks are four times as expensive due to having four times better quality or due to TLC not producing in China ;)

I had the same impression when buying my first bag of the Ninjago movie series the day before yesterday. One bag costs 3.79 - 3.99 € depending on shop here in Germany, which is really quite expensive for a single minfig. Anyway. I took a random bag, and it turned out to be Jay Walker, which I'm not really interested in. The printing is relatively basic (no back printing, just a few black lines on the legs), but okay. However, the legs are already a little loose, I guess it will become worse over time (at least this was what happened to e.g. my samurais from CMF Series 3 and Sensei Wu from the 2255 spinner set although I don't "play" with them). I had hoped these quality issues had been solved, but it seems they go with poorer quality again. It's going to be interesting to see whether the bootleg brands turn out to deliver better minifigs... the first minifigs of this series have already been copied. Leaving this aside, does anyone already have some bump codes? So far they have worked well for me (I have read that others failed, maybe it's due to having different codes for different countries/continents?), and I always feel a little stupid when touching those bags ;) And this time, there are even more minifigs and only three of each type within one of these boxes as far as I understood, so I would really prefer working with codes ;) I would be interested in Lloyd Garmadon, Ghetto Blaster Cole, Gong & Guitar Rocker, N-Pop Girl, and maybe Misako. Thanks for any help!

Well, I think for a "big bang theme" your product line must be omnipresent nowadays. A more traditional theme would be less omnipresent though, at least if you don't want it to be accompanied by a TV series, ... like stated, it would be interesting whether children rate traditional Castle sets as boring or as interesting but as less as interesting as e. g. Nexo Knights. Toy companies might not have thought of this as much in the past, they might just have gone with "some" castle. Nowadays, with lots of marketing research, lots of TV series, ... they might have realized that one can increase profit with certain types of toys. This obviously only works if they find customers. If no one were interested in Nexo Knights then the theme would have disappeared. But it has not. So there must be people who buy theses sets. Personally, I'm not that happy when it comes to Nexo Knights (or Ninjago). Not due the theme being a mixture of sci-fi and castle and fantasy elements, not due to having no proper Castle sets - I don't like it since it is accompanied by TV series, comics, ... It does have an impact on children in case they are confronted with a certain story everywhere, they want to get this and that set or item. Then the TV series is replaced by another one and you have to buy some new toys, the old ones fall into oblivion as it's no longer in vogue. And maybe you also have to buy a new schoolbag and a new T-shirt as it's still Ninjago and not Nexo Knights. This was still much less of an issue in my childhood. There was City and Castle and Space and these themes were around all the time, some sets disappeared and were replaced by other sets, a new fraction would appear once in a while, but continuity was preserved. And while a certain fraction might have been the first one you played with, and new stuff often being attractive just due to being new, it was much less of an issue to being "in vogue".

Well, maybe it is the case. You might well be able to maximize profit with big bang themes and licensed stuff. If TLC knew that they could gain more money with a traditional Castle theme they came up with such a theme. Not because they are emotionally attached to their clients and want their dreams to become true, but because they are a company and a company wants to earn money. Ideally, you have emotionally attached clients who buy a 200 € set to get a certain Star Wars spaceship with a never-ever-done-before minifig. A few years later you come up with a new interpretation of that spaceship and that minifig and so on and so forth.

Thanks for providing these information! Now obviously, it would be good to know how the more traditional Castle sets that children could choose from looked like. If they were designed poorly, anything would have scored better. ;) And I think there have been poor designs when it comes to Castle - I gave some examples before like the structure in 70403, but I also can't share the enthusiasm of some on 10223, for me it's a superlarge gatehouse without gate, making the structure pointless - what would you want to defend if one were to use that gate? IMO this set was clearly aiming at AFOLs and not at children, there's the "combine 2 into 1" aspect, which probably has hardly any relevance for children (at least in my childhood my parents or those of friends wouldn't have bought an identical expensive set twice), there's the reference to classic era with the black falcon. However, as stated myself somewhere before, I could well imagine that children have different preferences nowadays, which is why I mentioned products of other toy brands/companies. In this regard it would have been interesting whether the more traditional Castle sets scored badly or whether they scored well overall, maybe as well as in the past, but less well than Nexo Knights. In the latter, for TLC it would be absolutely reasonable to go with Nexo Knights then due to having to have a limited number of active themes, but it wouldn't mean children have no more interest in traditional Castle. Now considering the last few years I have the impression that fantasy has become an elemental part of entertainment industry, consider Harry Potter, consider LotR / The Hobbit, consider various fantasy role-playing games. When looking at other toys I have the impression that traditional castle toys are retracting, possibly only interesting for young children. Which would maybe explain the "juniorification" with bright colours, simpler models and such. But in any case, if it were just TLC preferring other themes to maximize profit then other companies could enter the market, but as pointed out (and ignoring the clone sets), I don't really see any brand that came up with a "traditional castle" theme recently except for Sluban, in which the more traditional buildings are mixed with "fantasy/hero" elements though when it comes to the figures, thus maybe their theme is more like fantasy role-playing games (they have ninjas, they have mechs). Well, at least some of us tried to provide examples of things that might work well, strategies how to make a traditional Castle theme more appealing to kids, so this statement is a little rude in this generalised form. Some might obviously focus more on their own passion ("what do I like" instead of "what do kids like"), but this is justified as long as they spend their money on TLC products (and I do think that AFOLs are a relevant client base for TLC when it comes to some sets at least). And of course we can suggest things only, we can't really test this (except on our own children in case we have some). Playmobil has changed its politics as well though. They have Porsche sets nowadays, they just introduced a whole Ghostbusters theme, they have a Dragons theme, they invented a TV series called Super 4. With regard to their Castle theme, it is also no longer directly comparable to the Castle theme of the 90ies. The still-running theme includes dragons and dwarves and goblins (?), and they don't introduce as many different sets as often as they have done in the past. However, there is a larger "individualization" when it comes to equipment, printing and such, of which a future TLC Castle theme might benefit as well.

Regarding the tournament, maybe something like 1584/6060 from 1989? In fact, TLC already had released a joust set back in 1979. I also had a Playmobil tournament set as a child (there was another set with the king and the queen and some guards). A similar brick-built version might require too many pieces though (or would result in too high a price). However, it could also be in the sense of this one, thus a smaller variant and similar in size like 6095 from 2000. The grandstand part could be made modular so that additional versions of the set can be attached to extend it. Obviously it might be wiser to go with one set with a more noble grandstand part with a "royal" baldachin, and two additional sets (for fraction A and B) with a more ordinary grandstand each. Actually I already like 6060. It's too colourful for me (I prefer 6095 in that regard), and there might be better pieces for the roof construction nowadays, but that's the details. In any case, a set like this should be much cheaper than 10223 Kingdoms Joust. In principle, one would just have to eliminate the gate and the towers (which, honestly speaking, do not really have to do anything with a joust anyway) to end up with an affordable set.

It might obviously depend on the children, and a kid might change his/her preferences when growing up as well. E. g. I remember my nephews to have lots of TLC sets combined into bizarre structures while I tried to keep MOCs as realistic as possible. It might be the case that some children are (still) unable to cope with different fractions (at a certain age), and/or that they prefer a clear distinction between good and bad guys. Other children might have different preferences. For that reason it would be interesting if we were able to discuss with someone from TLC, someone who is into marketing research and who knows about current needs and wishes of children. Maybe their preferences have changed over time. Maybe they still have the very same preferences but are guided into a different direction due to TV series, spots, ... maybe toy companies try to guide them, maybe toy companies just follow trends that they have detected in their research. However, I doubt that the majority of kids wants e. g. battle packs to just repeat soldiers with the very same face expressions, ... over and over again.