Monkie Kid

Monkie Kid's Lion Guardian

A golden lion mech with a proper working arcade claw hiding in the box.

Brick Rated Score

3.6/5

Set 80021 · 2021

Pieces775

Minifigs5

Year2021

Set number80021

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The verdict

The Lion Guardian looks fierce from the front and a bit unfinished from behind, and I keep going back and forth on how much that bothers me.

What sold me was the little arcade, an actual working claw machine that grabs and drops toy pieces, tucked in alongside the mech like a bonus set. It's a playset first and a display piece second, so if you want something to swoosh and battle with, it delivers, and if you want a clean shelf model, temper things a little.

Best for: Monkie Kid fans and kids who love mech-versus-monster play with a working arcade gimmick

The full review

What it is

The Monkie Kid line has always been about big golden hero energy against creepy-crawly villains, and the Lion Guardian is that fight in one box. You build the lion mech itself, a small spider drone, the Spider Queen's arachnid battle rig, and a little arcade, so it plays more like several connected builds than one showpiece. The lion is the headline, with a snapping jaw and a fully posable body, and the first time I got the face and mane together I understood why it's the star of the packaging. From the front it genuinely looks like a temple guardian come to life.

The catch

That front glory does not carry all the way around, though. Once you turn the lion to see its sides and back, the detail thins right out and you notice a lot of exposed structure, which is exactly what reviewers flagged again and again. It builds in bagged stages so it never overwhelms, even for a younger builder, and the full assembly runs a touch over two and a half hours, but at the original 79.99 dollar asking price plenty of people came away feeling it was a fair set rather than a special one. The parts count is decent, the value is decent, and decent is roughly where the main model lands.

Who it's for

The people who end up loving this are Monkie Kid fans and anyone building for imaginative mech-versus-monster play, hands down. The arcade alone won over kids and adults in the reviews I read because a claw machine that actually grabs is pure fun on a desk, and the five characters give you a proper little cast. If your heart is set on a flawless display lion for the shelf, this is the one to think twice about, because the back will nag at you every time you walk past it.

The parts story

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

Building it is a relaxed, low-stress few hours. Everything comes in numbered bags and even the lion, the most involved section, is split across several of them, so you are never staring at a mountain of loose parts. The arcade and the crane grabber are the sneaky highlights of the process, with some clever small-scale mechanics that gave more than one reviewer ideas to steal for their own creations, and the spring-loaded shooters hidden in the lion's drums are a satisfying little surprise to assemble.

On the parts front the treasure is in the reds and the prints. There are Design Bricks in bright red that show up in only one other set, seven red flame tribal pieces shared with just a couple of others, and a fresh 1x1 round tile with a spider print made new for this wave. The wave also introduced three brand new molds, including a new hair piece and an angled bar holder with real building potential. Just go in knowing most of the recolors are print variations rather than genuinely new coloured elements, so the value here is character and rarity more than a big haul of fresh colours.

Fun facts

01The set was an Amazon exclusive in the United States and retired in December 2022, less than two years after its March 2021 release.
02Three of its five minifigures, including the Spider Queen with cape, are exclusive to this set.
03You can scan a QR code on the box to pull up a 3D interactive building guide on a phone or tablet instead of paper instructions.
04Despite the mech looking huge on the box, the whole thing assembles in a little over two and a half hours.