Awesome news for LEGO Ninjago fans! The new LEGO Ninjago Airjitzu sets are now listed at the Online LEGO Shop! While the new Ninjago sets are scheduled for release later this summer, it did make sense for LEGO to make the new Airjitzu Flyers available earlier, as they provide a summer outdoors game. As you will see in the videos below, the LEGO Airjitzu Flyers actually fly, and quite high too! 🙂
There are six LEGO Ninjago Airjitzu Flyers; four for the Ninja (Kai, Jay, Cole and Zane), and two for the badguys (Morro and Wrayth). The Airjitzu Flyers are made of four components: the brick-built handle, the vortex-rotor, the minifigure capsule, and a rip-cord. The brick-built handles are all the same, except for the color-scheme and the printed 2×2 round tile with the insignia of each character (these should be very popular with collectors). To play with the flyers you first attach the minifigure capsule (with a minifig inside) to the vortex-rotor, connect the assembly to the handle, then insert and pull the rip-cord to make the rotor fly away. In the video player below you can find a review of all six Airjitzu Flyers by JANGBRiCKS, along with a few promotional videos from LEGO to give you an idea on how the flyers work and what you can do with them. I also included a video where the Ninja use Airjitzu skills in the LEGO Ninjago TV series. The flyers look quite similar. 😀
As you can see, the Airjitzu Flyers work well. There are no issues with the construction or the functionality. If you angle the flyers high as you pull the rip-cord, they can fly really high, so they are great for outdoors play. If you angle the flyers low, you can play with them like spinners on a table-top or other smooth surface. They are definitely versatile in this regard, and can provide quite a bit of fun.
Where the Airjitzu Flyers are not versatile however is in building and customization. While the original LEGO Ninjago Spinjitzu Spinners could be customized with all kinds of attachments and weapons to try different spinning styles and tricks, there are no attachment-points to the Airjitzu Flyers – in fact, they don’t even really look like LEGO, but more like other flying toys. I’m not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing because flying toys are very popular, and perhaps the Airjitzu Flyers will get young LEGO fans who normally stay inside to get some fresh air and run around outdoors. As a LEGO fan however I look with suspicion at LEGO elements that don’t fit into the building system and can’t really be used for anything other than one intended purpose.
Ultimately, I think that the Airjitzu Flyers are an interesting experiment from LEGO, and time will tell if they become as popular with kids as the Spinjitzu Spinners were. They kind of remind me of the LEGO Legends of Chima Speedorz, which also work with rip-cords and have some very specialized parts. It seems like LEGO is trying to capture some of the non-construction-toy crowd and bring them into the fold of LEGO fans. As long as these sets provide at least some regular LEGO experience, it could be a successful marketing ploy… or not… as I said; time will tell…
As far as the minifigures and weapons included in the LEGO Ninjago Airjitzu Flyers, LEGO did an amazing job. The outfits of the minifigs are beautifully printed front and back with metallic highlights. Those who collect the LEGO Ninjago minifigs are going to be very happy with these characters. The weapons selection is also very nice with a great variety of interesting parts. Unfortunately only the smallest weapons fit inside the Airjitzu Flyers, but I guess that’s all right as weapons would only get lost outside anyway. If you want to try them out, you can find all six Airjitzu Flyers under the LEGO Ninjago section of the Online LEGO Shop.
So what do you think? How do you like the LEGO Airjitzu Flyers? Are you planning to get some? In your opinion are they better or worse than the LEGO Ninjago Spinjitzu Spinners? Will kids like to play with them and collect them the same way? What kind of fun games can you think of playing with the Airjitzu Flyers? Feel free to share your thoughts and discuss in the comment section below! 😉
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