Disney

Young Simba the Lion King

A nearly life-size Simba that lives or dies on his face.

Brick Rated Score

3.9/5

Set 43247 · 2024

Pieces1,445

Minifigsn/a

Year2024

Set number43247

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The verdict

This is the teenage Simba from the 'Can You Feel the Love Tonight' stretch of the film, built almost life-size and posed to sit and stare out at you.

The build is calm and the coloring is gorgeous, all that warm bright light orange catching the light. He's a proper conversation piece if you love the movie, but the locked pose and slightly off muzzle mean he won't win over everyone. I'd call him a display for the heart, not the head.

Best for: Lion King fans who want a big warm display animal, not a poseable toy

The full review

What it is

There's a moment near the end where you set the finished Simba down, step back, and realize how big he actually is. This LEGO® set builds the adolescent lion from the back half of the film, the lanky teenager who's found Timon and Pumbaa and hasn't gone home yet, and he comes out very close to life-size. That scale is the whole point. He's not fiddly and he's not a puzzle box, he's a big warm animal made of glowing orange bricks, and when the light hits all that bright light orange he genuinely looks like he's soaking up the sun. LEGO put him out in June 2024 for the movie's 30th anniversary, aimed squarely at grown-up fans, with 1,445 pieces and no minifigures in the box.

The catch

Now for the honest part of it. Simba has exactly two points of articulation, a head that spins a full 360 degrees and a long curvy tail you can bend, and that's it. The pose you build is the pose you keep, so if you were hoping to reposition him into different scenes, that hope doesn't survive contact with the box. The bigger sticking point is the face. The designers clearly poured their effort into the head, and up close it's the smartest section of the build, but plenty of reviewers flag that the muzzle comes out long and flat, closer to a short duck bill than a cat's nose, and the fixed open-mouth expression tips into slightly uncanny territory depending on your angle. The body, meanwhile, goes together quickly and pleasantly without ever surprising you. At around two and a half hours it's a relaxing evening, not a memorable engineering feat. Some people will find him charming and characterful, others will look at the muzzle and never quite unsee it, and honestly both reactions are fair.

Who it's for

So who should bring him home. If you love The Lion King, if this specific era of Simba means something to you, if you want a large sunny display animal that reads instantly as who he is, he'll make you smile every time you walk past him. The value is real too, since you're getting a big model with barely any tiny common filler parts. If you build for clever techniques, or you want a poseable brick creature you can fuss with, or that muzzle is a dealbreaker in the photos, this probably isn't your set and the smaller poseable Simba Cub (43243) might scratch the itch better. He won me over as a mood more than a build, and for the right fan that's exactly enough.

The parts story

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

The build splits cleanly into a body and a head, and they feel like two different experiences. The body uses SNOT (studs not on top) work to round out the torso and haunches, and it's honest, steady building that clicks along without ever making you stop and admire a trick. It's the kind of section you do with a podcast on. The head is where the designers earned their pay. It's the most involved part of the model, layering angled plates and subtle color changes to shape the brow, the eyelids, and that big open mouth, and it's the one stretch where you slow down and pay attention. Across roughly two and a half hours and fifteen numbered bags it stays relaxed the whole way, which is the mood LEGO was going for.

For parts hunters this is a real find. It's a treasure chest of bright light orange, the color LEGO fans also call flame yellowish orange or keetorange, in quantities you rarely get in one box, and there's barely any tiny common filler padding out the count. The standout is a recolor with history: the animal tail and branch middle section that first showed up back in 2001 returns here in bright light orange, updated 23 years later with its old friction pin swapped for a pin hole. New Elementary flat-out calls the set an excellent parts pack even if you never intend to display Simba himself, and given 1,445 pieces of genuinely useful shaping parts and specialty curves for the money, that math checks out.

Fun facts

01LEGO released Young Simba on June 1, 2024, timed to the 30th anniversary of the 1994 film The Lion King.
02He builds up almost life-size, which is the reason the set feels more like a sculpture than a typical brick model.
03A tail and branch part first molded in 2001 returns here recolored in bright light orange and quietly updated after 23 years, its old friction pin replaced with a pin hole.
04He has a smaller poseable sibling, the 222-piece Simba the Lion King Cub (43243), released the same day at roughly a tenth of the price.