Hiya brick fans! Or should I say Konnichi-wa? Yup, we are going to
review another Japanese themed building block set. Today's set is by
Panlos/Inbrixx and this is my first ever experience with this brand.
First of all, a huge shout out to Afobrick.com for providing the set for this
review. In addition to this Kumamon set, they have a wide assortment of other building block sets that you might want to check out. See the special Black Friday promotion at the end of this blog post!
Before we get deeper into review, let's look at the set details:
- Set Name: Kumamon Japanese House
- Set Info: Panlos/Inbrixx 880018
- Price: approx $50 USD
- Piece Count: 1099 pieces
- Manual included: Yes
- Stickers: Yes
- Printed Parts: Yes
- Brick Separator included: Yes
- Minifigure: Yes, One (Kumamon Bear)
- Numbered Bags: Yes
- Missing pieces: None
- Extra pieces: Yes
- Bonus: 2 LED light bricks
- Size: 27.2 × 14.4 × 21.3 cm
About Kumamon
Meet Kumamon, the amiable black bear residing in Kumamoto, Japan. Serving as the official mascot, he warmly greets all who venture into this picturesque prefecture.
Exploring the Kumamon House
Nestled by a serene creek, this two-story Japanese-style dwelling is adorned with a meticulously landscaped garden featuring a fountain, a stone bridge, and a stone lantern, all enveloped by lush bamboo plants.
The first floor of Kumamon's abode boasts two rooms—an expansive living and dining room in one, and a cozy tea room adorned with an ikebana display in the other. The second floor features a spacious bedroom and study area, complemented by a petite terrace to take in the natural surroundings of the region.
The set occupies a space of 16x32 studs. You have the flexibility to detach the second floor from the first, and both levels come equipped with LED lighting, courtesy of two compact light bricks.
Unboxing the Set
My set didn't arrive in the original box; instead, it was securely packaged in a generic plastic bag. Despite the absence of the box, it was well-protected with thorough wrapping. The bags are numbered to follow the steps in the manual.
Here are the 8 bags of parts for Step 1.
And another 8 bags for Step 2.
Step 3 also has 8 bags of parts.
There is a small sticker sheet and 4 more ancillary bags which contain wooden curtains, lamps and baseplates. Also included are two dark green 16x16 plates.
The provided manual is 47 pages long.
At first glance, I feel like the instructions are quite compressed and the pages are very thin. The Kumamon face is plastered on every page as a watermark which makes it sort of visually distracting.
The sticker sheet will be used to adorn the fan and room divider in Step 2.
Constructing Step 1
Step 1 will build the house foundation, small garden and the back wall of the house.
Very straightforward build at this point. This is my first time building with Panlos/Inbrixx and the quality of the bricks is very good.
There's a stone bridge and lantern in the garden.
A cute fountain that comes out of a teapot. The transparent blue rod could have been made a bit longer, I think.
And here are all of the printed pieces I found for step 1. I really like the little wall calendar and the slippers.
Constructing Step 2
In this step, we will finishing building the first floor and install the interior lighting.
Here's the first floor completed. You can see where the LED lighting is mounted. There's a total of three lights, two in the main room and one that lights up the tea room.
These are the shades used in the tea room, they actually feel like wood. Be careful handling these as they are very delicate.
The ikebana, or floral arrangement adorns the wall in the tea room. The yellow flowers and leaves get washed out by the lighting. Inbrixx should have made the flowers some other colour like pink so they can stand out more.
Here's the low Japanese table called a
kotatsu with a plate of watermelon slices and some sushi on it. There is also a large floral centerpiece but I think it's size overwhelms the table.
Here's a look at the printed pieces found in Step 2.
I love all the details on this set like the large fan and the clock. Even though the fan is a sticker, it looks great.
Constructing Step 3
So the last step of the Kumamon house is to build the second floor and roof structure.
Before adding the roof, you need to install the lighting for the second floor. Those LED lights are really bright.
There's even more printed parts that can be found to enhance the bedroom.
Even the window pieces have prints on them.
And here's the second floor with roof installed.
And here is the completed Kumamon house. Looks fantastic!
And just in case you're curious about how the set looks from the side ...
And from behind.
Here are all the leftover, extra pieces I got. The 2x2 brick is not extra, it fell on the floor during the build and I didn't find it until afterwards, luckily not using it did not affect the structure. Also, the two brown lanterns that came packaged could not support the cylindrical yellow lens part, and the new updated lantern pieces were included in a separate bag.
Here is the Kumamon bear that comes with the set. His facial expression is that of surprise, but in every other picture I've seen of him, he is smiling.
If you are wondering about the size of the Kumamon minifigure, here he is pictured with a Lego compatible figure.
Here is a final look at the tea room's curtains.
Final Thoughts
I found that this set was really fun to build and all of the printed pieces and the LED lighting really made the set. stand out I wish the bear was cuter and I'll probably remove him from the set and put in some Japanese style minifigures instead.
While the Japanese themed Kumamon house makes a nice display, I won't be able to display it wth my other Japanese buildings, because they are all 16 studs wide whereas this house including the garden is 32 studs wide. I suppose I could modify it at some point in the future but I will keep it as is for now. But this is more of my personal issue and should not be considered for your own display purposes.
Fit and finish of the pieces were really good, however there were two different tints of tan bricks, which I believe, was on purpose. But it was really hard to differentiate the correct coloured piece because of the manual's colour rendition. That would be my biggest complaint of the set.
Minor points were deducted because of the manual's colour rendition of the tan pieces and because of the strange expression on Kumamon's face. There were only 4 stickers to apply and they looked nice, so I didn't deduct any points for them. My final rating would be 4.6 out of 5 for this the
Kumamon Japanese House and can therefore I can highly recommend this set.
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