Meet the new beast! Beasts are in this season. Japan has Beast Saga, Diamond Select Toys just launched Battle Beasts, and Onell Design has their own artisanal Armorvor figure... and now LEGO has Legends of Chima. This is their new multimedia kid-driven line replacing Ninjago with TV specials, big battles, collectible figures, and overpriced blister-packaged sets which will sell like crazy. The line is fairly robust, with bagged "constraction" figures of key characters resembling Xevoz and Bionicle in addition to the traditional 2-inch minifigure-scaled lines.
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I was pretty pleased to see various ape figures in 70008 Gorzan's Gorilla Striker, a giant robot thing. A lot of vehicles like Cragger's Command Ship are based on animals, again very much like the Battle Beasts of old. The story behind these guys is that lions, gators, apes, and other creatures are chasing down blue crystals which allow them to collect "chi," which is handy as it's something people vaguely recognize as an actual thing in Asia but kids have no idea what it is.
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The variety of minifigures is quite extensive, and the aforementioned blister-carded sets are built around stunts. Pull-cords rev their motors so you can jump through a flaming hoop or other small obstacle kits, but if you ask me the main purpose for these sets is to enable kids to get figures "more cheaply," relative to the larger and more involved boxed sets.
--Adam Pawlus
