Maya

I was wondering about the same thing. Do they restrict photography for certain items so that they can have a bigger unveiling at Toy Fair New York? I also want to see the boxes so we can find out what characters are included in the big sets!

It's actually "karategi". "Gi" is only part of the word for the karate outfit and it has to be attached to another word like "karate". Other examples include "judogi" (judo + wear) or "mizugi" (water + wear= swimsuit). But of course, I've heard people use just "gi" to mean a martial arts outfit here in the US (but not in Japan), so I guess it's considered correct here.

Thanks for the photo!! This is great! Is that Mia in pants at the entrance of the bakery or could it be yet another male character? I hope it's a man/boy but it must be Mia since the other mini-doll doesn't look like one of the main five girls. Her blonde wig looks like a new hairdo to me. And the girl who is water skiing doesn't look familiar, either. I hope she's a new character, too. I'd love to see the rest of this display! The school and Olivia's small set must have been there, too!

I look forward to your Friends reviews/comics because of the romance between your character Kiel and the Friends girls! Kiel should be happy Emma wants to be with him, though! He may have to beg her not to leave him when the new boy characters come out this summer!

It's a very cute set, but it's a bit hard for me to get over with the writings "ninja" and "kaiten"(meaning "spinning" for the spinning door) on the door... For some Western people, ninjas and martial arts may go together, but as a Japanese person, it's simply strange to see "ninja" written in a karate dojo. There are a few other strange things about this set (such as the way the sword is displayed and Emma wearing shoes), but I guess it's kind of difficult to execute the authentic feel with the exisiting elements without losing Friends' charm. It certainly is cute and I enjoy seeing different things in Friends theme. Thank you for the nice review!

I found a very nice photo of 41015 Dolphin Cruiser with the boy minidoll!! All my 51 female Friends minidolls have a crush on this cute boy! :) http://www.noz.de/de...hr-aller-zeiten

Great news! Thank you guys! I'll have to check Target & TRU on my way home after work today!

So, the bakery costs the same as the Butterfly Beauty Salon, which is not surprising based on the descriptions from the earlier post in this thread. But I'm quite surprised that the high school is the same price as the Heartlake Stables! I was expecting the school to be at least the size of the Summer Riding Camp. Based on the prices alone, Olivia's house might be bigger than Heartlake High. If we just compare the prices, the Dolphin Cruiser is the biggest of the bunch. I wonder if it looks a bit like this Belville cruiser. http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=5848-1 Anyway, I can't wait to hear more details on the summer sets!

30107 Birthday Party polybag will soon be available at toysrus.com! And it's only $3.99!! Has anybody found it at TRU?

It's funny you said the popsicle looked venomari-flavored! Emma has to make sure no one eats it! I think the ice cream cone looks overwhelmingly big with the ice cream piece on it. I tried it myself, but it doesn't look any better than the simple round pink piece. Anyway, it's a very nice set for the price. It also goes quite well with the mailbox polybag set from last year.

LEGO Friends is pretty much what I always dreamed of having as a little girl. My first LEGO set I bought with my allowance was 6683 Hamburger Stand from 1983, and then with my birthday money I bought 6374 Holiday Home. I bought quite a few of the houses and such from the 80's, and many of the Paradisa sets. I loved them all very much and I still do. But something I've always wished to see more was details that would appeal to girls. The hamburger stand set didn't even come with stuff that remotely resembled food. You just had to use three 1x1 plates in yellow, gray and red stuck together and pretend that was the hamburger! Now in LEGO Friends we have a (somewhat oversized) hamburger, ice cream cones, as well as lovely purses and many cute animal friends! After Paradisa was discontinued in the 90's, Scala, Belville and Clikits were available for girls, but I didn't like them very much, as the sets from those themes didn't feature minifig-scale houses and accessories. Around the same time I started noticing more and more LEGO sets were geared towards boys and many of them were about battles or stressful situations, so there were very few sets that interested me during the last decade or so. The only exceptions were the Winter Village theme and the modular buildings, and I have them all because they were the kind of LEGO sets that make me happy building and playing with, as I enjoy seeing those cute minifigures doing their own everyday things and living in harmony (and with no evil characters invading my peaceful town/city! ). When I found out about LEGO Friends, I was really thrilled! LEGO was finally going to make exactly what I've always wanted! I wasn't really worried about the figures not being minifigs. I love the traditional minifigs (especially those classic smile ones), but I thought the new minidoll figures were very cute and perfect for the more modern-looking LEGO Friends world. We just need more male minidolls, and I'll be happy! I can't express how annoyed I was around this time last year, with all those highly-opinionated non-LEGO-buying people trying to tell what LEGO should or should not do! I didn't join in the controversy discussion, though; I just enjoyed my Friends sets & my modular collection and waited for the online fad of hating the "girlie" LEGO to die down. Now it's been more than a year since the first release, and I'm just as excited about the Friends line now as last year. I have a copy of every single set released so far and I plan on buying all the future sets as long as TLC keeps producing sets that make me happy like they did 30 years ago!

Thanks for the review! I already have this set, and I still enjoyed your review thoroughly with lots of clear photos and interesting observations! I couldn't figure out what the feather piece was for until I read this review! And I had been thinking this set needed a grooming shears badly!

What a wonderful idea! I especially like the beach area! I've also been trying to think of a good way to display all of my Friends collection. With all the sets that have come out, I'm close to running out of display area. Your idea is a great inspiration.

I feel the same way about the Emma minidoll... I already have four Emma's in this exact outfit from 4 different sets. But this is her signature style, so I have a feeling this is not the last time we get her in this outfit. I'm not sure if others have noticed, but I see a few of this year's minidolls have slightly different eye colors. Emma's and Andrea's green eyes are brighter (especially Andrea's). And Mia's and Olivia's eyes are painted darker. I wonder if they wanted to make Andrea's green eyes look clearly different from Kate's and Joanna's new brown eye paint. I like the new Heartlake City map! I hope they will eventually make a new version of "Dolphin Point" for the Friends range.

41011 Stephanie's Soccer Practice has a background picture of a school building in the exact same style! I'll be happy if that's what Heartlake High looks like! By the way, I bought 30106 Ice Cream Stand today. It was $3.99, a dollar cheaper than the price shown on Brickset, and I found it in the Valentine's section at my local Target in Georgia. I didn't find any in the girls' toy aisles like some people did. Just in case anybody is wondering, the DCPI is 086021643.