Set Review ➟ LEGO® 10281 Pink Frog Battle Pack (aka Bonsai Tree)
Okay, let’s cut to the chase. We all know this is a great set. If you haven’t already got one, then you really should. It’s a beautiful display piece, affordable and fun to build, and where better to score a bag of 100 pink frogs? This 878-piece 2021 set is the creation of LEGO designer and frog enthusiast, Nic Vas. A fellow kiwi, Nic and I attended some of the same New Zealand brick shows before he began his professional LEGO career, so it’s great to see him having such success with something which, as the instructions mention, had been a passion project for him for some time before being picked up as a set.
Box and Contents
The box features the green foliage variant with the plain black background of the new 18+ adult-focused theme, and is clearly labeled as part of the botanical collection. The rear of the box highlights the alternative pink and white cherry blossom foliage option. Opening the box reveals it to be about 85% full, containing a bagged instruction book, six individually numbered bags, two Reddish Brown 22L flexible cables, no stickers, and a whole bunch of beautiful pink frogs.
Build Process
The instructions, after a brief note on real Bonsai trees, a note on the designer, and an explanation of the two foliage options, also mentions that this set contains three parts produced from sustainably sourced plant-based plastic. These are the 6x5 Bright Green Leaf, the 4x3 White Leaf, and the Reddish Brown Cattle Horn. Bags 1 to 3 build the rectangular black flower-pot and tree trunk, bags 4 and 5 respectively build the green and pink foliage options, and bag 6 builds the slatted brown display stand.
Maybe it’s just me, but I found myself wanting to build the display stand first, so I jumped ahead to bag 6. The parts here are almost all Reddish Brown, with some Dark Brown highlights. The build is simple but effective, with the ‘wooden’ slats offset on 1x2 jumper plates, and reinforced from below with plates attached to SNOT bricks. The corner posts are also attached at a half-stud offset.
Returning to the beginning of the instructions, bag 1 builds the flower-pot using 2x6 SNOT plates and 1x4 SNOT bricks for an elegant and very robust build. A White 4x4 turntable base is used as the main connection point for the tree trunk, with additional 1x1 round plates to prevent rotation. A fantastic feature here is the use of small tires (#30028) as corner posts, providing friction to keep the flower-pot in place on the display stand without requiring any stud connections.
The tree trunk assembly features great parts use of elephant trunks and the 22L flex cable ‘vine’ elements which, as the instructions point out, are both new in Reddish Brown. The whole trunk is angled forwards on clips and rocker plates, and 1x4 hinge plates are used to split the main trunk at the top into three 120-degree corners. The trunk sides are unexpectedly symmetrical, and the one internal Teal bracket feels out of place among all the earth tones, but the final result is very organic-looking with tightly wound curves and a two-tone brown colour scheme. The trunk section is initially rather weak, but then reinforced with a SNOT panel added to the outside of the curve for a very sturdy build that then connects securely to the turntable base in the flower-pot. One Brown frog is also included here, though he is destined to become seriously outnumbered by his more colourful cousins.
Bag 3 is perhaps the fastest and easiest ‘building’ stage ever, adding 200 parts in one step with zero stud-connections. Just open the bag of earth-toned 1x1 round tiles (in Light and Medium Nougat, Dark Tan, and Olive Green) and pour them all in as pebbles surrounding the trunk base within the flower-pot. (All these loose parts is another reason to be thankful for the friction provided by the rubber tires as ‘feet’ for the flower-pot.)
Now all that’s left is to build the foliage. Bag 4’s green foliage is built with one small branch, and then three repeated assemblies, each with three repeated branches. This repetition allows for simpler instructions, but of course you can easily customize the design by mixing things up a bit yourself. This isn’t necessary though, as the repeated version still looks great when done. The leaves are all securely attached with 1x2 rounded plates reinforcing the bar-and-clip connections to the leaves from above and below.
The pink and white cherry blossom foliage from bag 5 is not just a colour swap, but features a completely different branch design, built on additional branches. This building stage is very repetitive, but the end result makes it well worth the effort. All 100 pink frogs are used with no spare frogs left over. In fact, if you empty the full ‘pebble’ bag into the flower-pot, the whole set leaves you with only six small spare parts. Friends flowers in Dark Pink also serve well to add colour variation complementing the white leaves and pink frogs.
Features and Functions
No steering or suspension are featured here, though you can always add your own if you have the parts! Given the subject matter and nature of the set as a static display piece for adults rather than a toy for kids, play features aren’t really in demand here. Yet LEGO have really gone the extra mile with the two foliage options. It would have been easy to just include extra foliage parts for an alternative build, but far better is the set’s modular approach which allows for a quick foliage change by detaching and exchanging fully-built branches, thereby avoiding any tedious rebuilding of the model. The aforementioned rubber tires for the flower-pot legs also deserve note as a clever feature.
Overall Impressions
The set is great. If you have it, then you already know this. If you don’t, then what are you waiting for? It’s a fun, if at times repetitive build with a clever, sturdy, and very organic trunk design, and makes for a great display piece and conversation starter. This model will appeal not only to AFOLS, but also to many adults not yet addicted to the brick. My only complaint is that it could perhaps have used even more frogs - a couple in green would have been nice, and maybe even some black frogs for the corners of the flower-pot?
The set also provides a more masculine entry to the botanical collection for those who might otherwise feel a little self-conscious buying toy plastic flowers. One can instead don their white pajamas and practice kata (wax on, wax off!) after carefully dusting their new Bonsai tree. I particularly like how the final pages at the end of the instructions feature a range of inspiring Bonsai builds in a range of scales, colours, and styles. Of course, these are there to inspire MOC-building, yet some would make great follow-up sets in their own right, should LEGO ever decide to release them. If you need a rating, this set is a solid 10/10 for me. Great value. Go get one if you haven’t already.
We wish to thank LEGO for providing this set for review. The opinions in this review are not supported or endorsed by LEGO.
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