Review: LEGO Disney 43175 Anna and Elsa's Storybook Adventures

Today we quickly tour the LEGO Disney set 43175 Anna and Elsa's Storybook Adventures (133 pieces - € 19.99), a slightly atypical product that features micro-dolls in a buildable decor, all wrapped in a plastic box that vaguely takes the form of a storybook and generously sprinkled with stickers.

The principle of the plastic box that serves as both a storage case, transport and a playground is not new at LEGO: Capsules (Pods), cubic boxes from the LEGO Friends range or even arcade machines from the Ninjago range, the manufacturer is trying things out. Here, the box takes the form of a book at the heart of which the playset part remains installed. Why not. This is not a book pop-up, it is necessary to fold and unfold by hand the portions of the construction which prevent the closing of the box. The inside of the left part of the book is pad printed with gray tiling, the other part is neutral.

No instruction booklet in the usual format in this set, you have to be content with a folded sheet similar to those present in the polybags. LEGO probably made some savings with this change of format and the set did not deserve a thirty-page notebook with its 133 parts from which you have to remove the large parts of the book and the micro-dolls. The fact remains that at 20 € the box, this sheet of fine paper is a little cheap.

Even if there are also some pad printed parts in this box, we do not escape some stickers with two sheets of stickers. Fortunately, the illustration to be placed in the center of the book cover is pad printed. It remains to stick the illustration of the edge and the label which allows to add the name of the owner of the work on the back.

The larger of the two sheets of stickers is available to the most creative who can have fun decorating the inside (or the outside) of the book with the different stickers available. No specific instructions, you decide. The intention is laudable although I tend to consider replacing plastic parts with simple stickers to "flesh out" the content as a technique a little disappointing.

The cover of the book is broken down into three large molded parts that must be assembled together using Technic pins. The outside of the box is a little poor in decorations and the few illustrations are not enough to give a little cachet to the whole. There are a few studs on the corners of the book but LEGO does not provide parts to dress these spaces. As it is ultimately more of a carrying case than anything else, LEGO has no doubt deliberately limited the risk of losing parts or damaging the shell.

The result is a bit bland, despite the presence of a rather well-made locking latch with its pad-printed lock, and we quickly realize that the book is much more compact than what the official visuals suggested. Be careful, the latch does not really block the opening of the book, it only fits on a tenon.

On the minifigure side, LEGO is innovating with a new format: micro-dolls. These figures are equipped with heads similar to those supplied with the classic mini-doll figures from the Friends, Elves or Disney sets, but the eyes here are oversized and the body of the characters has dramatically lost in volume and mobility. Thinking back, we've never been so close to the figurines that we sometimes find in Kinder Surprise eggs, even if the pad printing here is of a much higher level than what we find in chocolate eggs.

Elsa, Anna and Kristoff are accompanied by the inevitable Olaf who has also suffered a violent shrinkage and who is content to resume his usual head here posed on a white head of classic pad-printed minifig. The arms of the different characters are fixed, it is just possible to slip a suitable accessory into the hole in the hands.

In the end, the book format is only a pretext for a simple storage box to take in the car or on the train. The contents of the set will occupy the youngest during a trip a little boring, that's always taken and we can therefore consider that here LEGO solves a problem often encountered by parents who prepare suitcases for the holidays: how to take LEGOs without putting them in a simple bag and keeping a playset in perfect condition on arrival.

20 € for a not very sexy storage box, the few parts provided and four characters that don't really look like the LEGO products we are used to anymore, in my opinion it's really too expensive. As a bonus, this reference is the one that offers the most content among the four existing all sold at the same public price: 43174 Mulan's Storybook Adventures (124 pieces), 43176 Ariel's Storybook Adventures (105 pieces) and 43177 Belle's Storybook Adventures (111 rooms).

Note: The set presented here, supplied by LEGO, is as usual in play. Deadline fixed at 25th February 2020 next at 23pm.

Update : The winner was drawn and was notified by email, his nickname is indicated below. Without a response from him to my request for contact details within 5 days, a new winner will be drawn.