One of the most exciting releases this month is the LEGO Harry Potter & Fantastic Beasts Collectible Minifigures series, with 22 characters covering both the original Harry Potter movies and the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film. Below, we will take a look at each of the characters in more detail. 🙂
Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, and Dean Thomas all wear their school robes. Their main accessory is the new wand piece, which you will get two of still on the sprue for each of the characters. Harry Potter comes with Hedwig the owl, Hermione with Crookshanks the cat, Ron with Scabbers the rat, and Dean with a flag printed on one side. Note that each of them have different torso printing, offering a great variety. Another unique feature of these minifigs (along with some of the other characters in the series) is that they have bendable short legs. These new leg pieces make the characters shorter than regular size minifigs, but taller than traditional child minifigs with fixed short legs. The legs can bend separately at the waist just like regular minifig legs, and because of the holes at the back, they can also attach to studs in a sitting position. LEGO fans have been asking for short minifig legs for many years, so it’s nice to see that they are finally available!
Professor Trelawney is one of the most ornate minifigs in the series with an elaborate dual-moulded and printed hairpiece, and printed skirt/robe. Her accessories are a set of wands, and a really sweet teacup and printed saucer combination. I hope LEGO will use these pieces in other sets as well! Albus Dumbledore is another beautiful minifigure with subtle printing on the torso and skirt/robe piece. The hairpiece/headgear combination and the beard are both new, and perfect for wizards and medieval characters. The accessories are a set of wands and a printed plate that serves as the Pensieve.
Harry Potter in pajamas is an interesting minifig. His torso has a nice generic pajama print. His short fixed legs are dual-moulded to make it look like that he is barefoot. Notice the great new hairpiece as well. His accessories are a set of wands, and a magical cape with beautiful print on one side, and a shiny finish on the other side. Probably the most elaborate cloth piece we have ever gotten from LEGO. Neville Longbottom comes with the always useful hair/earphones combination in a new color, a set of wands, a round pot that we have seen in previous minifig series, and a brand new Mandrake (similar in design to a LEGO carrot), and a new plant stem with three leaves.
Lord Voldemort is the only character that comes with white wands. He wears the fairly new skirt/robe bottom piece, which makes him the same size as other standard minifigures. While Nagini the snake looks nicely detailed, she doesn’t fit on top or in between studs like regular LEGO snakes. Dobby has a nice facial print and fixed short legs that are dual-moulded with two colors. His accessories are a 1×2 tile with sock print, and a book beautifully printed at the front.
Mad-Eye Moody got elaborate printing on both his torso and legs. The legs are also dual-moulded with two colors. This minifig comes with two hairpieces (one new), a set of wands, a standard long staff, and a vile (which is an upside down maraca piece). I also really like both sides of his face. Could be useful for steampunk, post-apocalyptic, and similar creations. Professor Flitwick has some interesting accessories. First of all, his detailed torso print is generic enough to use in other settings. In addition, his hairpiece is new, and he wears a short cloth coattail piece. The bowtie is useful, and the large megaphone is a brand new piece, and he also has a set of wands.
Cedric Diggory comes with a set of wands, and a large trophy. The trophy is an old piece, but the printing on it is new. While this minifig looks fairly simple from the front, notice the stripes on the side of his legs. Luna Lovegood’s torso print is almost exactly the same as the 2010 version with a bit of extra shading around some of the lines. Her original torso has been a very rare and desirable piece that goes for around $20 on the secondary market. Sadly, the new torso does not come with back printing. She wears a nicely printed but awkward looking cloth skirt over her short movable legs. Her accessories are a set of two wands, a purple shoulder bag (this color only appeared in one other set), and a printed 2×3 tile. Cho Chang also wears a cloth piece over her short movable legs. Her accessories are a set of wands, and an owl. Her darker skin tone makes her head and hands ideal for adding variety to your minifig collection.
Draco Malfoy (not pictured) is in his Quidditch robes, wearing a short cape. His accessories are a set of two wands, and a standard LEGO broom in a new color, dark-green. His legs are the short and fixed version indicating that he is intended to be younger than the previous three characters. The small ball with two wings is the Golden Snitch, which would make a nice decorative piece in other applications.
Looking at the Fantastic Beasts minifigs, the first character is Newt Scamander with an adorable little Niffler. Newt’s accessories are a pair of wands and a new type of suitcase, which is much nicer and more durable than the previous suitcase design. Tina Goldstein comes with a nice hat/hair combination we got for her before, but in a new color. Every piece of this minifigure is nicely done, but generic enough to be used in other settings. Her accessories are a pair of wands, and a hot dog in a bun.
Jacob Kowalski is another useful minifigure with great torso print, hair, and facial print. His accessories are the same new type of suitcase as Newt’s, with two new printed sweets inside! Yum! Continuing with the yumminess, Queenie Goldstein comes with a brand new large strudel piece, and a pair of wands. Her body printing is not as nice as the other minifigs’, mainly because the printed skin color is sort of off.
Credence Barebone (not pictured) is a simple minifig with not much more than nice torso printing and a printed 1×2 tile. The last minifig, Percival Graves also wears mostly black, but his printing is a lot more detailed, including print on the arms. His hair is dual-moulded, and he gets a second hairpiece and a set of wands as accessories. While pretty much all the other minifigs in this series are evenly distributed, there is only one Percival Graves in a full box, making this character exceptionally rare.
All in all, this is a really well designed minifigure series with lots of useful parts and accessories even for non-Harry Potter fans. And if you are a fan of Harry Potter, this is your chance to own all the major characters in minifig form. You can find them at various LEGO retailers and at the LEGO Harry Potter section of the Online LEGO Shop.
Also, remember that during the month of August, LEGO VIP members can earn Double VIP Points on two LEGO Harry Potter sets; the #75952 LEGO Harry Potter Newt’s Case of Magical Creatures, and the #75953 LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Whomping Willow. Both available at the LEGO Harry Potter section of the Online LEGO Shop.
What do you think? How do you like the LEGO Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts collectible minifigures? Are you planning to collect some of them, or even all of them? Which ones are your favorites? Feel free to share and discuss in the comment section below! 😉
And you might also like to check out the following related posts:
I can’t imagine what they were thinking to do a Harry Potter series without including Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape or Hagrid. It simply defies explanation. Meanwhile, they did relatively obscure figures like Dean Thomas and the far less necessary Fantastical Beasts. A Ginny Weasley would have been a nice inclusion too given where the stories end up.
I also think they could have skipped Voldemort altogether if they couldn’t make him more menacing. Hard to take a bald ordinary head very seriously as the ultimate expression of evil.
On the other hand, full props for the wands which are much nicer than the ordinary rods I was expecting. And the mandrake root is too cute!
We only have 4 but my grandson is sitting opposite me playing with them right now.
My understanding is that there will be more sets, and perhaps even collectible minifigs coming. HP is a big franchise for LEGO, so I’m fairly certain we haven’t seen the end of it yet. BTW, nice to have you over! 🙂
Great! That’s something to look forward to!
I also forgot to say that I just LOVE Professor Trelawney. Her hair is terrific and the teacup is too cute! I can just hear Emma Thompson voice when I look at that figure. …and I love me some Emma Thompson.
She is my favorite too. Every piece and accessory of that minifig is delightful!
All I need is four and I will have the complete set. ( Dumbledore Harry Potter with invisible cloak, Cedric and Grindelwald). It’s harder to find the Harry potter packets they sale out quickly. My local target store had a whole bunch but, sold out fast. The hunt is on
They are not even available in my stores yet, so I’m jealous! Enjoy the hunt! 😀
Barnes and Noble and Walmart both have them now.
Thanks for sharing that! I was just at Wal-Mart yesterday, but I didn’t see them. Will keep looking. 🙂
I’m too excited about this to be critical. But I do agree with Rainey about the omissions. I haven’t been to our nearby Lego store in a bit, had some unexpected emergencies that drilled a hole in my bank account. But no worries, all is well now. I’m going to the LEGO store today! I hope they have some of these in stock.
Have fun finding them all! This series should be around for a while, as LEGO knows they are going to be very popular. 🙂
They really did a great job on these. For those who are missing some characters, it’s possible we will get a second series. We got two Simpsons series too.
Yes, that’s my understanding as well. 🙂
I guess my two biggest gripes are
1. The lack of compatibility of Nagini the snake.
2. Cho Chang’s skin tone. Although I’m in favor of more ethnic diversity, for females particularly, its just not very authentic. As a Chinese woman, her skin isn’t particularly darker than the white characters in the series.
Hmmm, maybe the choice was due to sensitive issues of mixing a cartoony, simplistic design with depictions of various ethnicities. In the Indiana Jones theme, there were a few Asian characters with the same Light Flesh skin tone, and perhaps they could be interpreted as racial caricatures. Slightly ironically, this might be a bigger issue in predominantly White Western countries, than in Asia. In Japan, my impression is that caricatures and stereotypes generally aren’t considered as a particularly sensitive issue, and in China, they generally lack the cartooning history to understand the question, and the major population wouldn’t interpret racial caricatures any differently than cartoon characters in general.
Hm… that’s a possibility. It’s certainly an interesting, and look like deliberate choice.
I guess the alternative would have looked something like this (but female), and Lego decided on not going that route this time…
https://brickset.com/minifigs/iaj025/short-round
I was actually thinking of Short Round when I was trying to remember if LEGO ever made Asian minifigs with light skin. 😀
And there’s a Rose Tico minifig in a few Star Wars sets. (Also some Indiana Jones henchmen in the Temple of Doom sets, but as villains, they’re even further stereotyoed.)
Her ethnicity might be comparably downplayed, though.
Yeah, that’s weird about Nagini. Such a nice snake, but I don’t know why it’s so outside of the LEGO system. That’s true about Cho Chang. I was so excited about her unique skin-tone, I forgot that in real life she is fair-skinned.
I am so in love with this series. It makes me happier than I can say that Jacob has his briefcase full of his “collateral” *Vanna White display gesture*. And I LOOOOVE the Quibbler, niffler & Tom Riddle’s diary w/ the Dobby sock!!!!
I’m positive they’ll have another series after this one so I’m just going to take what’s given and be delighted about it!
The ONLY problems I have are that I ordered 44 figures and didn’t get a Grindelwald and that everything, including the $400 Hogwarts Castle have come out SO close together, it’s breaking the bank! But am I hoping more sets and minifigure series will come out?? Absolutely!!!!
Yeah, these minifigs were so carefully designed, it’s amazing! If you only missed one character from the series, that’s not too bad! They should have a wider release soon enough, so you can find your missing Grindelwald. As far as the Hogwarts Castle, we will be talking about it more in a couple of days, but my recommendation is to get it ASAP if you want to before Christmas. I expect this set to go on backorder very fast, and for possibly for very long. It could be another Millennium Falcon fiasco. Hopefully not, but it is very possible.
I just completed my set this morning not too many repeats and in fact some repeats are on purpose.
I end up getting 3 Dean Thomas because I want that outfit for Harry and Ron. I also got extra Harry in Cloak.
I was very disappointed not seeing Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape or Hagrid. But I am sure they will appear in the next series. At least we do get them in other new HP sets. Honestly do I don’t understand the inclusion of Cho or Dean. Even Cedric is debatable in my opinion. I think the best minifig in this series (production wise) is Professor Trelawney, Mad Eye Moody and Tina Goldstein. Also love the hair of Graves and I have a soft spot for Credence. I know he is one of the simpler minifig in this series but it really resembles Credence in the movie to a tee. Neville’s alternate face is also awesome. My least favorite is Cho and Queenie. Cho simply because I just don’t think she should be there. Queenie’s outfit is just off (production wise). I love her in the movie.
It is unfortunate that they are making one of the minifig (Graves) super rare like the policeman in series 18 again. I sincerely hope this is not a trend they plan on continuing. Just make one of the common ones (3 occurrence per box to 2 and let Graves be 2/60).
Finally, for the next series (I am sure there will be one), I hope we see Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, Hagrid, Fred and George Weasley,
I guess that Hagrid, as a half-giant, might be less likely, although he could appear in some more sets, instead.
That would be my guess as well.
Oh that’s very true!
Nice review! Pretty much agree with everything you said. It’s definitely disturbing that LEGO is still including super rare minifigs, even though they are repeatedly getting negative feedback about it. I don’t know why they think it’s a good idea. 😐
PS They are disappearing FAST here in Los Angeles. The Lego store in the Valley is out and 2 Targets have been sold out.
Hm… here in Florida they are just starting to show up at stores. Most people probably don’t even know they exists yet. But California was always faster being on top of LEGO news then people in the South. 😀
I got the Invisibility Cloak Harry this morning. It’s so clever that the hairpiece reveals his scar.
I haven’t gotten a Hogwart’s uniform Harry yet so I don’t know if that head also has the scar and if it’s also visible. Looks as though it probably won’t be underneath that hair piece.
I was so glad to see the scar there but I really had to strain my eyes to see it. There’s not a lot of contrast between the skin tone and the scar tone. …but then again, I don’t suppose there really should be.
Anyway, very nice touch on the IC Harry!
Yeah, that’s a nice little detail. I’m really happy with that hairpiece as well. 🙂
“Finally, for the next series (I am sure there will be one), I hope we see Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, Hagrid, Fred and George Weasley”
And Ginny Weasley. I mean considering that she and Harry are ultimately a couple there should be a Ginny!
Finally got them all! I don’t normally feel the blind packs but it was getting too costly to not feel the packs for content. I don’t think I’m very good at feeling the packs. It never works for me. All I needed was Voldemort. I think he was so hard to get because he’s the easiest to “feel” and who doesn’t want Voldemort? Right? So I broke down and stood alone in the toy aisle at Target today and felt up the blind packs. Success!! I have now completed the set. Now I just have to decide how to display them.
Good job finding them all! It’s a great collection! Have fun with designing their display-stand! 😀