Anyone feeling that Ninjago will end this year?

[Lenny7092]

Hi, guys. Since we read today about the descriptions about March of the Oni stuff, it sounds like that the franchise will be going to end this year. It sure sounds like it. However, I need to know what are the other nine Realms and how Zane got his Ice powers first before anything else. As much as Bionicle 2001-2010, Ninjago’s constraction counterpart, ended in nine years, the same would go to Ninjago this year. Has anyone noticed any future sets this year as well? If Ninjago is truly ending, then we would say goodbye to it. It’s been fun for these nine years.

 

What do you think, guys?

[Laval Master of Energy]

I agree with you, Lenny7092. Ninjago is going to end soon. I can feel it. We must enjoy it while we still are able to. The first story-based themes I enjoyed were Legends of Chima and Bionicle, and when they ended, Ninjago gave me something to turn to. I will miss it dearly. 

[Lenny7092]

I agree with you, Lenny7092. Ninjago is going to end soon. I can feel it. We must enjoy it while we still are able to. The first story-based themes I enjoyed were Legends of Chima and Bionicle, and when they ended, Ninjago gave me something to turn to. I will miss it dearly.

Yeah, and I felt that Ninjago is the next Bionicle. Legends of Chima, Nexo Knights, and Bionicle 2015-2016 seemed to try to live up Ninjago’s standards, but they are cut short because Lego didn’t let them continue on for some reason (I think Lego is just focusing on other successful stuff, but that broke our hearts a lot). Thus, those themes’ efforts were never enough because Lego didn’t care for them longer. Ninjago is also the only original Lego franchise that I follow the most since Bionicle ended (Hero Factory didn’t do a good job much, and Nexo Knights is like a mix of Legends of Chima, Ninjago, and Hero Factory while that theme didn’t do well much, either).

Edited February 9 by Lenny7092

[xccj]

I know it's been said before, but LEGO has made it pretty clear that they prefer to plan three year long runs for their various story based themes from recent years, which includes Legends of Chima, Nexo Knights, and Bionicle Gen 2. (And all of these seemed to underperform to the point where the third wave was either fairly minor or canceled all together.) Even the original run of Ninjago was merely a three year plan, which is why the third year featured the "Final Battle" that defeated Garmadon (possessed by the Overlord) once and for all. Ninjago was unique because enough fans and parents wrote in about how they didn't want the theme to end, and Lego brought it back.

 

I guess having an entire wave of sets rehashing old designs isn't exactly promising, but there are new head wrap molds and the spinner tornados that I don't think they'd introduce to the end of a dying theme. And there were reports from Nuremberg Toy Fair about summer Ninjago sets, so this isn't the final wave. While Ninjago doesn't seem to be Lego's bestseller, it still seems to do well enough that it's become an evergreen theme. (Even if the Lego Ninjago Movie was kind of a dud to older audiences.) Anyway, I wouldn't write off the theme until there's some more substantial news about its cancelation.

 

[Aanchir]

 

I agree with you, Lenny7092. Ninjago is going to end soon. I can feel it. We must enjoy it while we still are able to. The first story-based themes I enjoyed were Legends of Chima and Bionicle, and when they ended, Ninjago gave me something to turn to. I will miss it dearly.

Yeah, and I felt that Ninjago is the next Bionicle. Legends of Chima, Nexo Knights, and Bionicle 2015-2016 seemed to try to live up Ninjago’s standards, but they are cut short because Lego didn’t let them continue on for some reason (I think Lego is just focusing on other successful stuff, but that broke our hearts a lot). Thus, those themes’ efforts were never enough because Lego didn’t care for them longer. Ninjago is also the only original Lego franchise that I follow the most since Bionicle ended (Hero Factory didn’t do a good job much, and Nexo Knights is like a mix of Legends of Chima, Ninjago, and Hero Factory while that theme didn’t do well much, either).

 

 

One of the big reasons LEGO has for cutting their themes short (even sooner than might sometimes seem necessary) is to free up resources for newer stuff. A lot of business in the toy industry is driven by a sense of novelty, and while LEGO has expanded their production capacity over the years, they still usually don't have too much wiggle room in terms of how many sets they can produce in any given year.

 

Also, retiring a theme before its reputation as a strong seller wears too thin makes it easier for LEGO to promote NEW themes to retailers and media partners as a spiritual successor to older ones and have that increase rather than decrease those partners' confidence in the new brand.

 

But overall, I don't get any sense that Ninjago is on the verge of concluding altogether. There are several plans in store for Ninjago as 2019 goes on:

• We've been promised around 6 hours of animated content in 2019. Of that content, the four episodes of Season 10 will make up only about hour and a half, and the Legacy shorts make up slightly more than 20 minutes. That leaves around 4 hours of content unaccounted for — enough length even for a typical a ten-episode season in the second half of the year.
• At least one new character, Antonia, has been announced who will be making her on-screen appearane in the second half of the year.
• LEGOLAND Japan is preparing to open their own Ninjago World area comparable to the ones that have already opened at the LEGOLAND parks in Billund, Windsor, California, Florida, Germany, Malaysia.
• 12 new sets have been revealed at Nuremberg Toy Fair, with German prices ranging from €8.99 to €129.99, although many details about their names and contents are still unconfirmed. From what has been revealed, they do NOT appear to be connected to Season 10. And in any case, that's far from the kind of modest final wave we've seen for themes such as Bionicle, Legends of Chima, or Nexo Knights.
• If Ninjago WERE going to end this year… why not end it with Season 10 and the show's 100th episode instead of a whole additional story arc beyond that?

[TheZOMBIEJ]

Comment Removed

Edited February 10 by TheZOMBIEJ

[Sir Keksalot]

Ninjago's probably not going anywhere in the immediate future, since it's Lego's cash cow; but it can't have too much more time if Bionicle is any indication of how things go. Only time will tell how much longer it lasts.

[Laval Master of Energy]

I take back what I said earlier, and estimate that Ninjago will probably end in 2020. It began in 2011, and Bionicle lasted 2001-2010.

[Lenny7092]

I take back what I said earlier, and estimate that Ninjago will probably end in 2020. It began in 2011, and Bionicle lasted 2001-2010.

 

Remember, Bionicle started in summer of 2001 (in the US), with its first comic book along the way. It ended in winter 2010 before Hero Factory started in summer 2010. I recall Ninjago started in winter 2011, with the pilot TV episodes, so Ninjago would probably in either at the end of summer 2019 or winter 2020. I did the math, as Bionicle was running for nine full years, so I believe Ninjago would do the same. I can sense it.

Edited February 18 by Lenny7092

[DiaperSniper84]

Hi all! It is going to end this year.

[Aanchir]

Ninjago's probably not going anywhere in the immediate future, since it's Lego's cash cow; but it can't have too much more time if Bionicle is any indication of how things go. Only time will tell how much longer it lasts.

 

Since Bionicle has been one of the only other real story-driven IPs to last as long or longer than Ninjago has, we can't necessarily assume that its rise and fall will become a trend for similar themes.

 

Ninjago's already had a much different development history in a lot of respects:

• launching with a TV special that paved the way for a multi-season TV series

   

• having the most successful first-year sales of any new theme to date (at least as of that time), but seemingly never becoming the LEGO Group's single best-selling product line of the year (as Bionicle had been every year from 2002 to 2005)

   

• getting a third season and a new wave of sets on relatively short notice after what were intended to be its final wave and TV series finale

   

• being adapted into a cinematic movie with an alternate continuity in its seventh year

   

• ranking among the five best-selling themes well into its eighth year

   

• and of course, having much different pricing and marketing strategies to begin with, more comparable to other System play themes than an action figure theme like Bionicle that tended towards much lower price points focusing on individual characters.

Frankly, I would not have been at all surprised if Ninjago had ended for good in its third year as intended, similar to the lifespan of previous themes like Knights' Kingdom II and Exo-Force or later themes like Legends of Chima and Nexo Knights. If it was able to defy that precedent that was typical of themes that typically entailed much more similar characters, scale, builds, and price points, then I'm not sure that it makes sense to assume it's simply shifted to behaving like Bionicle, a much more different theme, rather than charting its own new course that can't be neatly predicted according to how themes of the past have stood the test of time.

 

That's not to say that Ninjago is an unstoppable force and cornerstone of the LEGO portfolio to the same extent as, say, LEGO City (which is in its 16th year under that brand name, which was itself something of a rebrand/reboot of previous product lines like Town and World City). What I am saying is that the challenges that Ninjago might face going forward might very easily be challenges that no other theme has previously needed to overcome.

 

For example, I wouldn't be at all surprised if at some point, even in the near future, LEGO replaces the LEGO Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu TV series with a sequel series, in sort of the same way that there have been separate cartoon series in the Ben 10, Transformers, Pokémon, and Dragon Ball franchises with the same continuity. This can both help create an easier starting point for new viewers, and an opportunity for the creators to re-imagine the show's visual style without it being as jarring as an abrupt mid-series change (I'm not just talking character redesigns or costume changes like Ninjago has had several times in the past, but rather bigger changes to the overall design language like the color palette, shading/lineart style, or switching between more realistic and more stylized body proportions).

 

Managing to both retain the show's existing appeal and create new appeal to draw in new themes could be a considerable challenge that LEGO hasn't really had to deal with in any similar theme. Bionicle never kept the same visual style of its comics and animated media or series titles and numbering for its books and comics the same for as long as the Ninjago TV series has, so by the time it was as old as Ninjago is now, older fans were already used to those sorts of changes.

 

For most of Bionicle's lifetime it was also more or less the only theme of its kind — in fact, there were questions within the design and marketing teams about whether the Hero Factory storyline intended as the Bionicle storyline's successor should still be branded as Bionicle (like how Power Rangers/Super Sentai series that don't share the same universe or continuity are still considered part of the same franchise) due to having a similar building system and similar set and character design principles, or as its own separate thing. They eventually decided on the latter.

 

Ninjago, on the other hand, has always been one of many minifigure-based play themes with similar design languages, building styles, and play features. As such, it's doubtful there will be a scenario where the bigger category it belongs to is perceived as needing a total refresh/rebranding, or that its production costs in terms of new molds and recolors will be both irreducible and unsustainable — but there's a much greater possibility of another in-house theme launched within Ninjago's own lifetime could surpass its popularity among its own target audience, thereby displacing it.

 

This is probably not something LEGO would bring about by design (they'd rather make new themes that can coexist with already popular ones than ones that already devoted LEGO fans will be forced to choose between), and so far other themes like Legends of Chima and Nexo Knights have neither surpassed Ninjago's sheer popularity nor rendered it redundant. But it's not a possibility Bionicle's designers ever had to be particularly concerned about as long as it remained the only in-house IP theme defined by its particular marketing/merchandising strategy, play patterns, and building system.

 

Long story short, though, Bionicle was not doing nearly as well this far into its lifetime — not so much as mentioned in the LEGO Group's 2008–2010 annual reports, nor listed among top-selling themes beyond the 2005 annual report in which it was "still the LEGO Group's biggest selling theme. However, sales did not live up to expectations in 2005". Seeing as the 2018 annual report still cites Ninjago as one of the five best-selling themes, just as it was in the 2015 and 2016 annual reports around when the theme was first described as evergreen, I don't think it's in any danger of disappearing in the short term any more than other reliable best-selling themes like LEGO Friends, LEGO City, or LEGO Star Wars. If it ends at any point, it will almost certainly be after some more noticeable decline in popularity and sales.

Edited March 13 by Aanchir

[Toa Duckanuva]

Don't forget this.

[Lenny7092]

Don't forget this.

Wikias are not trustworthy because they are wonky, but if that’s true, then some of us are right about Ninjago ending in 2020, like how Bionicle G1 ended. There weren’t any Ninjago sets in summer 2013, anyway, so that’s reasonable. It’s a possible theory, but we’ll see when the time comes. I still want to see the rest of the Sixteen Realms if you know what I mean.