30080 "Flying Ninja"

Well, it was pretty much inevitable that after getting back to Boston it would only be a matter of time before I went to the LEGO Store, and this weekend was that weekend. Instead of putting it all together in one mass "New Acquisitions" post, I'm going to break it down by set. This is partly so that I can deal with each new piece at greater length, but also because I can use the material. The LEGO I brought back from Canada is with me, but the overwhelming balance of my collection is still at my future father-in-law's place in the country, and will be there until we can find an excuse to start driving "all my stuff" back in.

Anyway, the first set that I picked up yesterday was not actually at the LEGO Store, but at the Target in the same mall. My fiancée and I were putting together part of our wedding registry there (I was not allowed to scan LEGO sets, alas), and the reward for me was that we got to go to the LEGO Store. However, as we were exiting Target, I caught sight of a polybag on the rack.

A polybag! From a look at the contents, there is no difference between a "polybag" and an "impulse set," but nostalgia speaks somewhat differently for me. While polybags, or "bag sets," as we called them, were hardly the pinnacle of LEGO sets growing up, but they were an integral part of that period--not least because, as a kid, they were often all that could be afforded at a given moment. Indeed, there were a couple themes that owed their entire collection in my possession to a polybag. So, after a several year drought, whenever I see a polybag now, I tend to snap it up for the nostalgia.

Hence how 30080 ended up in my collection. Lugnet calls it "Flying Ninja," which is accurate enough, but the bag itself has no name that I could find.



Anyway, I must apologise for the terrible photo. The apartment is a basement and has NO natural lighting and my improvised light box was... not as light as it could have been.

"Flying Ninja" is not a remarkable set, though I think it's one of the cuter ninja polybags out there. It's certainly more aesthetically pleasing to my mind than 3019 "Grey Ninja", which is the other "single ninja-glider polybag" in my possession. Since my purchase of NinjaGo has thus far been limited to a couple of the smaller boxes, and since I've never managed to get one of the legendary "ninja princesses," it was nice to be able to get my hands on a white ninja.

And, of course, the golden "troll swords" are nice--I didn't have any of them in gold (or any of the ExoForce "robot arms" in gold), and this set comes with a nice complement. Perhaps the nicest thing about them, though, is how surprisingly effective they are--and somewhat poseable too.

All things considered, I was pleasantly surprised to find a NinjaGo polybag, and feel like LEGO did a marvellous job with this one.