New parts: January 2025 LEGO® Monkie Kid and LEGO® Chinese Traditional Festival sets

Earlier this week at the China International Import Expo, the LEGO Group unveiled three new LEGO® Lunar New Year/ Spring Festival sets – some launching on 25 December 2024 in most countries in the Asia Pacific region and worldwide on 1 January 2025 – and two new LEGO® Monkie Kid sets launching 1 January.

As is usual for these themes, these sets feature a wealth of interesting new molds, recolored parts, and printed elements. Let’s take a peek at 80065 Erlang’s Celestial Mech, 80066 Mythical Creature Qilin, 80116 Trotting Lantern, 80117 Good Fortune, and 40813 Lucky Cat to see what the new year has in store!

Review: 80058 Celestial Pagoda from LEGO® Monkie Kid™

80058 Celestial Pagoda is the largest set in the June 2024 wave of releases for the LEGO® Monkie Kid™ theme. It's a good-looking building with some decent architectural features, and comes with seven minifigures plus Baby Mo the cat. Let's take a closer look at the unique and unusual elements which are included.

LEGO® Monkie Kid™ review: 80054 Megapolis City 5th Anniversary

Today I'm taking a look at LEGO® Monkie Kid 80054 Megapolis City 5th Anniversary, which contains some very interesting new pieces, and even a new LEGO colour! 

LEGO® Monkie Kid™ 80054 Megapolis City: interview with designer Wen Xiaodong

Want to see more of the thrilling 2024 LEGO® Monkie Kid™ set, 80054 Megapolis City 5th Anniversary? Senior Designer/ Show Producer 温笑冬 (Wēn Xiàodōng) told us more about the set and its Easter eggs when I met him at the Recognised LEGO® Fan Media Days in Billund, Denmark in September. In advance of our set review next week, here are the highlights of our interview, with photography by Boris Vanrillaer of Stuck in Plastic.

 

LEGO® Monkie Kid™ review: 80047 Mei's Guardian Dragon

Monkie Kid and his bold companions charged into our collections a little over 3 years ago. I'm tempted to do one of those "how it started vs. how it's going" memes but that's perhaps redundant, as it's clear to see that the sets are still doing really well and continue to offer something a bit different. I'd appreciate wider availability but if the way to maintain a theme is by having it exclusive to LEGO.com in some regions, then so be it!

LEGO® Monkie Kid™ review: 80048 The Mighty Azure Lion

The next set we are going to look at from the June 2023 wave of LEGO® Monkie Kid releases is 80048 The Mighty Azure Lion. As you will see, that's a bit of a misnomer, since a lot of the interesting new pieces are actually Dark Turquoise, but I'm splitting lion hairs here and really ought to get on with the review!

LEGO® Monkie Kid™ review: 80046 Monkie Kid's Cloud Airship

The June 2023 wave of the LEGO® Monkie Kid theme includes four sets. In this review, I will be taking a look at the smallest of them, 80046 Monkie Kid's Cloud Airship. 

LEGO® Monkie Kid™ review: 80049 Dragon of the East Palace

Coming on 1 June, 80049 Dragon of the East Palace is the largest LEGO® Monkie Kid™ set of 2023, although exceeded in element quantity by The Heavenly Realms – see Caz's review here. Based once again upon the book Journey to the West, this set depicts what occurred when the Monkey King got his magical staff from the Dragon King of the East.

LEGO® Monkie Kid™ review & MOC: 80037 Dragon of the East

Released as the smallest set in the mid-2022 wave of LEGO® Monkie Kid™ Series 3, 80037 Dragon of the East is a fun playset featuring two baddies pitted against our hero Monkie Kid and Mr Tang. Let's take a look at the interesting elements found in the set, before I use some of them in a creation of my own!

LEGO® Monkie Kid review: 80044 Monkie Kid's Team Hideout

Thomas Jenkins has already reviewed the largest offering of the January 2023 wave of LEGO® Monkie Kid sets, 80045 Monkey King Ultra Mech, and I have taken a look at 80040 Monkie Kid's Combi Mech and 80041 Mei's Dragon Jet in a combined review, plus 80043 Yellow Tusk Elephant. Today it is the turn of 80044 Monkie Kid's Team Hideout. 

LEGO® Monkie Kid review & MOC: 80043 Yellow Tusk Elephant

Thomas Jenkins has already reviewed the largest offering of the January 2023 wave of LEGO® Monkie Kid sets, 80045 Monkey King Ultra Mech, and I have taken a look at 80040 Monkie Kid's Combi Mech and 80041 Mei's Dragon Jet in a combined review. Today I'm turning my attention to 80043 Yellow Tusk Elephant, which sits in the middle of the range, and I will be assessing 80044 Monkie Kid's Team Hideout very soon. For brevity, I will refer to them by their set numbers in the text below.

LEGO® Monkie Kid™ review & MOC: 80040 Monkie Kid's Combi Mech & 80041 Mei's Dragon Jet

The January 2023 wave of LEGO® Monkie Kid™ includes two sets at the £17.99 price point. Today I take a look at 80040 Monkie Kid's Combi Mech and 80041 Mei's Dragon Jet, and highlight the interesting elements they contain.

 

LEGO® Monkie Kid™ review: 80045 Monkey King Ultra Mech

Today we’re looking at 80045 Monkey King Ultra Mech: the largest of the upcoming January wave of LEGO® Monkie Kid™ sets. Soon, Caz Mockett will be investigating the other four sets: 80040 Monkie Kid Combi Mech, 80041 Mei’s Dragon Jet, 80043 Yellow Tusk Elephant, and 80044 Monkie Kid’s Team Hideout. What better way to celebrate the approaching new year than with some brand-new LEGO sets and elements?

LEGO® Monkie Kid review & MOCs: 80034 Nezha's Fire Ring

80034 Nezha's Fire Ring was part of the January 2022 wave of the LEGO® Monkie Kid theme. Let's take a look at the interesting elements to and build the set, before we have a play with some of the parts.

LEGO® Monkie Kid review & MOCs: 80039 The Heavenly Realms

2022 saw the debut of LEGO® Monkie Kid Season 3, accompanied by the release of seven sets on 1 January. Six months later, 80039 The Heavenly Realms appeared; the largest of three more sets released in the summer wave. 

LEGO® Monkie Kid parts review + MOCs: 80036 The City of Lanterns

Products in this article were provided by LEGO®; the author's opinions are their own.

2022 brought us a whole new wave of LEGO® Monkie Kid sets, a theme that caught our attention several times before with its creative builds and interesting pieces. Today we are shining a light on the inventory of LEGO® Monkie Kid 80036 The City of Lanterns, which launched January 1st.

The Glow Demon: Si-MOCs vs. Monkie Kid

Simon Liu (@si_mocs) returns as our guest builder today! A stalwart of LEGO® fan communities both in Canada and online, we knew Si would just love to take on another MOCcing challenge. Products in this article were provided by LEGO®; the author's opinions are their own.

For my previous New Elementary guest article, I had the ‘privilege’ of reviewing 31200 LEGO® Art The Sith mosaic set, which was chosen for me. Much like the Iron Builder contest I help to run, the set offered pretty specific pieces to work with: about 3000 Plate Round 1 x 1. This time around, perhaps having proved myself a bit, I got to choose the set I would build MOCs out of. So I went off looking at sets that had an abundance of ‘interesting’ pieces.

One thing I’ve always loved working into my builds are LEGO pieces that are reactive to ultraviolet light. This gives MOCs that extra sci-fi feel, and there was only one set at the time that included a bunch of White Glow (aka Glow in the Dark) elements: LEGO Monkie Kid 80028 The Bone Demon.

LEGO® Monkie Kid parts review + MOCs: 80035 Monkie Kid's Galactic Explorer

Products in this article were provided by LEGO®; the author's opinions are their own.

80035 Monkie Kid's Galactic Explorer - with 1356 parts and a price range of 169.99 AUD / 169.99 CAD / 99.99 EUR(DE)/ 129.95 EUR(FI) / 89.99 GBD / 129.99 USD - is one of 8 playsets of the LEGO® Monkie Kid January 2022 line-up. It is also one of the coolest spaceships currently available. However, I'll leave the spaceship aspect to the Benny-heads while I dive deep into the interesting parts of this set, and then reveal two original character builds inspired by its contents.

Aron Gerencsér's MOCcing with Monkie Kid

Aron Gerencsér (@_pohaturon) reviewed LEGO® Monkie Kid sets 80018, 80019, 80020, 80021, 80022, 80023 & 80024 earlier this year and now, as promised, he presents MOCs he created inspired by the new elements in the range. If you're getting Monkie Kid sets from LEGO.com, please consider using our affiliate links, New Elementary may get a commission: USA | Australia | UK - for EU countries 'Change Region'. Products in this article were provided by LEGO; the author's opinions are their own.

I recently had the chance to review the first wave of LEGO® Monkie Kid sets released this year, which brought many new interesting recolours and a couple of new moulds to the table. While we took a closer look at the pieces themselves in the respective reviews, the best way to show off new bits is in action, so I’ve built a couple of MOCs to explore their utility!

LEGO® Monkie Kid review: 80024 The Legendary Flower Fruit Mountain

Aron Gerencsér (@_pohaturon) completes his 2021 LEGO® Monkie Kid set analysis today with 80024 The Legendary Flower Fruit Mountain. Don't forget, it is Double VIP Points at LEGO.com until 20 April 2021 so if you're buying this set, or anything, please consider using our affiliate links: UK LEGO Shop | USA LEGO Shop | Australia LEGO Shop, for other countries 'Change Region'. New Elementary may get a commission. The products in this article were provided for free by LEGO; the author's opinions are not biased by this.

The largest set in the first 2021 wave of LEGO® Monkie Kid sets is a stark departure from the usual aesthetic of the theme. 80024 The Legendary Flower Fruit Mountain is a 1949-piece set retailing for £159.99 / US$169.99 / 169.99€ (more currencies listed at the end of this post) which instead of a fancy futuristic vehicle or mech depicts a beautiful mountain vista with a mythic vibe, straying much closer to the theme’s Journey to the West roots. Let’s see if this dramatic shift works to the set’s advantage.