Botanicals

Japanese Red Maple Bonsai Tree

A quiet, gorgeous tree that finally nails the color of autumn leaves.

Brick Rated Score

4.3/5

Set 10348 · 2025

Pieces474

Minifigsn/a

Year2025

Set number10348

Check price on Amazon

Affiliate link. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

The verdict

I built the original Bonsai back in 2021 and loved it, but this one is the better tree.

The two-tone leaves, shifting from deep red to bright orange, are what got me, and the trunk actually looks like wood instead of a pile of green plates pretending to be bark. It is a slow, meditative build rather than a puzzle full of clever tricks, and at 474 pieces for sixty dollars some builders will wince at the per-piece cost. If you want a display piece that makes a shelf or desk look considerably classier, this earns its spot. If you need engineering fireworks to feel satisfied, this will feel a little too calm for you.

Best for: plant lovers and desk-display collectors who want a calming build over a challenging one

The full review

What it is

This is LEGO Botanicals doing what it does best, taking something living and quiet and turning it into a display piece you actually want on a shelf. The Japanese Red Maple Bonsai Tree is the theme's second stab at a bonsai, four years after the original 2021 set, and the improvement shows immediately. The leaves are the real star here. LEGO used a two-color injection molding process so each leaf piece fades from a deep dark red into bright orange, which sounds like a small thing until you see a full canopy of them catching light on a windowsill. It genuinely reads as an autumn maple, not a green plastic stand-in wearing red paint.

The catch

I will be straight with you about the price. At sixty dollars for 474 pieces, with no minifigs, no printed parts, and no license attached, a few reviewers have called it overpriced, and I understand the math. You are paying for the display effect and the new molds, not piece count efficiency. The build itself is also more of a calm, repetitive flow than a puzzle full of aha moments, so if you love wrestling with clever SNOT techniques and surprise connections, this will feel gentle by comparison. A handful of builders also noted that grey structural bricks show through the branches here and there before the leaf clusters fully hide them, though once the tree is finished you stop noticing.

Who it's for

Get this one if you love plants, enjoy slow methodical builds, or want a striking seasonal centerpiece that does not scream LEGO set from across the room. Skip it if you are chasing technical complexity or need your money going toward piece count and minifigs rather than mood and color.

The parts story

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

Building the tree is unhurried work. You start with the pot, which uses some genuinely nice SNOT techniques to come out solid and heavy feeling, then move on to constructing the trunk and branch structure before the long, satisfying process of clipping leaf clusters into place one by one. Some branches attach with fixed axle connections while others use pin joints so you can bend and pose them, which lets you shape the canopy a little to your own taste rather than following one rigid silhouette.

The standout new piece is a 3x3 palm leaf mold, a smaller companion to the classic 6x5 palm leaf that has been around since 1999, and it shows up 25 times to build out the foliage. The larger 7-leaved maple pieces appear in orange, reddish orange, and true red for the first time ever in this set, in quantities of 8, 16, and 21, and that mix of shades is exactly what sells the gradient effect. The trunk leans on newer organic tan elements plus repurposed Ninjago dragon horn pieces for bark texture, a nice bit of cross-theme part reuse that gives the wood real visual variation instead of a smooth uniform column.

Fun facts

01This is LEGO's second bonsai tree, arriving four years after the original 10281 Bonsai Tree from 2021.
02The two-tone leaf pieces are made using a two-color injection molding process, blending dark red into bright orange within a single piece.
03The set reuses Ninjago dragon horn elements as trunk sections to create the tree's textured bark.
04It launched on June 1, 2025 for US $59.99, CAN $79.99, and UK £54.99.