Ah..but MegaBlocks has the Barbie License....

But yes, you are right - I bet they don't. "Where's My Rhianna Kreon!?" - probably not a question asked much of Kreon. What about their marvel license? I don't even pay attention enough to know if they have any.

Weird and slightly diversionary question. Do Lego's competitors get asked questions about female figs?

Ah..but MegaBlocks has the Barbie License....

I'm not too sure about this question. If the topic is about "original action themes created by companies", licensed themes are another story. They are only based on how many female protagonists appear in that story. If the companies don't incluide female characters in products, the problem should be whether they decide to introduce figures of male characters' before female's.

I don't see female characters in original action themes from other competitors very often. I can't come up with examples for now, but Kre-O of Hasbro would be one of them.

Edited November 11, 201311 yr by Dorayaki

Kre-O at least has a broad assortment of female figs in their licensed lines. Scarlett and Baroness figs in GI Joe. Several assorted Female figs in Star Trek. I think a Rhianna fig in Battleship as you say. So they have some in the boy targeted action stuff.

Whereas Megabloks has none in the action lines. Not even in the World of Warcraft stuff where female figs would be expected for sure.

TLG seems to be rapidly getting better. The cast of figs from the Lego Movie looks to have quite a few ladies of all types. Main kick megablocks heroine, helpful coworker, crazy cat lady, robot prostitute. Just a real variety of play potential. I figure future action themes will probably follow that pattern.

Ninjago still seems like a bit of a sausage fest fig wise. The added Pixel, but dropped Nya, unless there is an exclusive with her? (I still think she got cut from the Mechdragon set). One interesting test of how far Lego is going with female figs in traditional boy themes will be the next wave of TMNT. One of the sets is described as Karai's Bike Chase. If they follow the episode from the show, this should be a set with Karai chasing April. Female protagonist and antagonist. Really no turtles. Maybe an extra foot soldier.

Kre-O at least has a broad assortment of female figs in their licensed lines. Scarlett and Baroness figs in GI Joe. Several assorted Female figs in Star Trek. I think a Rhianna fig in Battleship as you say. So they have some in the boy targeted action stuff.

Whereas Megabloks has none in the action lines. Not even in the World of Warcraft stuff where female figs would be expected for sure.

TLG seems to be rapidly getting better. The cast of figs from the Lego Movie looks to have quite a few ladies of all types. Main kick megablocks heroine, helpful coworker, crazy cat lady, robot prostitute. Just a real variety of play potential. I figure future action themes will probably follow that pattern.

Ninjago still seems like a bit of a sausage fest fig wise. The added Pixel, but dropped Nya, unless there is an exclusive with her? (I still think she got cut from the Mechdragon set). One interesting test of how far Lego is going with female figs in traditional boy themes will be the next wave of TMNT. One of the sets is described as Karai's Bike Chase. If they follow the episode from the show, this should be a set with Karai chasing April. Female protagonist and antagonist. Really no turtles. Maybe an extra foot soldier.

One Russian site gives a Russian name for 70726 that translates to "vehicle for samurai", so I'd guess that's where Nya will be showing up. So perhaps she was only cut out of the MechDragon set in order to put her in a different set. *shrug*

I agree that TLG is getting better about this, but you're right, Ninjago needs to improve its gender ratios — especially considering how many girls there are who already love the Ninjago TV series.

Edited November 15, 201311 yr by Aanchir

Do Lego's competitors get asked questions about female figs?

I wasn't aware that LEGO had serious competitors. In the southeast USA, MegaBlocks shows up at WalMart but not in force the way LEGO does. LEGO leads its market in every way and could push that lead even further...

...but you're right, Ninjago LEGO needs to improve its gender ratios — especially considering how many girls there are who already love the Ninjago TV series LEGOs.

I, for one, would love to get my wife more interested in LEGOs - she loves them but is never satisfied with the female minifigs available, and don't get her started on Friends and the "mini-doll" idea.

TLC seems to think that the normal minifigs are to simplistic for girls. To small in size for all that accesoires that they made friends and beville or how ever the precessor was called.

But the girls that like lego are not interested in hairstyles and pets and all that, in my opinion. It would probably be more rewarding for TLC to just add a good and strong heroine to their normal themes.

TLC seems to think that the normal minifigs are to simplistic for girls. To small in size for all that accesoires that they made friends and beville or how ever the precessor was called.

But the girls that like lego are not interested in hairstyles and pets and all that, in my opinion. It would probably be more rewarding for TLC to just add a good and strong heroine to their normal themes.

The mini-doll has nothing to do with minifigures being "too simplistic" — the issue is that they're too blocky and abstract, and not naturalistic enough. This isn't to say NO minifigures are designed to appeal to girls, or that NO girls like collecting minifigures, but the designers for LEGO Friends felt that they couldn't create a theme that would be as successful as TLG's existing lines with a female audience if they based it around the standard minifigure. I wouldn't be surprised if they were right — after all, they were trying to court an audience that had historically never paid the brand much heed, and needed extra persuading to understand that the brand could be "for them".

Adding a good, strong heroine to their "normal themes" would not be a bad thing, but it's hardly a substitute for a theme actually targeted at girls specifically. Before LEGO Friends, there weren't enough girls who like LEGO to be a stable foundation for a theme on that scale — it would have failed if it couldn't capture a wider audience of girls than the existing themes already had. And there's no reason girls who like hairstyles and pets SHOULDN'T be able to like LEGO, and LEGO Friends proved that girls with those interests CAN enjoy LEGO just as much as boys without any sacrifices in the actual amount of building involved.

Fifteen years ago, someone might have said "Boys who like LEGO are not interested in action figures" or "are not interested in programming their own working robots", but constraction themes and Mindstorms showed that this didn't have to be the case. Forty-five years ago, someone might have said "Boys who like LEGO are not interested in gears and working machinery" or "are not interested in specialized little model people", but LEGO Technic and the minifigure proved this wrong in short order. You can't define the potential audience for LEGO just according to what the company already produces, because that kind of myopic attitude leaves very little room for new innovation. Who knows what new innovations LEGO might have fifteen years ago without having to sacrifice their integrity as a building toy to do so?

Furthermore, there's the question of whether having a female character as the main character of an action theme like Ninjago would make it less popular overall — after all, boys are the ones who are the most reliable audience for action-driven toys. That is, of course, changing, and TLG needs to keep pace with that change. But if they overshoot that goal and try to be MORE progressive than their buyers are ready to accept, then they'll just be stuck with a product line that fails to meet sales expectations. Some media franchises have recently enjoyed great success with boys even with female main characters, but learning how to make profitable merchandise from those kind of franchises, when the world of toys is already much more heavily gendered than the world of media, is an ongoing process.

TLC seems to think that the normal minifigs are to simplistic for girls. To small in size for all that accesoires that they made friends and beville or how ever the precessor was called.

But the girls that like lego are not interested in hairstyles and pets and all that, in my opinion. It would probably be more rewarding for TLC to just add a good and strong heroine to their normal themes.

I'm afraid minidolls could be somewhat off-topic and you may discuss in the Lego Town thread. As other replies said, since it's about an action theme story, it's not doing with minidolls until TLC actually plan to create an action theme using minidolls. For now Friends is kind of a subtheme of Town/City.

Perhaps there could be a competitive minidoll action theme if TLC can create more kinds of "naturalistic" figures with cool designs that can interest boys at the same time. Maybe boys could even fall in love with a burly and masculine trooper/samurai/monster minidoll. But here's another question: would the targeted consumers of Friends (younger girls) who weren't interested in tradtional themes become attracted to action themes?.

Edited November 20, 201311 yr by Dorayaki

I'm afraid minidolls could be somewhat off-topic and you may discuss in the Lego Town thread. As other replies said, since it's about an action theme story, it's not doing with minidolls until TLC actually plan to create an action theme using minidolls. For now Friends is kind of a subtheme of Town/City.

Perhaps there could be a competitive minidoll action theme if TLC can create more kinds of "naturalistic" figures with cool designs that can interest boys at the same time. Maybe boys could even fall in love with a burly and masculine trooper/samurai/monster minidoll. But here's another question: would the targeted consumers of Friends (younger girls) who weren't interested in tradtional themes become attracted to action themes?.

I've thought for a while (since seeing the Friends in Space project on LEGO Cuusoo, actually) that mini-dolls would be ideal for animé/manga-inspired themes like Exo-Force. That theme already broke from the traditional minifigure aesthetic, after all, so it's not like it was 100% compatible with existing themes anyhow. But with that said, I think it'd take a very particular type of franchise and storyline to sell that kind of thing to both boys AND girls. Exo-Force was very much a shonen (boys') franchise, and as cool as its one female character, Hitomi, was, she was very much a secondary character in the same vein as Nya. She was important, but she never really quite rose to be one of the main heroes.

Now, there are a lot of animé and animé-inspired franchises that DO appeal to both boys and girls to a great extent. The Legend of Korra has several amazing female and male characters alike, and a terrific balance of pulse-pounding action and more interpersonal sorts of tension for characters of both genders. Of course, I'm not trying to say that a Legend of Korra licensed theme would be good with mini-dolls — as awesome as that could be, non-moving legs would be a big problem for a franchise focused on martial arts, and I'm sure a number of fans might find mini-dolls off-putting for other reasons. If I ever get involved in mini-doll customization like I really want to, I might want to try making some Korra mini-dolls just to see how they'd look, though...

Anyway, my point is that a lot of powerful entities are still struggling to find just how to make that kind of franchise successful as far as merchandise is concerned. The LEGO Group is not inherently a media entity, and so it may not be in the best position to lead the way with this kind of storytelling in their own themes, at least not yet. If the right license comes along, though, the ball will be in their playing field.

I guess action minidolls can target at teenagers between 8~14 year olds who want to see more mature and sophiscated desgins like those from comic books (but as said, it needs more sizes of figures). It looks like the difference between Exo-Force and Ninjago, which have similar characters but target at different ages of consumers. For Avatar, since it is an existed theme it would be weird to change it into minidolls.

Before asking TLC to design an action theme with good gender balance, adding some licesed themes of successful stories seems like a better way to test the market and know how many consumers are happy with female protagonists in Lego. I also like The Hunger Games, but it's not suitable for the targeted consumers of Lego and can only appear in Mattel Barbie.

For now, the existed licensed action themes haven't really provided outstanding female protagonists. Star Wars is okay but most troopers are guys, and there is Harry Potter though it isn't noted as an action film. Super "Heroines" are still very few in its line so far. There is Merida from Brave, but we don't know if TLC would give her sets based on fight scenes in future waves.

TLC is still progressing, but somewhat slowly. The major issue is they're trying to utilize the power of media (from TV shows to movie) and create stories to appeal KFOLs, but the signals behind the stories could possibly bring an opposite effect to gender balance.

If they follow the episode from the show, this should be a set with Karai chasing April. Female protagonist and antagonist. Really no turtles. Maybe an extra foot soldier.

Uh.... Venus...

Edited November 26, 201311 yr by Dorayaki

I was thinking last night, Padme and Ahsoka would look awesome as minidolls.

I think we need more girls in action.

I'd just like to see more lady characters period, and preferably ones who know how to open up a grade A can of kick butt. Sometimes the whole 'damsel in distress' bit can be a little funny but most of the time, it is just tiresomely annoying.

In Legends of Chima the strongest female is Cragger's sister, Crooler, mainly because the few others have done very little if anything in the background. I would like to see Windra of the wolves do something awesome at some point in the series. (I like wolves, sue me. ) Also, it feels awkwardly weird how male oriented all the tribes are. I mean, one female per tribe if there even is one. The Ravens, Bears, and Lions have no females whatsoever. Even a child is going to wonder "Where are all the mommies?"

Edited December 18, 201311 yr by TheOrcKing

I'd just like to see more lady characters period, and preferably ones who know how to open up a grade A can of kick butt. Sometimes the whole 'damsel in distress' bit can be a little funny but most of the time, it is just tiresomely annoying.

In Legends of Chima the strongest female is Cragger's sister, Crooler, mainly because the few others have done very little if anything in the background. I would like to see Windra of the wolves do something awesome at some point in the series. (I like wolves, sue me. ) Also, it feels awkwardly weird how male oriented all the tribes are. I mean, one female per tribe if there even is one. The Ravens, Bears, and Lions have no females whatsoever. Even a child is going to wonder "Where are all the mommies?"

What I could hate even more is there is a brave heroine who is often forced to be a "damsel in distress". I mean, for example, Nya should be very capable (at least better than some rival minions), but she is often the target of kidnapping while the boys aren't. I think if there are multiple female characters, some of them can play the superheroine role, and the others be brain trusters or weak damsel-in-distress (eg, a princess with a female knight), and they can even switch sometimes.

I do agree that if each tribe has more than three variations of characters, it shouldn''t be difficult to make a female representive for each tribe. Or actually TLG have unexpectedly advanced to same-sex marriage. I'll wait for Laval's.

But for a lioness, I'm not quite sure since biologically lioness don't have "mane" in real word, and the design of lion minifigures do look very masculine, so a lioness can't share the same head mold with them. There are only two posiblities: (1), A lioness character would be introduced to be Laval's long-lost relative or love interest in season 3, so TLG would make a new mold for her. (2), Tiger Tribe would be introduced in season 3 so that a lioness character can share the same head (but different prints) with tigers.

Speaking of the importance of female characters, it's sad to see that fewer girls can own Spinners or Speedorz (though the reason is obviously that no boys would use female characters in action toys). It's also sad to see that Crooler doesn't actually have important role in the finale of season 1. For now, season 2 would focus on the outlands and we won't see new addtions to these tribes (unless more exiled ones.

Edited December 30, 201311 yr by Dorayaki