Ninja was a theme and product range of the construction toy

Lego Lego ( , ; stylized as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of variously colored interlocking ...

. Launched in 1998, the collection was its own theme. It had many elements of the ninja warriors from feudal

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. The majority of the sets were released in 1998 and 1999; however, three small sets of

minifigure A Lego minifigure, commonly referred to as a minifig, is a small plastic articulated figurine produced by Danish toy manufacturer The Lego Group. They were first produced in 1978 and have been a success, with over 4 billion produced worldwide a ...

s were released in 2000 as part of the ‘Mini Heroes Collection’. After this, the theme was discontinued, and was effectively replaced by the “Knights Castle” theme in 2000.

Background

The Ninja theme was released as a sub-theme of the

Lego Castle LEGO Castle was a Lego medieval and fantasy environment featuring knights and castles. It was introduced in Europe in 1978 and North America in 1981, and was supported continuously until 1999. It was also the name of a Lego theme within that en ...

theme, which from 1984 had started to develop into specific factions. Lego Ninja immediately followed the Fright Knights theme, which had been in production from 1997 to 1998. In contrast to Fright Knights, Lego Ninja took its influence from a more realistic starting point and was set in mountainous Japan with medieval buildings.

Construction sets

A total of 29 toy sets were released as part of the Ninja theme, which centred on three distinctive groups; the ninja, the samurai and the robbers. The toy sets featured a variety of buildings and vehicles, including fortresses and boats. The ninja crest was yellow with a black wingless dragon. The Samurai had blue banners bearing a golden fan. The robbers crest was a red, black and silver bull's head. The ninja minifigures were designed in a variety of colours, including black, red, grey, green and white and featured grey shoulder plates. In contrast, the samurai were dressed in black, blue and silver, and the robbers were dressed in red and green.

Legacy

In 2010, Series 1 of the Lego Collectable Minifigures Series contained a ninja minifigure clearly based on the theme. A year later, in early 2011, Lego released the

Lego Ninjago Lego Ninjago is a List of Lego themes, Lego theme that was created in 2011 and a flagship brand of The Lego Group. It is the first theme to be based on ninja since the discontinuation of the Lego Ninja theme in 2000. Whilst it retains some elemen ...

theme and associated television series ''Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu'', which took heavy inspiration from the Ninja theme.

References

{{Lego

Ninja A or was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan. The functions of a ninja included reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enem ...

Ninja parody Products introduced in 1998 Products and services discontinued in 2000 Japan in non-Japanese culture