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INTRODUCTION There's always room for you If you wanna be my friend We are, we are on the cruise! We are! It's been around since 1997 but this year is the first time Lego has delved into the world of One Piece. Beginning as a serialized manga before production began on the anime, Netflix picked up the long-running show in 2023 to produce a live action version. Season 2 of the live action adaptation airs next year in 2026. That made 2025 the perfect time for Lego to team up and create the first wave of One Piece sets. This is my 5th and final review of this theme. You can read my review of the Going Merry, the Windmill Village Hut, Buggy's Circus Tent and Battle at Arlong Park respectively. Chronologically, this set covers the 5th an 6th episodes of the 8 episode season 1. But what would One Piece be without a crazy amount of back-story episodes! So let's go back in time before the battle at Arlong Park and see what makes the Baratie so special. SET INFORMATION Number: 75640 Title: The Baratie Floating Restaurant Theme: One Piece Released: 2025 Part Count: 3402 Box Dimensions: 52 x 47.5 x 12 cm Weight: 4680g Set Price (RRP): £269.99/$329.99/€299.99 Price per Part: 7.9p/9.7c/8.8c Links: Brickset, Bricklink THE BOX AND WHAT'S INSIDE The box is massive as benefits a set of this size. Meant to be more of an Icons style display piece, the box forgoes the colorful background and opts for a classy black instead. Inside the box no space there is no empty space. It is jam packed with bricks. We get 2 packages for the instruction books and stickers. And we get 2 sticker sheets. The stickers are used sparingly, but for a set this size I wish we had gotten prints instead. THE BUILD Unfortunately, first impressions on this build are not the best. The build starts with the fish's mouth at the front of the ship. And just a couple bags in the unsightly injection points are plentiful. But perhaps even more jarring is the color variance of the 1x4 modified plates. Most have the standard hue, but a few are more peachy. Can you spot the 3 off-colored pieces here? The unsightly injection mold points continue all through the set. It's barely noticeable on some pieces, but on colors like reddish brown it's an awful eyesore. Those flaws aside, the build was fantastic from start to finish. The front of the mouth is built up with a wide variety of pieces to give it both a rounded shape and secure connection points. Shaping for the fish head is achieved by using newer curved pieces. Other curves are made using a new, shorter version of a classic curved brick. The tan is what's in the set, the grey is what existed before. The end result is a very close replica of the front of the Baratie. Moving on to the rest of the floating restaurant we build the grand staircase allowing guests to descend to the dinning area. This is done by stacking 1x5 technic plates, 1x4 rounded plates, and tiles and wedge plates. The result looks excellent. Put together, the sections start to take on the shape of the Baratie. To get the shape of the ship, large panels are built for the right and left sides and then attached using clips. This is a common technique in sets these days, but the way the Baratie uses the curved bricks to get a perfectly flush connection is impressive. The left panel is connected using this unique method. And the right panel is connected using clips. Only half-way through the bags but already the set is too big for my light-box! Next I have to show an oddity I've never noticed in Lego pieces before. As I was finishing the right panel I noticed an odd gap between these brown L-tiles. So I did some testing. The top row are the tiles included in the Baratie set. The bottom four rows are pieces from my collection. You can see that the black and gray have no noticeable gap. However, even my older browns have a little more of a gap. Rotate the pieces and the gap disappears from the newer brown L-tiles. So I put the tiles back, rotated this time and you can see that a new gap is there. And here's back at the original state. These are very odd variances in piece sizes. Has anyone else had this problem? Rounding off my list of complaints, here are some more injection mold marks extra noticeable on the pearl gold pieces. And here are 2 of the stickers used to make a lantern. My fingerprints mar the overall affect and I question if it was really necessary to use stickers at all for this part. The lanterns hang belong the railing and above the main door. The back of the model is doll-house style with lots of space to place figures. The curved seats allow 3 minifigures to be seated comfortably. The orange seats are built on turn tables and can therefore move though they aren't intended to. The kitchen is well furnished with food and equipment, though it's very tight and hard to place minifigures. Getting Luffy into his Chore-Boy position at the sink took many tries! Leading out of the kitchen is a back door. If you're a starving pirate this is where you enter so that Sanji can feed you. Zeff's office has a transponder snail and some other pirate paraphernalia. Inside the cabinet is a pearly pink jar. If this is a reference to something I don't know what! The upper levels house treasure. This has nothing to do with the show, live action or anime. But it's a nice way to fill the space. The top part can come off to allow access underneath, but it's not really needed. In front of the main door is a weathered platform to recreate Mihawk and Zoro's fight. I like the weathered look, but having those gaps filled with plates would have been better. It's hard to pose more than a couple figures on the platform since the gaps in the tiles don't allow the figures to pivot at all. The splat gear turns to two round jumper plates allowing to figures to sword fight each other. This is a brilliant idea. However, with the sword in Zoro's mouth and the size of Mihawk's blade, Yoru, it means if you fight with them their blades are always knocking against the mermaid statues. The platform should have been at least 1 stud longer. Speaking of swords. Mihawk's blade is an amazing new element. It has a stud on one side of the handle to allow it to stick to the neck bracket on Mihawk for easy carrying. And Zoro's third blade, which he holds with his moth is also a new element. It can be held by a hand, but the plastic is soft and mine got damaged by putting in a hand. I really wish they would have made a neck-bracket with a clip to hold any sword. But I guess the sword wouldn't have been as close to Zoro's mouth then. Much like the Going Merry, the Baratie tries to use forced perspective to get both a display model and a playset in one. However, where the Going Merry does it well, the Baratie fails in many aspects. The front of the Going Merry is mostly minifigure scale and moving back it becomes more and more micro. The Baratie jumps between two scales more sporadically. The micro door between the fish's mouth and the main door is micro scale, but it's a jarring contrast between the two minifigure scale parts. The outside balcony in front of the ship's sign are minifigure scale, but the sign itself is micro scale. It's tricky to balance the scales like that and the Baratie doesn't quite make it. Put the Going Merry up next to the Baratie and the scale doesn't work either. The Baratie should be much bigger in size comparison. The sections that are minifigure scale are great, it's the micro scale that doesn't seem to fit. THE MINIFIGURES There are a total of 10 charaters included in this set. First off we have the main crew of the Straw-Hat Pirates. Zoro, Nami, Luffy, Usopp and Sanji. They all have alternate faces and pieces created specifically for One Piece. They other five are Zeff, the owner of the Baratie; Garp, a navy Vice Admiral and Luff's grandpa; Helmeppo and Kody, Navy cadets; and Mihawk, one of the 7 warlords. All fit the context of the Baratie episodes well. I'm glad we got some Navy members. Though I wish they would have left off the Cadet badge from the two cadets. We can't re-create some of Luffy's battles against the navy yet! Missing from the line up is Patisserie Patty. His inclusion would have made the line-up perfect. Zeff uses a new beard piece and in a new color. It's called Ochre on Bricklink. Here you can see how it compares to some other Lego yellow hair colors. Some have been unhappy with the choice of a cowboy hat for Mihawk. So I tried switch it out for the musketeer one. The feather looks really good, but the hat isn't quite right. It also doesn't allow for his sword to attach behind as the brim rests too low. What Mihawk needs is a cowboy hat with a feather hole, but that would have been a new mold. Of the two, I think the cowboy hat is a good choice. I also changed Garp's hair as the spiked hair didn't seem to represent him well. If Lego made the piece I used in light gray it would have been perfect. Here's the modified Mihawk in his coffin shaped boat. Holding his sword he looks impressive, but a little too much like Barabossa for my taste. OVERALL As far as being the largest set in this wave I think the Baratie could have done a little better with the Straw Hat crew. Across all 5 sets we get 5 different versions of Luffy. The Baratie version is on the right. He's only technically exclusive due to the specific match up of hat and face print. But if you've bought the other sets you already have this Luffy. I like that they gave him his classic red vest, but an option would have been to have a different outfit for the Baratie or at least a unique face print. Zoro gets a total of 3 versions. The Baratie version on the right again is exactly the same as the Buggy set. Another missed opportunity to include something special. Nami gets 4 versions. The only unique version is from the Arlong Park set. Again, I love that they focused on her classic outfit. But the Baratie was a chance to include something new. Usopp gets 3 versions with the Baratie version the same as the Going Merry, just without the slingshot. Sanji gets the short end of the stick with only 2 versions. And here, the Baratie gives us a unique outfit that's totally in character and a great addition. I would have loved a face print with hearts for eyes though. The chase gimmick for the One Piece sets are the Wanted Posters. The Baratie comes with 5 random 2x3 tiles. I got 2 Gold Rogers, 2 Kuros, and 1 Don Krieg. Across all 5 sets I got 2 Kuros, 4 Buggys, 2 Don Kriegs, 2 Alvidas, 2 Arlongs, and 2 Gold Rogers. That means I'm still missing Luffy and Mihawk. Almost 600 euros worth of sets and I still don't have a full set. I appreciate the idea of chasing after the posters. But I think Lego needs to do a better job. Either ensure each set has 0 duplicates giving someone better odds at getting a full set or they need to include all 8 in the Baratie. SCORE How do I rate this set? DESIGN 8 This is a decent display piece and playset. Though it succeeds better as a playset. It tries to balance scales and doesn't quite reach the mark. BUILDING EXPERIENCE 10 This was thoroughly fun to build. There are many great techniques and it never felt repetitive. FEATURES 9 There are so many places to put figures, there are a great number of treasures scattered around the ship, and a huge selection of food and food prep pieces. That gives you a lot of ways to display the set. There is also the great fighting feature though the platform needs to be just a little bigger. If there was better space to place minifgures and a larger platform this would be a 10. PLAYABILITY 10 The Baratie really shines when it comes to play. Storytelling is easy. And sword fights are fun if you use shorter swords. PARTS 9 There is a great variety of pieces in this set. The color choice is okay, but the constant switching from red to brown doesn't quite do it for me. I don't know what they could have changed, but I feel like some of the colors should have been different. VALUE FOR MONEY 9 You get a great number of parts for the price. However, I feel like we needed at least one member of the Baratie's staff to help Sanji and Zeff. Even if you had to trade out Helmeppo to get him. Also, the distribution of the Wanted Posters needed to be better. FINAL SCORE: 9 As the flagship set of the first One Piece wave the Baratie had a lot to live up to. And it gets close. It's a great model with fantastic techniques. The figure selection, while not unique enough for this set, is decent. If you're a fan of One Piece I would say this set is worth getting. It's already been on sale on Amazon so you might get lucky and find a good deal for Christmas. However, if you're looking for the best bang-for-your-buck the Going Merry is a far better choice. Both sets have the full Straw Hat crew. And the extra figures in the Baratie are nice, but little things like the wrong hair for Garp and the "Cadet" printed on Helmeppo and Koby's uniforms lower the overall appeal. And now, to wrap up our story. Luffy and his crew discovered an island and now face it's lone inhabitant... Hey, you're interrupting our meal! I am the spirit of Gol D. Roger! Who disturbs my rest? You're not Roger, just who are you? Alright, you got me. I just like my privacy and that usually scares people off. Geez, don't scare us like that! Yeah, it's not very nice of you. Trust me, you don't want to mess with our captain. And why's that? I'm going to become King of the Pirates! Har har har! I wish you luck boy. May you have better luck finding Gol D. Roger's treasure than I have of looking like him! And so Luffy and his crew sailed off to find the One Piece!
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INTRODUCTION Through it all, through all the troubled times Through the heartache, and through the pain Know that I will be there to stand by you Just like I know you'll stand by me!... For those unfamiliar with the long running Manga and Anime, One Piece is the story of Monkey D. Luffy and his dream to become king of the pirates. Through the world of One Piece there are many other pirates looking to achieve the same goal or carve out their own slice or territory. Luffy fights many of these foes through the series, one of them being Arlong. Acting as the season finale for the first season, Luffy and his crew face off against the Arlong Pirates. This is my 4th review of this theme. You can read my review of the Going Merry, the Windmill Village Hut, and Buggy's Circus Tent respectively. Is this set a good representation of the season finale or can you skip it? Let's find out! SET INFORMATION Number: 75638 Title: Battle At Arlong Park Theme: One Piece Released: 2025 Part Count: 926 Box Dimensions: 38 x 26 x 6.75 cm Weight: 1008g Set Price (RRP): £74.99/$79.99/€79.99 Price per Part: 8.1p/8.6c/8.6c Links: Brickset, Bricklink THE BOX AND WHAT'S INSIDE On the front of the box we get to see Luffy's Gum-Gum-Pistol move in action. The back shows off the play features including the tower collapsing. In addition to the bags there are 3 instructions books, a large sticker sheet and Luffy's torso. THE BUILD First off I'll start with the side builds. I chose not to apply the stickers. And without them everything looks really plain. There is a small carnival game, a bar with the transponder snail, a throne for Arlong, and a tree for Usopp to hide behind. Overall these are nothing special. They look like their counterparts from the live action show, but they don't really add much to the set. In contrast the main building uses some great techniques to build a structure that is both sturdy and breakable. The bottom side panels use technic beams with pins to create a sandwhich. These are then attached with axles to the base so they can easily fall over. A part of the roof is attached to the white bars using inverted tiles with holes from the Unikitty CMF. The rest of the tower is built designed to allow the right and left halves to split. I did apply the shark mouth and flag stickers as those can be reused for other MOCs easily. Folding down the shark mouth peak you can use Luffy (or your figures) to push the middle of the tower causing it to fall apart. The end result is very satisfying. It's a great recreation of the epic battle moment between Luffy and Arlong. The chunks of the building stay together nicely even when exploded over and over again. And the whole tower is easy to put back together. You can see from this photo that the sections are held together in part by clips resting inside click hinges. That plus the jumper plate connections provides a sturdy enough hold that the parts don't fall apart when moving the tower. I wouldn't go shaking it, and the whole thing wobbles when moved. But overall I am very impressed in the structural integrity of a collapsible building. True to the story, you can chain Nami up inside and force her to work for Arlong. Trying to get Luffy to fit inside is another issue. I love the option to have the long arms to re-create his stretching ability. But is does pose problems when trying to actually do things with the minifigure. You can see here that I had a hard time getting him to stand straight due to the oversized appendages. Adding a stand with a place for his arm to connect you can see the fronts of each minifigure. Nami and Usopp get unique outfits for this set. I particularly like the green hat for Usopp as opposed to his pink one in the other 2 sets he shows up in. It's more faithful to the anime. I was disappointed to see the shark fin molded onto Arlong's hair. It's faithful to the source material, but it ruins the usability of this piece. I would have rather they printed the fin on his back instead. The alternate prints are good, especially Nami's crying face and Chu's blow-fish mouth. Except for Luffy all figures have arm printing on 1 arm. The Arlong tattoo looks really good. To finish off the review we end with a feast... or at least we would if there were any food elements! All the other One Piece sets have at least some food. Arlong is skimping on the catering budget it looks like. We do, however, get the gorgeous transponder snail. A hilarious method of communication that mimics telephones in real life, just with snails... I guess you just have to watch the show. We do get a bowl and some hot-sauce. But that's not going to satisfy Luffy. On to the next island! OVERALL This set has a fantastic main building with a cool destruction feature. It comes with a good group of minifigures and I'm glad at least 1 Arlong pirate got included. Chu was a good choice as he and Usopp face off in the episode and his design looks good. The side builds, while faithful to the show, detract from the set. They don't add anything essential. I wish the parts had been allocated to the main building allowing it to be even bigger or removed allowing the price to be lower. The ability to re-create Luffy and Nami's interactions during the Arlong arc may be the best part of the set as it's an emotional scene that really sets the bar high in character development. SCORE How do I rate this set? DESIGN 7 It's hard to rate the design because the main tower is designed incredibly well. But the side builds should have been skipped. BUILDING EXPERIENCE 8 It was really fun building the tower, but the side builds were more like after thoughts. FEATURES 7 At risk of sounding like a broken record, just see the above two comments! PLAYABILITY 8 The collapsing tower is fantastic. The ability to recreate scenes from the Arlong episodes is great. But the side builds are a major let-down. PARTS 9 There are a lot of parts that will make castle and Asian scene builders happy. It's a good selection of parts and makes a good set or parts pack. VALUE FOR MONEY 9 There are a lot of small parts that inflate the piece count. But even with that this set is a decent value. It has a good selection of minifigures too. FINAL SCORE: 8 Getting Luffy with long arms is going to be one of the biggest reasons people get this set. But you also get unique versions of Nami and Usopp as well as two good figures in Arlong and Chu. In addition the main building really adds value to the set. It's just the side builds that let you down. Last time we left Luffy and his crew on a strange island... Wow Zoro, you really are bad at directions. I still don't get how you ended up locking yourself in that prison cell. Hey just drop it okay! Do you feel like someone is watching us? Hey, some creep just showed up! Don't worry Nami swan, I'll protect you! Tune in next time to find out what happens next!
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INTRODUCTION Even though I believe All the tales that I am told You might think I'm naive But I'm set to move ahead If we ever meet again I'll tell you all about The adventures on my journey And the things I wanna see... Showing up on screen for the first time in 1999, One Piece is a anime revolving around the story of Monkey D. Luffy. There are many signatures of this beloved anime and manga, one of them being the whacky characters. Buggy the Clown shows up in the 5th episode of the original anime and for its 2023 live action season 1 Netflix aptly chose to use Buggy as one of the main antagonists. This is my 3rd review of this line. You can read my review of the Going Merry and the Windmill Village Hut respectively. Out of the 5 minifigure scaled sets Lego has prodoced Buggy gets one themed for him. Is it a barrel of laughs or do the jokes fall flat? Let's find out! SET INFORMATION Number: 75637 Title: Buggy the Clown's Circus Tent Theme: One Piece Released: 2025 Part Count: 573 Box Dimensions: 25.9 x 22 x 7.6 cm Weight: 694g Set Price (RRP): £44.99/$54.99/€49.99 Price per Part: 7.9p/9.6c/8.7c Links: Brickset, Bricklink THE BOX AND WHAT'S INSIDE On the front of the box we get a stylized interior shot of Buggy's Circus Tent. The back shows off the play features and Nami violently attacking a box. Ok, she's actually closing it up to keep parts of Buggy trapped. If you're not familiar with the character of Buggy it's not me spoiling him for you, it's the set! Just like Luffy has the power of the Gum-Gum fruit allowing him to stretch like rubber, Buggy has the power of the Chop-Chop fruit allowing him to chop off parts of himself and move them independently of the rest of his body. Nami traps them in the box leaving Buggy tiny. In addition to the bags and instructions there are 2 sticker sheets. The larger is printed on white while the smaller is printed on a transparent sticker. THE BUILD The tent makes good use of Lego geometry to get the curved shape. Starting off we SNOT some cheese slopes to fill the gap around the door. This is a technique commonly seen in MOCs these days and it's fun to see building techniques like this making it into official sets. You can see from the top that the cheese slopes don't sit perfectly flush against the wall, but it sits close enough that the gap is not very noticeable. From this angle you can also see the huge number of unsightly injection points. I've mentioned this many times before. But if you have these kinds of flaws in your sets (and with any newer set you will) you need to complain to Lego customer service. You don't have to ask for replacements, the replacement parts wouldn't be any better anyway. But if we don't say anything Lego won't change their production method. Their motto is "Only the best is good enough." We need to hold them to it. From the bottom you can see how the hinge plates connect the angle plates. This connection is re-enforced on top making the build solid. The most egregious example of the injection mold marks is seen on the trans-yellow studs. It almost makes the piece unusable. One of the side builds is dunk tank that Buggy uses to trap Luffy. This is where the trans-clear sticker is applied and the end result shows off my thumb print more than bubbles. From the front, with good lighting the sticker works. But unless you use sterilized tools to apply the sticker it's not going have a great end result. The end result of the build is a portion of circus tent, a cage to capture Nami, a spinning wheel for a knife throwing trick, and the dunk tank. Under the sides of the tent are a pile of crates used to hold the little pieces of Buggy when you don't have him in his chopped up mode. There is also a throne of sorts for Buggy. The sides of the tent have technic connection points and the seating areas can expand using the clips on the sides. It seems the idea is to encourage buying multiple copies of the set to create a bugger version of the tent. From the front we get a creative little step using the panel below the door frame. We also get to see the 2 Wanted Posters. For me I got Don Krieg (again) and appropriately, Buggy. You can see that the white and red "fabric" of the tent rest close together, but the geometry isn't as clever here as with the building so the end result looks sloppy. We get a total of 4 different characters in this set. Luffy and Nami have the same outfits as the other sets they are in. Zoro's blue shirt is different than his tan in the Going Merry but he also has it in the Baratie. Buggy is unique to this set. Also included is a stickered SNOT brick with Thing hands and a red bandana. To use Buggy in this form you have to move his head. I wish Lego would have included 2 copies of the head so you don't have to take him apart each time. A cheap move on Lego's part. From the back you can see the back printing and alternate face prints. Luffy's grin is the same as in the Going Merry. Zoro's bandana is a new mold for this theme. It sits lower on the head and has fewer wrinkles in it. To finish off this story arc, we'll end as all good One Piece arcs do: with food. Unfortunately there's only 1 food element in the set, the new pear piece! A unique inclusion in this set as there are no pears of significance in One Piece. But it's nice to get a new element in another set. OVERALL It's an okay little build with good techniques. The side builds add play value and I think I would rather have them than not. But the tent is small. It doesn't feel big enough to do the scene justice. Two more "panels" would have made it look and feel better. Having 8 empty chairs inside the tent doesn't help either. The giant Buggy head inside the tent looks good, but it doesn't add much value to the scene. The set has potential, but it's missing a lot in terms of value. SCORE How do I rate this set? DESIGN 5 As an overall set this one falls flat. It's got some clever angles, but not much else. The side builds a decent, but leave you wanting more from the set overall. BUILDING EXPERIENCE 8 I'm giving higher marks here because I really enjoyed the geometry used to make the shape of tent. I did not enjoy apply the stickers. FEATURES 6 Parts move, there are plenty of play features, but overall it feels underwhelming. PLAYABILITY 8 This might be the best part of the set. It is easy to re-create scenes from the Circus Tent episode. The problem is without more of the Buggy Pirates even the play features feel like something is missing. PARTS 6 There are an okay number new elements and re-colors. But nothing that makes this set better than most. The pear and Buggy move it from 5 to 6. VALUE FOR MONEY 5 This set has the "right" number of parts for the price. But the build feels small and incomplete. And with Buggy being the only unique figure of the set there are not a lot of reasons to buy this one. FINAL SCORE: 6 This set just doesn't feel worth it. Each part is nice and adds value to the scene. But the sum of the parts don't add up to a good value. If you're going to be buying other One Piece sets I'd recommend skipping this one and just Bricklinking Buggy. Last time we left Luffy and company wondering where Zoro went... Guys, I'm really worried about Zoro. What if something happened to him? What if something happens to me!?! I wouldn't worry about old Moss-head. He'll be fine. Yeah, he's pretty tough. Hey look, food! No wait Luffy! We don't know if that food has been poisoned! Mmmm, yum! Do you guys hear that!?! Hey look, it's Zoro! How'd you get in there? I don't know, I got turned around somehow. Just get me out will you? Tune in next time to find out what happens next!
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INTRODUCTION Through it all Through all the troubled times Through the heartache And through the pain Know that I will be there To stand by you Just like I know you'll stand by me... Airing on television for the first time back in 1999 One Piece has been around for a very long time. In 2023 Netflix aired the first season of a live-action version which covered the East Blue arc. If you've watched One Piece for any length of time you'll know that flashbacks are a common story telling tool for the series, sometimes using flashbacks within the flashback! So, true to form, I started my reviews of the One Piece sets with a review of the Going Merry and now we're going to flashback and look at the Windmill Village Hut. So is this set just another filler episode you can skip, or is it essential viewing? Let's find out! SET INFORMATION Number: 75636 Title: Windmill Village Hut Theme: One Piece Released: 2025 Part Count: 299 Box Dimensions: 26 x 19 x 6 cm Weight: 442g Set Price (RRP): £24.99/$29.99/€29.99 Price per Part: 8.4p/10.0c/10.0c Links: Brickset, Bricklink THE BOX AND WHAT'S INSIDE The front of the box shows the windmill village where our "hut" (really it's a bar, but Lego can't market that) gets its name from. The back of the box shows that the side of the hut can hold your Wanted Posters from this line of sets. Inside we get 3 bags, a loose boat, and a sticker sheet. This happened with a few of my One Piece sets, but inside one of the paper bags was a smaller parts bag in plastic. I guess Lego still has some plastic to use up! THE BUILD The build process is simply split across the 3 bags. Our first bag gives us the base of the bar and a nice plank walkway. We also get Red-Haired Shanks equipped with a simple pirate cutlass. Our second bag adds pillars and drinks for the bar as well as giving us the Makino the owner of Partys Bar. You can see the name of the bar is a sticker as is the woodwork on the cross beam. And of course bag 3 finishes off the build and gives us young Luffy. Partys Bar is a full enclosed building in the cartoon anime, but the live action opted for an open-aired style island bar. The set captures the essence of the live-action set even if much of the nautical themed decorations are missing. The build looks great from the front, but it also looks good from the back. The notice board for the Wanted Posters works really well and is a great addition for fans of this line who buy the set. Lifting the roof off gives better access for posing figures in the bar. I don't know when Lego changed the mold for the boat oar, but it's probably been like this for awhile. But it's my first time realizing you can fit a feather or other accessory in the oar if you want. The connection felt a little snug, so I don't know if it's a legal connection. I also don't know why someone would want to use it, but there you go. For being the smallest set it the wave it's a great treat to get 3 unique figures. Flash-back, or young Luffy wears a simple shirt that is accurate to the show and could be used in many other city scenes. And Makino and Shanks' torsos are extremely versatile. I was surprised the Lego decided to give us a Shanks figure. He doesn't play a large role in the live action series, but has a lot of significance to Luffy's overall story if you're familiar with the manga. So it's a treat to get him in Lego form. I think I would have preferred one of Shanks' crew over Makino. But I can understand why they included her as she's easy to make with existing pieces, only requiring some new prints, and it gives you someone to run the bar. The back printing is what you would expect, but it's the reverse faces that really stand out. Luffy's crying face is perfect for the stories set during his time in the Windmill Village. And Shanks' fighting face looks good too. Luffy's hair piece is new for this line and it shows up in a couple One Piece sets. Shanks has both a hairpiece and hat molded with hair. The injection mold marks are obvious on all 3, but on Shanks' hair piece it is very unsightly. More about that later. Shanks and Makino's hair pieces are re-colors. We also get the famous Straw Hat as it's own piece so that Shanks can gift it to Luffy. It looks odd being used as a normal hat and looks far better hanging on Luffy's back, as in the Arlong Park set, or being held. I'm waiting for someone to use this piece for a Madeline MOC. THE UGLY I mentioned the injection mold point sorely visible on Shanks' hair. Unsightly injection mold points have become increasingly a problem for Lego. It didn't always used to be this bad. And since Lego has a motto of "Only the best is good enough" I want to hold them to account. Certainly colors reveal this mold spot worse that others. You can see them very clearly on all the reddish-brown parts. Another odd mark, and a new one for me, were the rings around the raised stud of the 1x1 reddish-brown bricks. But injection mold points aren't the only problem. My larger dark tan plates had mushed corners. The plastic is now too soft and easily gets damaged. Here you can see the same damaged corner as well as more injection mold points. One of the worst cases is with the clips. These mold spots are so bad the clips can't sit flush against other bricks. All of these flaws are unfortunately becoming the norm for Lego. I will be reaching out to Lego customer service to share my concerns as I have done with many other sets I've bought over the past few years. I encourage you to do the same if you find flaws. Lego won't change their practices unless we hold them to account. OVERALL Lego sets in general have quality issues right now. That aside, this set fills the slot of smallest set of the line in a great way. It's a nice little location set with good details. It has 3 unique figures plus a fun feature for displaying your Wanted Posters. It's great as a parts pack, for pirate fans, and for One Piece fans. SCORE How do I rate this set? DESIGN 9 It's a good design. Simple, but effective. It relies too much on stickers, but it's close to perfect. BUILDING EXPERIENCE 9 For a small set I don't expect much from the build experience. This set does a good job of being fun to build even if nothing overly wowed me. FEATURES 10 For a small set it has decent features. The roof lifting off for easy access inside and the Wanted Poster board are good features for a $30 set. PLAYABILITY 10 The main play factor here is story-telling. And for a small set it does a fantastic job of providing lots of ways to do that. Telling stories around the bar, Shanks giving Luffy the Straw Hat, and even just sailing in the boat are a decent number of play options in a set this small. PARTS 10 This set has a great selection of parts. It's very versatile if you want to use it for other themes (Brock arguing with Venom anyone?). VALUE FOR MONEY 10 It hits the golden PPP and has 3 unique figures. You can't get much better than that for a licensed set. It's worth full price if you can get replacement parts for any damaged pieces that will almost inevitably some with the set. FINAL SCORE: 10 Just like with the Going Merry this set gets a full 10-out-of-10 from me. But what's this, there's more! Wow Luffy, that's a great story. I didn't know Shanks meant so much to you. Yeah, Shanks is pretty cool. I'm glad we spent 15 episodes covering that backstory. What's an episode? You know, I'm not sure. It just sounded right to say. Hey, where's Zoro? Don't tell me he got lost again! Oh no, what if this island is haunted!?! Tune in next time to find out what happens next!
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INTRODUCTION Come on board and bring along All your hopes and dreams Together we will find everything That we’re looking for... Airing for the first time back in 1999 One Piece has become one of the most well-known anime series of all time. The story of Monkey D. Luffy and his quest to become King of the Pirates has captured the hearts and imaginations of multiple generations. One Piece follows a formula well known to anime series of the 90s. A young adult (or kid) through passion and determination gets stronger, beats the bad guys and gets closer to his goal. Something that sets One Piece apart from other anime is it's constantly optimistic tone and extremely wacky and colorful characters. It doesn't shy away from dealing with some deeper subjects like government overreach or corrupt leadership. But the attitude throughout the series is that the good guys are going to triumph over evil even when facing impossible odds. I started watching the anime show in English back in 2019 and after 6 years I'm almost 1000 episodes in. There are currently 1145 episodes so I'm still catching up. In 2023 Netflix aired a live-action version of the anime and gave Lego the perfect chance to partner with them and go sailing into the One Piece world. I watched the Netflix version and enjoyed it, but it lacks the same charm of the animated show. So will Lego One Piece be everything we're looking for? Let's find out! SET INFORMATION Number: 75639 Title: The Going Merry Pirate Ship Theme: One Piece Released: 2025 Part Count: 1376 Box Dimensions: 47.6 x 37.3 x 8.8 cm Weight: 1927g Set Price (RRP): £119.99/$139.99/€129.99 Price per Part: 8.7p/10.2c/9.4c Links: Brickset, Bricklink THE BOX AND WHAT'S INSIDE The front of the box shows off the Straw Hat crew's ship, the Going Merry, the Netflix logo for the show and Inaki Godoy who plays the live action Luffy. The back of the box shows the various compartments of the ship, the working canon and the fact that 4 Wanted Posters are included. These posters are similar to the Chocolate Frog Cards from the Harry Potter sets. There are 8 in total with this first wave of sets and the distribution is random in each set. In addition to the 10 numbered bags we get a few of the flexible parts packaged separately as well as a sticker sheet. The sails and the pirate flags are all the thicker plastic material that you have to punch out. I forgot to take a picture of those sheets before removing the parts. It was an interesting choice for Lego to go with plastic instead of fabric, but I think the end result works well. THE BUILD Five years ago the techniques used in this set would have been mind-blowing. Instead of using pre-fab hull pieces the Going Merry uses a brick and plate frame with a lot of SNOT to get the curved hull shape. Other angles are achieved using clips and bars to hold sub-assemblies at crazy angles. By today's standards it's a pretty normal build, but I was still impressed with all the techniques and really enjoyed building the ship. A lot of the smaller details rely on stickers which is unfortunate. I had a really hard time getting them straight and as a result the cabinets in the kitchen look like they were hung crooked. In the kitchen there is a couch with room for 2 to sit or 1 to lounge. The counters are high for a minifigure with the pan being almost eye level with Sanji. There are a lot of details like the jumper plates used for drawers and the rail plates used to add a lip to the counter. But I think it would have worked better if one of the details had been sacrificed in order to get the counter to a better height. The whole ship plays around with scale to get the best of both a display model and a play model. For the most part it does this extremely well, but this is one area with room for improvement. The kitchen is covered by a clever combination of sections to create the stern of the ship. First the section with the mast slides into place. It sets in place using a modified plate resting inside a window element. The white, modified plate shows how this works. Because the window element is more panel than full window frame, the bar can rest between the bricks and the slight downward offset of the bars allows it to slide just under the top lip of the window panel. The resulting "connection" is an amazing use of Lego geometry. The section with the tangerine trees folds closed and slides into the rails under the mast. They also lock under the brown "arms" meaning the mast section won't slide out accidentally. The entire back section is an engineering marvel. It is only spoiled by the rudder connection. Because it's on a mixel joint it tends to shift into odd angles. It can give the ship just a little bit of cartoonish character, but I don't think that's what the designer had in mind. A clipand bar connection would have been better and kept the rudder level with the bottom of the boat. In total there are 3 sections that can be removed for access to the inside of the boat. In the front is what I believe to be a bed along with Nami's map of the world. Zoro would need to jump a little to get into bed, but that is at least somewhat realistic compared to a kitchen where your arms have to lift pans above your shoulders. Both the kitchen and the bedroom have stairs leading down into them along with a doorway. Behind the main mast is a cargo area. Inside, the cargo turns out to be a lot of food and our 4 Wanted Posters. There is also some meat inside the treasure chest kept on the forward deck. Apart from the meat (which Luffy is always wanting more of) the food selection seemed very random. Especially the green egg. If that's a reference to something I couldn't think of please let me know. I was happy to get 4 different Wanted Posters after hearing about poor distribution from other people. However, my other sets did not treat me so well... You'll see in the other reviews but I ended up with a lot of duplicates and I'm still missing 2 posters. I get the idea of having chase elements and wanting people to work to "collect them all." But I bought or received every set in the theme. It seems reasonable to want to get all 8 posters without having to buy multiples of sets or buy off Bricklink. I don't know how they ensure that except to put all 8 posters in the biggest set. Now to finish talking about how this set plays with scale. You can see that the front of the ship is pretty much minifigure scale. This works great and allows for the crew to point out their next island destination. Moving to the back of the ship it focuses more on micro-scale. The tiny door and 1x1 round tiles for portholes make a micro-scale cabin and the tangerine trees in the back would fit well next to a micro-figure. Putting a minifigure in the back to steer the ship helps spoil the forced perspective. But overall I think the set balances the scale well. This is a set that looks great as a display model but will also provide a lot of play potential for the kids. Through the series of One Piece Luffy slowly recruits a crew to join him. They become known as the Straw Hat pirates because of Luffy's iconic straw hat. But the end of season 1 of the Netflix show Luffy has recruited 4 members. In the picture we have Luffy, our intrepid captain; Nami, the navigator; Usopp, the sniper; Sanji, the cook; and Zoro, the swordsman. Overall their outfits represent their live-action counterparts well. Zoro gets a new sword element that attaches at the neck. This is necessary because Zoro uses a fighting style called 3-sword style where he holds the 3rd sword in his mouth. I was really hoping Lego would make a neck bracket with a clip to hold anything and was disappointed when they went this direction. The element works great for this use, but it's limited to this situation only. The sword can be held by the handle, but the neck bracket element sticks out making that not a viable usage. Each has back printing and alternate faces. A missed opportunity to include Sanji with hearts printed for eyes. Nami and Zoro have dual-molded arms and Usopp has a printed sweatband on his left arm. I feel like this was a missed opportunity to have side printing for Nami. Adding her signature circle pattern on her legs would have helped a lot. Each character comes with a new-for-One-Piece hair or hat element. Not picture is Zoro's new bandana piece. It's similar to the previous pirate bandanas, but slightly different. Since Lego is making their sets based off the Netflix show and not the manga or anime there is one major change to a character that I feel is a big loss. That is Usopp. In the manga and anime Usopp has a comically long nose. He is known for telling tall-tales and Pinocchio and his nose easily come to mind. For the live action series they chose to ignore that physical aspect of the character. I tried replacing Usopp's head with the Lego Pinicchio. However, the expression on the face ruins it. I really hope Lego makes at least 1 set based on the anime and re-uses the Pinocchio head for Usopp with the right skin tone and facile expression. But all those minor complaints shouldn't stop you from enjoying this set. All the arcs in One Piece seem to end with some kind of feast. This review will be no different. Using just food and drink elements from the set, our crew is enjoying having set off for another adventure. OVERALL In summary I have a few complaints with the set, but compared to the finish product they are minor. This boat is a fantastic re-creation of the Going Merry and looks amazing. The shaping is superb and it is packed with detail. There are lots of compartments and the right amount of space for our whole crew. It's great that you get all 6 Straw Hat pirates in this one set. If you just want 1 display model you don't have to source the rest of the crew from other sets. The finished boat is sturdy and I believe will hold up to play well. SCORE How do I rate this set? DESIGN 9 I love the overall design of this set. The rudder not using a clip, the lack of side printing on Nami and overuse of stickers are the only reasons this gets a 9 instead of 10. BUILDING EXPERIENCE 9 It was fun to build and managed to pack a lot into a small space. It makes great use of modern building techniques. It felt like a standard build, but that's only because Lego building techniques have been getting more and more clever. FEATURES 9 There are great play features with all the areas of the ship for story-telling. The negative feature is the random distribution of the Wanted Posters. I got lucky with this set, but others did not receiving 2 or 3 of the same poster. Somehow Lego needs to get better at distributing these chase elements. PLAYABILITY 10 This set is very easy to play with, full marks there! PARTS 10 I wouldn't call this set a good parts pack, but it does have a great selection. New elements are used well, colors work well together and nothing feels missing or superfluous.. VALUE FOR MONEY 10 At 140 USD it's just over the golden PPP. At 130 EUR it's just under. Either way I feel like this set is a good value. You get a great ship, the full crew and hopefully a good set of Wanted Posters. FINAL SCORE: 10 I"m going to round up and give this set a perfect 10. Yes, there are some small flaws. But if you are a One Piece fan you are going to want this set as a part of your collection. But what's this, there's more! What would happen if our crew stumbled across the Eldorado Fortress? Guys, there's an island up-ahead! Should we go check it out? I don't know, what if there are monsters waiting for us? I'll bet they have meat, I'm going to go check it out! Wait Luffy, we should go together! It's too late, he's already gone. Come on, let's go catch up with him. Tune in next time to find out what happens next!
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Hi, it's quite a lot that i don't post any of my moc, mainly for lacking of time to photograph them properly, anyway i hope you like this new one! Some fake decals.
