Thanks to The LEGO Group for sending us the full wave of NINJAGO “The Island” sets.
Let’s jump right in 71747 The Keepers’ Village.
With 632 pieces, this is the 2nd largest set from this wave.
Going through the box, the 5 minifigures in this set are featured at the front and the top side of the box.
Spoiler alert! The stone pillars can separate into 3 different ‘characters’.
Onto the content of the box, there are 5 numbered plastic bags, 1 instruction booklet, 1 loose 8×16 tan plate and a sticker sheet.
I am just going to breeze through this from bags 1 to 5.
Bag 1 contains 2 minifigures namely Island Kai and Thunder Keeper. These parts make up the sea and jungle part of the build.
Bags 2 to 4 includes the part for the main structure of the shrine. Island Cole is in bag 3 while Chief Mammatus is in bag 4.
Bag 5 includes the stone pillar as well as Island Jay minifigure.
Now for the details of the build. Starting with the stone pillar. As pointed out earlier, this can separate into 3 smaller stone things, as shown at the back of the box.
Remember Mixels?
One of them holds the amulet on its head so you can only switch the order of the middle and bottom stone guys. When you put them back together, you can firmly position it on top of the shrine easily because there is also a Technic pin that holds it securely. As you could see from the pictures below, it could swivel slightly from left to right because it has some wiggle room.
As a playset, we can set up several scenarios here. For example, Jay is inside the prison because being the clown of the group, he always gets captured. See the lime leaf inside the prison? It can move the mouth of the stone structure a little bit as a small action feature.
Continuing our scenario, Cole is trying to distract the enemies so that Kai could sneak in and save Jay. What he didn’t know is that there is a stud shooter between the two trees. There is also a platform between the bushes that you can tap to catapult the unsuspecting minifigure.
The enemies lost track of the ninjas after Cole distracted the enemies. As Kai set Jay free from prison, they were able to take the seafood for dinner.
This side of the set is not very friendly to the camera but the set has hinges and clips so you can adjust the 3 sections (left – ‘jungle’, middle – ‘shrine’ and right – ‘prison’) at different angles to suit your needs.
As for the minifigures, let me reiterate what they are again. The five minifigures are Island Kai, Island Jay, Island Cole, a Thunder Keeper and Chief Mammatus.
This set is the cheapest set where you can get Island Kai, Island Jay and Chief Mammatus. Take note, there is not much set to choose from anyway.
Island Cole is exclusive to this set.
A small side note about Cole’s top knot bun. This mould has been out since 2017 and was used in TLNM sets. It has been recoloured 3 times already, this being the third time. This is likely used as the design inspiration for all other hairpieces with headband in this series.
The selection of minifigures here are just fine.
Before we conclude, let me go back briefly to the set. I am trying very hard to appreciate this set more but I am just not feeling the jungle theme in this playset. Of course, I already knew what I was going to build because I had seen the preview but I still expected more depth or foliage density from this. To make out a jungle from two trees with several leaves is asking too much for the imagination.
At £44.99 / $49.99 / 49.99€ with 632 pieces, the value is amazing. In the end, I feel that this set has greater potential but it suffered from just being basic while trying to be as cheap as possible. While this is great news for collectors on a budget, design and playability suffered a bit and for that I could only give this set 3.5 out 5 score.
As a recommendation, you can add another set to play this with, like 71746 (Jungle Dragon) and it becomes more enticing.
Comment below and share what you think about this set review. Take your time. This is Akira signing off.
The set used for the review was sent to us by The LEGO Group for the purpose of a review. Provision of sets do not in any way influence or guarantee a positive review.