LEGO One Piece pulled out all the stops in 2025. Can it do the same again in 2026?
LEGO One Piece left nothing on the cutting room floor for its first wave – and especially its quintessential set. But can it pull off the same trick again in 2026?
New LEGO themes tend to start strong, bolstered by an atypically large budget that’s generally in service of two outcomes: producing all the novelty elements specific to that IP (whether it’s in-house or third-party), and appealing to new fanbases (usually for third-party licences that have an established non-LEGO audience). LEGO One Piece reaped the benefits of both those ambitions in 2025.
The onus now is on the inevitable 2026 wave to sustain the goodwill generated by the inaugural range, at least maintaining if not exceeding the quality of the summer 2025 sets. Whether that will actually happen is another question entirely, but the blueprint is there in sets like the excellent 75639 The Going Merry Pirate Ship – one of the year’s very best sets across all themes – for the LEGO Group to follow.
What makes the Going Merry in particular so successful is the way it’s positioned as the quintessential LEGO One Piece set. If you only have a passing interest in the franchise – maybe you’ve seen the Netflix series and that’s all – this one model is probably enough to satiate your desire for a LEGO One Piece display. That’s for two reasons: first, its mid-range price tag; and second, its complete cast of Straw Hat Pirates.
The LEGO Group could easily have handed over the flagship slot occupied by 75640 The Baratie Floating Restaurant to the Going Merry, locking One Piece’s most iconic ship behind a mammoth and (for many) inaccessible paywall. And it could just as easily have swapped out a couple of the minifigures – Sanji and Usopp, for example – for supporting characters or villains, requiring fans to buy additional sets to get the full gang.
Those both feel like decisions that wouldn’t necessarily have been so pro-consumer if this was a LEGO Star Wars set (for example), or really a model in any other theme that has an established pool of collectors that the LEGO Group knows it can tap into. LEGO One Piece was, to an extent, unproven when it debuted in 2025. Appealing to as many people as possible with a catch-all set – and making that model the most iconic design associated with the show – was very much the smart move.
There’s more to 75639 The Going Merry Pirate Ship than just its minifigures, too. This is a superbly-realised version of the vessel that has mastery of its proportions, makes efficient and effective use of its interior space, and delivers a rewarding building experience that’s completely free of large, moulded hull pieces.
If it’s a set designed to tempt non-LEGO fans back to the brick, perhaps for the first time since they were kids, this is an inspired way to demonstrate just how far the LEGO Group’s design language and ethos has come in the past 30 or so years since LEGO Pirates first graced shelves. And in the absence of new, generic pirate ships, the subject matter alone here is obviously another string in the Going Merry’s growing bow.
The price feels just right, too. Coming in at £119.99 / $139.99 / €129.99 for 1,376 pieces – several of which are brand new for this theme, if not exclusive to this set, and let’s not forget the giant (and unique) vinyl sails and flags – it’s an accessible and, relative to the size of the finished model, fair ask for everything in the box.
There are obvious compromises in scale (and reaching the depths of that fully-furnished interior isn’t necessarily the easiest thing for larger hands to do) where a bigger budget could have unlocked a set closer to the scope of 10365 Captain Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship, but the price tag would have then risen to match.
As is, 75639 The Going Merry Pirate Ship feels perfectly positioned within the initial wave of LEGO One Piece sets. Jump up the price points and you’ll get the sprawling and similarly-impressive 75640 The Baratie Floating Restaurant to play with; chip away at your budget and there are still three fun playsets to get to grips with in 75636 Windmill Village Hut, 75637 Buggy the Clown’s Circus Tent and 75638 Battle at Arlong Park.
Hardcore One Piece fans who’ve gone all-in on that wave won’t have been disappointed by the mix of characters across the sets, the way their given scenes and locations have been executed or the attention to detail paid by the designers throughout. It’s a small wave of sets compared to most licensed themes, especially for the first batch, but that’s allowed the LEGO Group to deliver a focused, quality range of builds to draw in One Piece fans.
What it needs to do now is sustain and maintain that credibility among One Piece fans (as well as its existing LEGO demographics) by delivering a similarly successful second wave of sets in 2026. Season 2 of the Netflix adaptation is due to arrive on screens next year and while the LEGO Group hasn’t yet confirmed any further products, another wave seems all but guaranteed from where we’re sitting (and indeed is rumoured to be on the cards).
With one eye on longer-running themes, it feels almost inevitable that we’ll hit a drop-off at some point, particularly if LEGO One Piece continues for years in tandem with the live-action Netflix series. But for now, fingers crossed the LEGO Group manages to pull off the same trick again in 2026, because LEGO One Piece was easily one of the most pleasant surprises of 2025.
Check out more reflections on 2025 in LEGO (including our top 10 sets and minifigures) here.
The copy of 75639 The Going Merry Pirate Ship pictured in this story was provided by the LEGO Group for the purposes of this feature.
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