Lego Review: Spinjutzu Training 70606

Theme: The Lego Ninjago Movie

Year: 2017

Price: $15AUD

I’ll be honest; I’m pretty ambivalent to the Ninjago theme as a whole. There were some very cool sets in the 2011 and 2012 releases, back when it was kind of a He-Man and the Masters of the Universe setting, but with Ninjas as the heroes. But it’s since moved into more heavily sci-fi territory, and I don’t really like the tech-heavy look they’ve gone with for the Ninjas. If I had my way, Lego would instead update the Ninja sets from the 90s, which were originally a sub-line of Castle.

However, money talks and AFOL bullshit walks – there’s no doubt that Ninjago has been a huge success for Lego. It’s spawned a huge amount of spinoff material, including books, clothes, TV series and a theatrically released movie. For any theme that isn’t City to run for 7 years continuously is a huge achievement.

As might be expected, the aforementioned film – The Lego Ninjago Movie – got its own series of building sets, which is where the subject of today’s review stems from. But if I’m not that fussed on  Ninjago, why did I pick this set up?

Well, despite my ambivalence to Ninjago specifically, I am a bit of a ninja tragic. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles helped spark my interest as a kid, but it quickly grew into its own thing. I think it was the black outfits that did it, to be quite honest. Also probably the combination of myth, folklore and flat-out pseudohistory that surrounds the subject. See also: Men in Black.   

As the name of the set implies, this looks like a small training dojo; it’s a total martial arts film cliché, which I find very endearing. There’s four primary elements and two minifigures:

• a Wing Chun-style training dummy – ideal for practicing close quarters combat
• a bop-bag style dummy, complete with samurai helmet
• a katana rack, for safe weapon storage
• a “shrine”. Presumably, this is where students bow upon entering and exiting the dojo.
• Kai (the red ninja)
• Zane (the white ninja)

The shrine is probably my favourite of the bunch. As a corner piece, it could be slotted into other sets easily enough, and it has some nice touches; the scroll on the wall and the red lantern look great, and the sides provide storage for two more weapons.

The minifigures are also pretty solid. The white ninja is particularly striking (if impractical for “real” ninja missions). While I think they should have stuck to solid red for Kai, the added black does make for a nice contrast.  My only real misgivings are about how the cowl has been split into two pieces now. I liked the turban-style mask from the original sets, as well as the armoured masks that were introduced later on. The new ones look pretty good if you can align them properly, but I don’t feel they stand up to play quite as well.  

Nonetheless, this is a nice back-to-basics set. It’s well-priced and can be enjoyed entirely separately from its larger franchise. My main disappointment is that it doesn’t include a traditional black-clad Ninja, but this seems like a relatively small gripe. 

The Lupine Book Club Sunday Afternoon Reader -- Part 2

More Sunday Afternoon reading! Let's get into it. See the Part 1 for an explanation of what I mean by Sunday Afternoon reading, should you require one.

Messages – Stan Romanek (2009)

Pic from Amazon.com

A few months ago, my dad leant my sister this book. She’s currently undertaking her PhD in psychology, so my dad was interested to hear what she thought about it from a psychological perspective. So I decided I’d have a read as well.

One of the main points which distinguish the book from the hundreds of others like it is that author Stan Romanek seems to have accrued a number of photos, as well as some video footage, of his abductors. Unfortunately, many of them do not seem to have made it into the book. I can appreciate that there are space considerations, but it does his story no favours when he talks about amazing photos he’s taken, then doesn’t include them. And to put it rather bluntly, regardless of where you sit on the sceptic/believer spectrum, the included photos are not going to impress. The same applies to his footage of “Boo” (one of a number of named aliens in the book) which you can view here.

Still, Messages is an entertaining, enjoyable read, and – whether true or not – a good introduction to the main tropes of UFO abduction phenomena. One of my sister's thoughts, incidentally, was that whether or not anything real had happened, he probably needed some counselling for stress.

Lego Batman – The Visual Dictionary

Pic from Amazon.com

I bought this while overseas in 2013 – I figured 5 pounds was pretty good for a Lego-related book and Batman minifigure. The book was definitely worthwhile -- covering the Batman and (DC) Super Heroes Lego from 2006 through to 2012, it naturally inspires a great deal of regret that I wasn’t paying more attention to Lego around this time (not that I could have afforded it back then anyway). Though a lot of licensed Lego is a mixed bag, the Batman theme in particular generated some really cool sets. Additionally, there are curiosities such as a prototype of Wonder Woman’s invisible plane – which will be showing up in 2015, albeit it different form.

Unfortunately, the minifigure was pretty disappointing in comparison to the book. Based on the Electro Suit from the 2008 Lego Batman video game, they’ve used the flimsy plastic that sometimes turns up in the Minifigures theme, the helmet doesn’t fit properly and he's missing the backpack that he has in the game. Nonetheless, when considered as a package, it’s definitely money well spent. No regrets about this one.  

Mysteries of the Unknown: The UFO Phenomenon (1987)

Pic from Amazon.com

I mentioned this book in the previous instalment of the Sunday Afternoon Reader. Of the two, I think it is the better, with more impressive illustrations, and an overall more unsettling tone. But of course, ideally you’d own both, even if they do cover some very similar territory.

A classy looking faux-leather cover, lots of metallic ink printing and many entertaining stories add up to make this one a winning combination. 

The only downside is that now I feel like I need to track down a copy of Mysterious Creatures, which was another excellent one from the series. It's still available reasonably easily, so it may be one to track down in the new year.

Ninja: 1,000 Years of the Shadow Warrior -- John Man (2013)

Pic from Amazon.com

As we get older, there are certain beliefs we held as children that need to be challenged. One of them is the idea that ninjas were black-clad badasses who pretty much went around chopping people's heads off and then disappearing in clouds of smoke, leaving any survivors in awe of their near-supernatural abilities.

Sadly, this wasn't the case, and it's a shock I think most men struggle to come to terms with. It's way worse than finding out Santa isn't real. I don't think I've quite dealt with it yet, and so I cling to characters from my past like Storm Shadow and Raphael -- ninjas who do live up to my exceedingly high expectations.

Ninja dispels a lot of legends surrounding the titular warrior-clan, but it also contains enough sensationalism to keep the interest inflamed throughout the course of the book. Importantly, it shows that for everything we do know about the ninjas, there's a buttload more that we don't know -- after all, what we do know seems to indicate that they were deliberately secretive...in the meantime, I'll probably continue to use outrageous pop culture interpretations to fill in the blanks.

That wraps it up for another installment of Sunday Afternoon Reading -- Part 3 will hopefully not take as long to arrive as Part 2 has!

If there's a particular book you'd like me to look at in the future, post in the comments and I'll do my best. You can also visit the Lupine Book Club on Facebook. Click here!