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Lego Monkie Kid (Chinese: 悟空小侠) is a Lego theme inspired by the Monkey King and Journey to the West. It is licensed from The Lego Group. The theme was first introduced in May 2020. The toy line is also accompanied by an animated television series that premiered in China that same month.
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Text from the Wikipedia article “Lego Monkie Kid”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Lego Monkie Kid (Chinese: 悟空小侠) is a Lego theme inspired by the Monkey King and Journey to the West. It is licensed from The Lego Group. The theme was first introduced in May 2020. The toy line is also accompanied by an animated television series that premiered in China that same month.
Lego Monkie Kid is inspired by the Monkey King and Journey to the West, which focuses on Monkie Kid and his friends, battling against a variety of demons who are trying to take over Megapolis.
Lego Monkie Kid is The Lego Group's first product line based on Chinese culture. Although The Lego Group had previously released Lego Chinese New Year sets, it was the first time that the company had released an entire product line based on a Chinese theme. Following research in China, The Lego Group discovered that the classic Chinese story of the Monkey King and Journey to the West is widely known within Chinese culture. As a result, the story was chosen as the main inspiration for Lego Monkie Kid. Simon Lucas, senior creative director commented, "It feels like it was in the DNA of everybody there. So we thought it was a great starting point to tell a new story that's rooted in Chinese culture". The Lego theme was developed over the course of two years and interpreted the story in a different way to the original. Lucas explained, "The people we spoke to have grown up with these stories, and we wanted to find out what's important to them, and how to interpret that in a new way...So, being 100% accurate to the original was not necessary, really, because we were picking up the key ingredients". The product line does, however, include recognizable characters from Journey to the West.
The designers behind Lego Monkie Kid revealed that researching Chinese stories and testing with children were important in the development of the theme. Lego Senior Design Manager Dennis Fong explained, "We felt that we hit something really big when we had this concept of the Monkey King ... Seeing all the energy from the kids, the parents, how they could instantly recognize it because we had a lot of key iconic elements in there. And, you know, we didn't need to tell a new story. We had the old story as a foundation for us to build upon."
The initial concept for the theme originated in a rough sketch created by Ned Rogers in December 2021. The sketch depicted several construction sets are transformed into animated vehicles and which parts of the design remain. Featured the concept art are Monkie Kid's Cloud Jet, Pigsy's Food Truck and the Tuk Tuk from Iron Bull Tank. With Lego Monkie Kid theme from The Lego Group was developed as an animated television series, the images showcase how the early set designs were taken and turned into animated models on screens.
The Lego Monkie Kid theme was launched on 16 May 2020. As part of the marketing campaign, The Lego Group released the eight sets inspired by Monkey King and Journey to the West. Each set featured different giant mecha, buildings and vehicles. Minifigures including Monkie Kid, Mei, Monkey King, Mo the cat, Sandy, Mr. Tang and Pigsy were released as well. The sets were designed primarily for children 6+.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Lego Monkie Kid”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.