Have you seen the (80012) LEGO Monkey King Warrior Mech on the store shelves? I haven’t been out much but I have seen it available at the official LEGO Malaysia online store for RM649.90.

When the whole Monkie Kid set was launched, LEGO made a big deal about how this set has 119 of metallic gold lacquered elements. Combine that with all the gold-backed vinyl pieces and I am surprised there’s no sign of the word gold in the LEGO Monkey King Warrior Mech’s set name.

Of all the sets in the series, the LEGO Monkey King Warrior Mech, in my opinion, would be the most copied. You know how those counterfeiters have no chill. But, I imagine those golden pieces cannot be easy to replicate, not on the cheap. I speculated that all that gold was meant to combat piracy. However, according to one of the lead designers of the set, I was wrong.

“No. We wanted to make the Monkey king Warrior mech extra special because the legendary character is so beloved across all of Asia. We also know how valued the golden pieces are with LEGO fans and wanted to respect the legend by bringing it to life in the best possible way that we could imagine,“ said Simon Lucas, one of the lead designers for the LEGO Monkie Kid series.

Cool huh? I still think this set will be counterfeited to all heck.