My LEGO shopping plan for August 1: it’s just the One Piece, actually

An ill-advised Netflix binge-watch has dictated my LEGO shopping plans for August, so let this be a cautionary tale to anyone considering checking out One Piece…

Remember back in May when I outlined my shopping plans for June, and mentioned I had a newborn baby who was doing a great job at stopping me from buying more LEGO? (Which my diminishing shelf space and my bank account have both been very grateful for, let me tell you.) Well, she’s still doing that. But I’ve also managed to make a rod for my own back during night feeds.

The sleep deprivation has generally made it tricky to concentrate on new shows, so I’ve mostly been rewatching old favourites while glued to the sofa with a sleeping baby. The first two seasons of Fargo (still excellent), Matt Smith’s Doctor Who run (much cheesier than I remember), and so on. But earlier this month, I finally got enough shut-eye to try watching something new.

Keen to avoid the usual decision paralysis that sets in from subscribing to a silly number of streaming services, I pulled up my ‘to watch’ list and found Netflix’s One Piece series at the top. I’d been meaning to check it out for a while to get a little bit more context on all these new LEGO sets coming out in August. Only for the context, mind – nothing more than that. But best-laid plans…

Five days later, I’d watched the whole thing. Here is a brief snapshot of me as the credits rolled on the final episode.

Six days earlier, I’d had no idea what a ‘Baratie’ was, why there were purple and blue minifigures in Arlong Park or the relevance behind that one guy’s hat. But now I was staring down the barrel of a £535 hole in my bank account, which is the sum total of buying the first full wave of LEGO One Piece sets (save for the BrickHeadz, which I’ve only ever been able to describe as ‘unsettling’).

I like to imagine I’m not so impressionable, but I do remember coming out of multiple Marvel movies in the 2010s and picking up a LEGO set or two on the way home from the cinema. And now it’s happened again with One Piece. To be honest, the show was entertaining if not groundbreaking, a solid 7/10 sort of business, but it’s the visuals that really sell it – and that’s what the LEGO sets are built on.

It helps (the LEGO Group’s coffers) too that I’m aching for more LEGO Pirates sets in general, and 75639 The Going Merry Pirate Ship and 75636 Windmill Village Hut both hew closely to the aesthetics of that theme. Those are therefore the two sets top of my shopping list for August now, while previous contenders 76321 Spider-Man vs. Doc Ock Subway Train Scene and the new Speed Champions cars will have to wait for another day.

I’m comforted a little bit knowing that the LEGO Group tends to go all-out on the first wave for a new licensed theme, so there’ll be plenty of new parts to check out among these sets and they should be pretty good value even at full price (while 76321 Spider-Man vs. Doc Ock Subway Train Scene is one of several Marvel releases that will benefit from a decent discount).

All that remains to be seen now is whether the LEGO Group will have any gifts-with-purchase ready to go on August 1 beyond the Fortnite BrickHeadz set, which I’ll qualify for anyway and will probably just donate to someone who cares about it more, for reasons outlined above. I never did grab 77241 2 Fast 2 Furious Honda S2000 back in June, so at least I’ve got one set on the backburner if I need to reach a higher threshold.

But for anyone reading this who’s yet to watch One Piece, fair warning: it’s an expensive way to spend eight hours if you’re into LEGO…

Head here to check out the full list of LEGO sets arriving in August.

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