It finally happened. After years of LEGO fans staring longingly at MEGA Construx Pokémon sets on store shelves — impressive builds, sure, but not real LEGO — the Danish brick giants and The Pokémon Company have officially joined forces. The first wave of LEGO Pokémon sets launches on February 27th, Pokémon Day, kicking off the franchise's 30th anniversary celebrations.

Three sets. Five beloved Pokémon. One absolutely unhinged price tag. Let's talk about it.

Eevee: The Clear Winner

Let's start with the good news. 72151 Eevee ($59.99, 587 pieces) is, frankly, delightful. The proportions are spot-on, the expressive face actually looks like Eevee, and the posable head, ears, tail, and limbs let you set up the little fluffball however you want. There's reportedly a hidden Easter egg celebrating Eevee's many evolutions, which is a nice touch.

At sixty bucks, it's the kind of set you can impulse-buy without needing to have a conversation with your spouse first. For a first-ever LEGO Pokémon product, Eevee nails the brief: affordable, recognizable, well-designed, and genuinely cute. If every set in this wave hit this mark, we'd be writing a very different article.

Pikachu: We Need to Talk About That Face

72152 Pikachu and Poké Ball ($199.99, 2,050 pieces) should have been the slam dunk. Pikachu is the Pokémon. The mascot. The one your grandma can name. So it's... unfortunate that the internet's overwhelming reaction to this set has been somewhere between "confused" and "alarmed."

The concept is cool — Pikachu leaping out of a Poké Ball onto a lightning bolt stand, energy sparks trailing behind. There are nice details, like swappable male and female tails and a hidden "25" on the base (Pikachu's Pokédex number). But that face. Oh, that face.

The proportions feel off. The mouth is weirdly prominent, the eyes have an uncanny quality, and there are strange gaps above them that read like tiny eyebrows Pikachu never asked for. The ears end up looking like sticks. One Reddit thread titled "LEGO did Pikachu dirty" racked up over 7,000 upvotes in under twelve hours, which tells you everything.

The comparisons to MEGA's version were swift and brutal. MEGA released multiple Pikachu sets over the years at around $50-100, roughly similar in size, and — this is the part that stings — many fans think they look better. When your competitor's product at a quarter of the price is winning the aesthetics debate, that's a problem.

Look, building organic, rounded characters out of rectangular bricks is inherently hard. Nobody expects pixel-perfect accuracy from LEGO. But when Eevee, sitting right next to Pikachu on the shelf, manages to nail its character so convincingly, the contrast makes Pikachu's shortcomings harder to forgive. At $200, you'd hope for something a bit more... flattering.

The Kanto Trio: Magnificent, Unaffordable

And then there's the big one. 72153 Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise ($649.99, 6,838 pieces) is a display piece of genuinely impressive ambition. Three fully evolved Kanto starters, each on their own elemental biome base, all combinable into one massive diorama. Charizard's wings and legs are posable. Blastoise's cannons move. Venusaur has articulated vines. It's one of the largest LEGO display sets ever made.

It's also six hundred and fifty dollars.

That's rent money. That's a PS5 and a stack of games. That's roughly 108 Eevees, if you're the kind of person who does that math. (We're the kind of people who do that math.)

The builds themselves look strong, though not flawless — Blastoise's face lacks the natural roundness fans expect, and Charizard's tail fire ends a bit abruptly. But these are relatively minor gripes for a set this ambitious. The real barrier is the price, and boy, did the internet let LEGO know. "The Kanto starters look amazing but probably costs my life savings," wrote one Redditor, speaking for approximately everyone.

Despite all the grumbling? Pre-orders sold out within hours. Every. Single. One.

The Scalper Situation (Because of Course)

Because we can't have nice things, scalpers descended on the launch like Zubats in a cave. Within hours of the reveal, eBay listings appeared for the Kanto trio at over $1,000 — for a pre-ordered product that doesn't even ship until February 27th. One listing in the UK had the full collection going for £1,750, with the audacity to charge a tenner for postage on top.

The real scalper gold rush, though, targeted the 40892 Kanto Region Badge Collection — a gorgeous little set of all eight Kanto gym badges that LEGO offered as a free gift with purchase for the first 21,840 pre-orders of the $650 set. It's the kind of thing Pokémon fans go feral for, and LEGO locked it behind the most expensive set in the wave. Listings for just the badge set alone were hitting $200-300 on eBay before anyone had even received their orders.

It's a frustrating pattern: LEGO creates artificial scarcity, scalpers rush in, and regular fans who just want some cool Pokémon bricks get priced out. The collision of two fanbases notorious for scalper problems was always going to be ugly, and sure enough, it is.

Our advice? Don't pay scalper prices. All three retail sets will be restocked — the Kanto trio is slated to remain available through the end of 2027. The GWP badge set is admittedly harder to get, but it's not worth lighting your money on fire over. Patience, trainer. Patience.

The Gen 1 Problem

A quieter criticism worth mentioning: this entire wave is Gen 1. Pikachu, Eevee, Venusaur, Charizard, Blastoise — all Kanto originals. For fans who've been living in the Pokémon world for thirty years across nine generations, the relentless focus on the original 151 is getting a little tiresome.

That said, it makes business sense. These are the most universally recognized Pokémon. You don't launch a brand-new collaboration with Falinks and Klefki, no matter how much we might secretly want that. And the leaked summer 2026 wave — reportedly around 18 more sets — includes names like Mewtwo, Gengar, Cubone, and Riolu, so LEGO is already expanding beyond the Kanto starters. There's even a rumored "Squirtle Squad" set which, if real, might actually break the internet in a good way this time.

No Minifigures. At All.

Here's one that surprised a lot of people: none of the LEGO Pokémon sets include minifigures. No tiny Ash. No Professor Oak. No Pokémon Trainer of any kind. Every set is purely brick-built Pokémon and display elements.

LEGO's reasoning likely comes down to scale — these are large display builds where a standard minifigure would look comically tiny next to a foot-tall Charizard. But for a brand built on the appeal of its minifigures, the absence is noticeable. Some of the leaked summer sets (like "Pikachu's Training House" and "Dojo House and Riolu") sound like they might incorporate more play-oriented designs, but no minifigures have been confirmed for any of the 23 rumored sets.

It's not a dealbreaker, but it feels like a missed opportunity. Even a decorative trainer minifigure scaled to the display would have been a nice touch.

Smart Bricks and the Summer Wave

Speaking of what's coming: the summer 2026 wave sounds intriguing. Reports suggest several sets will be compatible with LEGO's Smart Brick technology — electronic bricks with sensors that can respond to environmental cues with LEDs and audio. A "smart" Pikachu that lights up or makes sounds when you interact with it? That's the kind of thing that could set LEGO's Pokémon apart from anything MEGA ever did.

The leaked set list includes battle-themed sets ("Cubone vs Gengar's Ghost Challenge"), location-based builds ("Mewtwo Lab"), and more creature builds spanning multiple generations. If LEGO sticks the landing on wave two, the rough edges of this launch will be forgiven fast.

The Verdict

LEGO Pokémon is the kind of collaboration that was always going to be messy. Two massive fandoms, sky-high expectations, LEGO's ongoing pricing woes, and the Pokémon franchise's own scalper epidemic were a volatile mix from the start.

Where it works, it really works. Eevee is a gem. The Kanto trio is a spectacle, price notwithstanding. The future set list is genuinely exciting.

Where it stumbles — Pikachu's questionable design, the brutal pricing, the GWP drama, the scalper frenzy — these are problems that need addressing if this partnership is going to thrive long-term. Right now, LEGO Pokémon feels a lot like a first draft: the bones are there, but it needs polish.

Our suggestion? If you're going to buy one set from this wave, make it Eevee. It's the right price, the right design, and the right entry point. If you've got deeper pockets and shelf space for days, the Kanto trio is an impressive display piece that will likely hold its value. And Pikachu? Maybe wait and see if wave two gives the franchise mascot a better shake. He deserves it.

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Which Pokémon would you most want to see get the LEGO treatment next? We're holding out for a brick-built Snorlax blocking a doorway. Bonus points if it comes with a tiny LEGO Poké Flute. Hit us up at hello@getmintybrick.com.