Tag Archives: Japan

From samurai and ninjas to giant mecha like Gundam or the beautiful films of Hayao Miyazaki, Japanese history and culture inspire LEGO builders all over the world. With contributors fluent in Japanese, The Brothers Brick also brings you coverage of the people and events in the large LEGO fan community in Japan itself.

Bricks Helping Japan – LEGO Charity Auctions Update.

Several of our auctions of donated LEGO creations are ending in less than a day! Remember, all proceeds go to the Red Cross, so please bid liberally, and feel free to spread the word! As a reminder, here’s the full explanation of this charity LEGO auction effort. Here are the creations that are ending in less than a day:

Also, don’t forget to check out all the other on-going auctions to help the Red Cross in their efforts to help the victims of the earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan and the Pacific Rim.

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Bricks Helping Japan – Update

Donations from our readers toward the Bricks Helping Japan charity auction have been pouring in all weekend. I’ve been busy posting new auctions, and the great LEGO models up for auction just keep coming. I want to highlight some of the newest stuff here, including a few awesome creations that you’ve seen here in the past.

First off, the Phenix. Christophe Corthay has been generous enough to donate this creation that’s over 3 meters long! He says that it incorporates over 30,000 LEGO elements, and cost him over 3000 Euro in Bricklink orders. I certainly hope that our readers will make his donation worth as much to the earthquake and tsunami victims as possible!

While the Phenix is certainly the biggest creation donated so far, there are certainly many others to chose from. Here’s a sampling!

Keep your eyes peeled, as there are still more donations to be added!

Bricks Helping Japan – LEGO charity auction for earthquake & tsunami relief

At The Brothers Brick, we’ve decided to try to do something to help out the people affected by the recent earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan, but we need your help too.

Help Japan

You may have noticed that all of the advertising banners on the site have been replaced by links to donate to the Red Cross. That’s a start, and we certainly encourage everyone to do so. In addition, though, we’re auctioning off LEGO creations to raise more money for this important cause. If you’d like to contribute a creation to be auctioned off, please use the form on the Creations for Charity website.

If you’re interested in seeing what’s available right now, see the active auctions. More are to come!

2011 bounces in on rabbit ‘tocks

かわいいレゴずき (“I Love Cute LEGO”) has their annual roundup of New Year greetings from Japanese LEGO builders up on the blog, replete with adorable bunnies to honor the Year of the Rabbit.

But most unique of all this year’s New Year creations is this set of osechi cuisine by mumu from the resident builders at かわいいレゴずき:

I always thought osechi food was a bit of an acquired taste, but I’ve said the same thing about traditional American holiday food. (In both cases, it doesn’t help that my choices are further limited by being a vegetarian from birth.) Whether you appreciate the source of inspiration or not, the LEGO version is a lovely evocation of a uniquely Japanese tradition.

Happy 2011, LEGO fans of the world! Scientists, please provide a status update on your abject failure to give us flying cars and personal robots. We are, after all, living in The Future…

Kaiju rampage in the micropolis of Tokyo!

Between lack of LEGO time and an unsorted collection, I’ve been struggling with what to build for BrickCon — especially Big in Japan. I wanted to build Tokyo Tower, a big Shinto shrine, Ginza, and the National Diet Building. My solution to build them all was to go microscale.

Naturally, every Tokyo skyline needs a rampaging Godzilla-style monster, or kaiju. From the moment I saw the alien in the LEGO Star Wars set Freeco Speeder, I couldn’t help but thinking he would make a great kaiju.

This was my first attempt at following the Micropolis Micro City Standard and gives me an opportunity to enter Reasonably Clever’s 2nd Micropolis Building Challenge (for which the deadline has been extended to July 24th, by the way).

After I’d finished six standard Micropolis modules for Tokyo, I experimented with some non-standard, non-urban modules, and ended up with Himeji Castle.

See more pictures in my photoset on Flickr.

The Great Buddha of Kamakura withstands typhoons and tsunamis

One of my favorite day trips from Tokyo was visiting the Great Buddha of Kamakura. Space2310 continues his series of excellent Japanese LEGO models with a microscale Amida Buddha.

Like the real Buddha in Japan, this one has little windows on his back so visitors can look out. The cherry blossoms add a wonderful touch to the presentation of this LEGO creation.

Barracks from ancient Japan

Brickshelf user LakMause built a barracks from ancient Japan. The scaled golden roof is a gorgeous feature, but there are plenty of small details that you shouldn’t miss. Check out the pond, the training ring, and the building interior.

This would make an excellent contribution to our Big In Japan collaboration project for BrickCon 2010.

Japanese Chokutō

Ken Robichaud built this lovely Chokutō for the Classic Castle Weapons Challenge. I love that engraving on the blade.

Katsumoto

This samurai is astounding. The plethora of unusual pieces meshes perfectly together. Genius, I say. Pure Genius. You can color me a fan of the builder. His name is Cameron, by the way.

And, yes, this is the type of thing we would love to see in the Big In Japan layout at BrickCon this year.

Thanks to Bruce for pointing this out to me.

Announcing “Big in Japan” – collaborative display for TBB readers at BrickCon 2010

A LEGO zombie apocalypse is so last year (and the year before that). We’re pleased to announce that the collaborative display that The Brothers Brick will be coordinating this fall at BrickCon in Seattle will be inspired by the rich history and culture of Japan.

Like these wonderful characters from Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro by Iain Heath (Ochre Jelly) — elements of the “Miyazakitopia” section Iain is planning for the display — we’ll welcome creations spanning many different eras and building styles. Part of the fun of a collaborative display is figuring out how to fit it all together once all the builders and their creations arrive at the convention!

From the epic Battle of Sekigahara to Godzilla battling Mothra in retro-future Tokyo, both reality and fiction from the Land of the Rising Sun provide plenty of inspiration for great LEGO creations.

Many of my earliest posted LEGO creations were inspired by the legends and history of land where I was born, and I’m personally looking forward to building again from that cultural heritage.

This is the earliest we’ve announced a collaborative display — for good reason. We hope that Big in Japan will inspire some truly different LEGO creations (like Proudlove‘s dekotora), alongside the iconic samurai and mecha we expect. From sketching designs to buying the parts you need on Bricklink, planning substantial contributions to the display may take the next eight or nine months.

As in years past, we’ll have prizes and giveaways, though we’re still working out the details about what those might be. In the meantime, break out those Kurosawa DVDs, crack open some Natsume Soseki novels, and start building!

Happy New Year 2010, Year of the Tiger!

かわいいレゴずき (I Love Cute LEGO) has a great roundup of New Year’s best wishes from our LEGO friends over in Japan, starting with one of their own:

Here are a few more of my favorites.

muntax has built a tiger truck (“寅っく” for a lovely bilingual pun):

Hiro’s tiger burns bright in the forests of the night — or at least in a thicket of bamboo :

Satoru’s tiger bust would look great on any mantle, in any year:

Check out I Love Cute LEGO for the full roundup — click the links in the second half of the post.

Tigers are, of course, the most awesome animal in the Chinese Zodiac. 2010 looks to be a pretty good year.

The General in his Pavilion

Rod Gillies (2 Much Caffeine) applies his skills to medieval Japan with his latest creation, “The General is summoned to war”.

The stone wall has a great texture, and the green roof isn’t something you see that often in LEGO samurai/ninja creations (though they certainly exist in real life). My favorite detail is the fountain.

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