We pretend we don't know what it is and today we take advantage of the "official" announcement of the new LEGO theme: the universe Monkie kid.

On the menu, at least eight boxes with a universe based on motorized vehicles and mechs similar to what the Ninjago range already offers, all wrapped in a context loosely inspired by the popular legend of the Monkey King and very steeped in culture and values ​​unique to China. We add a touch of Nexo Knights and we get this new colorful LEGO theme, a little wacky and populated with very original minifigs.

We can also consider that this new range had already been the subject of a "teasing" in 2019 via the monkey king minifig present in one of the 19th series of collectable minifig bags (ref. 71025). The character makes a new appearance in the set this year 80012 Monkey King Warrior Mech with a different pad printing than the 2019 version.

LEGO explains that this new range is the first to be directly inspired by a popular Chinese legend and that it took two years of designers' immersion and testing with Chinese customers to develop the eight sets marketed as of '' today in Asia and tomorrow for the rest of the world:

All the usual LEGO barnum, including a dedicated mini-site, promotional products (polybags), in-store events, video clips and an animated series to wrap it all up, will be at work to install and support this new "in-house" theme voluntarily tailor-made for Asian customers.

The manufacturer has also put the small dishes in the big to seduce this clientele with a good dozen new elements created especially for this new range (hair, heads) and a record number of pieces supplied in Metallic Gold in the set 80012 Monkey King Warrior Mech with 119 items that benefited from this treatment.

Below is a selection of official visuals, if you want even more, all of the images provided by LEGO can be found on my flickr gallery in a dedicated album.

In an alternate universe where all the products of the new LEGO Monkie Kid range have not leaked for a long time, we could pretend to wonder about the meaning of the nice teaser above posted on Twitter by Simon Lucas, Creative Director at LEGO who works notably on the Ninjago range.

In reality, we suspect that the announcement scheduled for May 15 relates to a new universe based on motorized vehicles and similar mechs what the Ninjago range already offers, all wrapped in a vaguely based context, such as this is the case for the animated series Dragon Ball Z, about the popular legend of the Monkey King. A big ladle of Ninjago, a touch of Nexo Knights, a pinch of Hidden Side, and we get this new LEGO theme with eight boxes bearing the references 80006 to 80013, the visuals of which you will find via the usual channels.

These eight new sets are also already offered for sale by a Hungarian brand which will not have waited for an announcement with great fanfare to put the products concerned online (80006 White Dragon Horse Bike, 80007 Iron Bull Tank, 80008 Monkie Kid's Cloud Jet, 80009 Pigsy's Food Truck, 80010 Demon Bull King, 80011 Red Son's Inferno Truck, 80012 Monkey King Warrior Mech, 80013 Monkie Kid's Team Secret HQ).

There are still some unanswered questions, they may be answered on May 15: Is this new universe destined to take over from the Ninjago range? Will we be entitled to an animated series to accompany these boxes and give a little context to the different characters delivered here? Will these sets be reserved for Asia? Wait and see.

Update : the teasing continues with the four posters below which feature different characters from the range with a lot of Chinese proverbs.