Lyichir

I don't know if I agree with all your adjustments... I feel like the closed mouth and eyebrow angle/shape on the fig look better, and the wavy hair (while not accurately textured) provides a more similarly boxy silhouette than the more rounded piece you've used, and I feel like that boxy shape is more essential to Oak's classic look. And while it's not ideal, I fully understand the choice to have a printed backpack on Red since the shape of the FRLG backpack was so specific—I reckon if the choice was between an existing backpack piece that had more "body" but was inaccurate to the in-game version and a printed one that was fully accurate to its in-game appearance, the latter was probably preferable (a new mold would probably not be practical since again, the backpack in FRLG is not shared with other characters or protagonists and if new molds were an option I'd prefer things like hairpieces that contribute more to figs' looks from front view to be prioritized). Ultimately these sorts of compromises are part of why I thought a minifig-based approach wouldn't be ideal in the first place. If you need new molds for every small Pokémon (unusable outside of that theme) as well as every major character's hair and accessories, it'd be extremely hard to sustain at the kind of scale a franchise as big and varied as Pokémon deserves. It makes more sense to me to focus on the creatures in a buildable form and, if minifigures are necessary, to use them in a limited way that doesn't force the majority of sets to conform to that standard.

The tricky thing about having both staircases and open backs for playability is that increasing the depth of the building to fit stairs makes it harder to reach all the way inside even with an open back (especially with large adult hands). Your solution seems to work pretty well, with the caveat that those upper floor plates aren't supported by much and adding additional supports could reduce the ability to reach in easily. One other option that might be practical is having the staircase on a hinged section behind the rest of the building, so that there's a practical way to move between floors but the stairs can also be moved out of the way to more easily access the rest of the interior (I know some Lego Friends sets have done this while keeping an open back, and some sets like the 2012 Haunted House or the Ghostbusters Firehouse do something similar with a closed back, hinged design).

The sketch looks like they've done a great job with the pineapple—the old ones always left something to be desired whereas this seems to have much more of that iconic pineapple texture! I like the new Patrick that leaked as well—the original Lego version was okay but his proportions weren't quite right with his face so high up on his torso, the new color is also much better, and like many early minifigs with shorts/swimwear, the dual-molded legs are a big improvement. Despite how rudimentary it was the 2006 one was a childhood favorite of mine so this set seems like it'll be very tempting. Hopefully if this set is successful they might do other sets to this higher standard—a bigger, more detailed Krusty Krab and Chum Bucket could make a great set as well.

If nothing else I hope the print on the new Patrick is more durable—I remember the print on the original fig's head being WAY too easily rubbed off.

Huh, cool to see a Spongebob set again. I had a couple of the original sets back in the day but they were quite rudimentary by modern standards. A big Icons set has the potential to become the definitive version of that setting. It'd be cool if they could give Avatar the Last Airbender another go as well (the original sets left a lot to be desired and could be done so much better today), but I'm not gonna get my hopes up.

The unprinted black cat reminds me of these souvenir building cutouts my grandparents used to collect: https://catsmeow.com/ The lack of printed eyes is less interesting/detailed for play scenarios, but for this sort of minimalist silhouetted animal it'd be perfect!

Not gonna happen and it's kinda laughable to frame this as "consumer rights", to be honest. Don't get me wrong, that information could certainly be helpful for people who have a preference, but unlike the kinds of labeling you give as examples in other industries (or Lego's own safety labeling for things like electronic components with batteries), there's no actual legal requirement for Lego to have labeling of stickers versus printed elements, which is what you'd need for this to actually be a consumer rights issue. And there's really no chance of such a law being passed about such a non-issue (things like food safety standards, clear labeling about hidden costs, or labeling about potential child safety hazards on toys are on a completely different level of importance than "misaligning a sticker").

I certainly wouldn't mind if we got a "filler wave" with some of the scenes and characters that hadn't been adapted into sets yet. There's certainly enough to cover already to potentially create several appealing sets. Unrelated to that, I'm hoping that next month we start to get reviews of the upcoming sets! It'll be great to get a better look at them all, including stuff that's not included in the released pictures including what the full selection of collectible Baroque Works dossiers will look like.

To me I feel like Jaller/Jala would be the easiest character to release OUTSIDE a CMF series—since he wouldn't need any new molds he doesn't need the same kind of budget as other characters, and since he has kid proportions he'd be perfect for, say, a trick-or-treater in a Halloween promotional set or something like that.

New Elementary posted a preview of the new gear shifter elements. I'm afraid their usefulness goes over my head as an extremely casual Technic fan, but thought some of y'all might find the video interesting:

I dunno how good anime-based sets would be, to be honest. One Piece's cartoony artstyle is very appealing but I feel like a lot of the appeal would be lost if you "flattened" the varied proportions and looks of the characters into standard minifigure designs. An advantage of adapting the live action version is that, with all of the characters portrayed by actual human actors, it's easier to adapt their look into minifigures without sacrificing their likenesses. Plus, it's less overwhelming to adapt one season of the live action show at a time than to draw from over 1000 chapters of manga or episodes of anime.

I dunno if I agree. That one seems almost too busy and cluttered, and relies on a lot of electronics for its looks (yet does not do actually useful things with those electronics, like keep score in any way despite the multiple non-functional score and multiplier labels). I kind of prefer the simpler brick-built arrows and lights on this one along with the fun mechanical feature of the astronaut elevating based on your performance (a novel way of creating a performance-based objective without electronic scorekeeping). That's not even getting into the tacky pseudo-Star Wars designs of its themed models. It's not exactly a Classic Space homage beyond the figure choice, but I see plenty of reasons I'd prefer this new set over this clone set that comes across to me as more style over substance.

The Arlong Park set I ordered arrived today and I just finished building it! All in all, fantastic set. There's definitely some things that would've been nice if the set included (like Arlong's huge saw-tooth sword, Zoro's outfit from that scene, and some more fishmen), but what is included is top-notch. The main function works great, and all the minifigures are fantastic. I got really lucky with the wanted posters in this one—three different posters (Gold Roger, Alvida, and Mihawk), none of which I'd gotten in the Going Merry (where I got Luffy, Buggy, and two Kuros). I still need the posters for Don Krieg and Arlong himself, but I also still am thinking about getting some of the other sets so I might still have some chances to get them randomly before having to order them separately. I'm almost tempted to try sketching up some of the carnival stalls that weren't in the set on Stud.io to see about expanding it (I dunno if I'd go about it in real life since I don't really have a long-term display planned, but it'd be a fun creative exercise). There's an artbook for the first two seasons of the live action series coming out in a little over a week and I'm thinking about getting that for inspiration and reference.

I do agree with that, yet I still think there's something lacking about that Zinnia. She really needed a new hairpiece, which is part of why I was skeptical about minifigs in this theme—since you'd need new molds not just for most smaller Pokémon but also for most human characters to really do their designs justice. A shame, because Omega Ruby is one of my favorite Pokémon games and Zinnia and the Delta Episode are a particular highlight.

Yeah, I think it makes a certain degree of sense that the piece limit is more a matter for the project creators than for the finalized sets themselves. Part count is a pretty arbitrary measure anyway since it's only somewhat correlated with more important production factors like size and budget. It mainly is used for Ideas projects because an upper limit is important to keep fan designers from getting too crazy with scale, and those more specific, relevant factors are much less easily measurable for fans. Still, it is a little amusing that the famously titanic Godzilla would be the one to "break the scale", so to speak. Looking forward to seeing what the final set ends up looking like!