Were you the one clamoring for a whole new “official” scale that’s been popular as MOCs? If so, Lego has the sets for you! I guess that’s probably because chibi is really just slang for “oversized” or “super deformed” that maybe Lego didn’t want to adopt it as an official term. As a style, it’s obviously something we’ve invested in a lot here at FBTB, with our Chibi contests in the past and featuring builds in that style.
I’m not sure if these things are ever going to get a fair shake in the eyes of the AFOL community, since they replaced the Planets sets that were fairly popular to collectors, and I don’t think popular at all for kids. I don’t have any evidence for that, it’s just… how many kids want to play with what is effectively a christmas ornament and a mini-build with a figure? It was a display piece, which would be fine if it was targeted swiftly at adults, but Lego is notoriously bad at targeting their products outside of the kids market.
These sets are pretty much the opposite. The appeal to kids is pretty obvious, especially if you’ve kept up on the action figure trends. The whole oversized / out-of-proportion look has been big, with Star Wars, Marvel, and Transformers all having a line dedicated to looking odd. More than that, they’re obviously not designed for AFOLs… except of course for that minifig, which sort of proves that someone at Lego is just an evil genius, getting us to drop $10 on a handful of parts just because they know we want a Theron Nett minifig. Well played, Lego… well played. (more…)
