K-2SO gets a bootleg buildable figure care of KSZ

At this point in time, Star Wars is a guaranteed money-printing machine. Rogue One is no exception. As it stands, the movie has grossed upwards of $900 million. Of course, no Star Wars movie is complete without the myriad of merchandise on retail – including bootlegs of said merchandise.

Today I’ll be showing you a bootleg of Lego’s Buildable Figures K-2SO, that sassy droid which endeared itself to many moviegoers. This set is made by KSZ. I have seen this brand around for some time now. They aren’t as prolific as the more known makers are, but they do produce a number of minifig sets and buildable figures, the latter of which is a market that hasn’t been tapped much by bootleggers. Let’s take a quick dive and see what this set has to offer.

A new maker takes on Batman v Superman, is it any good? [X Batman v Superman minifig set]

Man, I really, really should update the blog more. There’s a bit of a backlog accumulating here, but I will get through them all, I promise. In the intervening months since I last posted, there has been an explosion of bootleg sets, from Star Wars to superhero sets and even Lego’s higher-end Creator sets. Admittedly, I don’t think I’d be able to cover all those sets lest I burn a serious hole in my pocket (and savings)! I will cover what I can, though, and I guess those would be sets that pique my interest.

As well, a number of bootleg makers have branched out and started to release their own minifigs for characters that Lego has yet to manufacture themselves. I’ll also be covering those, since minifigs are my thing if it’s not obvious enough from previous posts!

All told, it’s a great time to get into these. Just the plethora of choices available is astounding.

Anyway, I’ll focus on this here Batman v Superman minifig set. The movie itself is one of those deals where you either like it or you don’t. Regardless, we’re getting some good minifigs out of it, so it’s a definite win for brick collectors.

Someone cloned Lego’s Millenium Falcon, and it’s a new maker [Lepin Star Wars The Force Awakens Millenium Falcon]

Well. The allure of cashing in from a sure-fire merchandising behemoth like Star Wars produced a new entrant in the Lego clone scene, Lepin. Getting another maker isn’t exactly surprising, it’s that they jumped into the fray with huge sets from the get-go. To be honest, the Millenium Falcon isn’t the first of their kits to come over. The first I’ve seen from them is Kylo Ren’s Command Shuttle, an equally-huge set (but something I personally skipped, not being a fan of the ship design in general). So yeah, Lepin came in with a splash tidal wave, not being content in starting off with the usual 8-character themed minifig sets.

Dargo draws first blood in the race to come out with Force Awakens bootlegs [Dargo Star Wars: The Force Awakens minifig set]

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a big deal. That’s pretty much set in stone right now. With the film breaking all sorts of records already (and will only open in China this weekend), suffice to say, the film is an astronomical hit, not only financially, but also critically (93% at Rotten Tomatoes).

Where there’s a hit, there’s bound to be merchandising, too! And Star Wars as a whole is definitely no slouch in that regard. There’s a ton of merch Disney licenses, from t-shirts to, um, tape dispensers.

Catch Jurassic World's Owen and company on a shoestring budget [Lele's Jurassic World minifig set]

One thing about Lele is that among the big three of bootleg Lego manufacturers (Sheng Yuan and Decool are the other two; together with Lele, these three makers offer the best-made bootlegs), it tries to diversify its offerings more than the other two. Or at least, they go to market with non-superhero offerings faster than the other two.

It comes as no surprise, then, that they're first to the market (at least here in the Philippines) with a Jurassic World minifig set. As with most bootleg minifig sets, this one comes in a set of 8 minifigs.  So who made the cut?

Dargo complements SY’s Avengers offering [Dargo Avengers Age of Ultron minifig set]

If you’re a bootleg minifig maker and you’re dead-set on making production runs of sets of 8 minifigs per set, max, you’ll eventually run into problems with the Avengers movie franchise. With the second movie, you now have 10 main heroes to account for (including Fury), and that’s not even counting Falcon and War Machine into the mix.

And that’s also not including the Big Bad Boss, as well as other henchmen and enemy footsoldiers. SY made their cuts when they made their Avengers 2 set, and they stuck with the core heroes from the first movie, plus Ultron.

Interestingly enough, Dargo, instead of making their own set similar to SY to compete with them, decided to make minifigs that complement SY’s set. So the minifigs that weren’t picked by SY to be included in their set, Dargo did.

Submit to these minifigs or perish [Sheng Yuan Age of Ultron minifig set]

The new Avengers movie is only about to start screening in American theaters and Sheng Yuan has already shipped their bootleg minifigs. That’s a pretty fast turnaround, considering that we’re talking about bootlegs here.

As an aside, watch the movie. It’s great!

Anyway, I know that I have a tremendous backlog of minifig sets to lay out on this blog. But I figure I’d shake things up a bit and try to post new acquisitions ASAP, so as not to further add to said backlog. For the readers who check back here every once in a while, thanks for keeping tabs on this small spot on the internet!