Monkie Kid

Dragon of the East

A serpentine dragon in white, pink and turquoise that has no business looking this good.

Brick Rated Score

4.0/5

Set 80037 · 2022

Pieces880

Minifigs4

Year2022

Set number80037

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The verdict

The colour combination is what got me here.

White, magenta and turquoise sounds like it should clash, and instead the finished dragon looks like something out of a silk painting. It is the smallest set of the mid-2022 Monkie Kid wave, so you are paying a bit more per piece than I would like, but the actual dragon is bigger and more poseable than the box suggests. If you have fallen for Monkie Kid's take on Chinese mythology, this one rewards you. If you have never watched a single episode, the sculpt still stands on its own shelf presence.

Best for: Monkie Kid fans and anyone who wants a poseable Eastern dragon display piece

The full review

What it is

The first time I built the Dragon of the East I kept stopping to look at it from different angles, which does not happen with most 880-piece sets. This is the smallest of the mid-2022 Monkie Kid releases, part of the show's Season 3 wave, and on paper it is an underwater battle playset. In practice it is a long, low, serpentine dragon that coils across a shelf in white, magenta and turquoise, with a small bubble-craft that nestles onto its back and a poseable tail that actually holds whatever curve you give it. There is a green fire ring, a couple of spring-loaded shooters, and a detachable submarine, but the dragon is the whole reason to be here.

The catch

I will be straight with you about the value. At 79.99 dollars for 880 pieces, this is the most expensive-per-part set in its wave, and you feel it. The accessory builds, a stud-shooting submarine shaped like the Golden Staff and a little manta-ray jet, are the weak links. They exist for battle play and I suspect most people who buy this for display will leave them in the box. If you go in expecting a big playset with lots of separate models, you may feel a touch short-changed. Go in wanting one beautiful dragon and the maths starts to make more sense.

Who it's for

This is an easy set to recommend to Monkie Kid fans, who get four minifigures (three of them unique to this set) and a proper centrepiece dragon for the collection. It is also a surprisingly good pick for anyone who just wants a poseable Eastern dragon on a shelf and does not care about the show at all, because the sculpt earns its place on colour and shape alone. The people I would steer away are hardcore playset hunters and anyone allergic to pink in their builds. The set is now retired, so it lives on the secondary market, though prices have stayed close to the original RRP rather than spiking.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building the dragon is more satisfying than the parts count implies, because the body is essentially a chain of disc-like platforms linked so the whole thing bends and poses. You spend the middle of the build repeating a segment structure, which some people find a little samey, but the payoff is a tail you can actually sculpt into a curl and trust to stay there. It is a two-to-three hour build, gentle enough that it never gets frustrating, with the head and the crown as the reward at the end.

For parts people, the standout is a brand new mould made just for this set: the long curly hair-and-crown-and-beard piece for the Dragon of the East, printed with a golden crown in bright reddish violet. There are three unique recolours worth noting too, a big 6x6x3 windscreen dome in trans-dark pink, coral and seaweed elements in magenta, and a double-edged bar-sword blade in trans-dark pink. Those trans-pink and magenta pieces are the ones MOC builders tend to buy this set for, because they show up almost nowhere else.

Fun facts

01The Dragon of the East is the smallest set in the mid-2022 Monkie Kid Season 3 wave, yet its dragon is one of the longest models in the theme.
02The hair-and-crown-and-beard piece for the Dragon of the East minifigure was a brand new mould created specifically for this set.
03Three of the four minifigures (Scuba Monkie Kid, Scuba Tang and the Dragon of the East) are unique to this set.
04It carries a Brickset user rating of around 4.2 out of 5, strong for a smaller licensed action set.