Pantasy 81101 Spirit(Ling) Cage: Incarnation Set Review (not Lego)

Hey fans of Lego and not Lego!  Welcome back to my blog!   This will be my first post for 2022.   

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I can't wait to show you pictures of my latest not Lego brick build.  It's my third set from the brand called Pantasy.  This one is the Pantasy 81101 Spirit(Ling) Cage: Incarnation set.  

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I bought it from www.brickkk.com during their sale just before Christmas and it arrived in Canada 2 weeks later.   In case you want to buy it, here's the link.  Don't forget to use their coupon to get an extra 12% off the sale price.

This building block set is based on a 2019 Chinese science fiction anime series of the same name. I watched the animation and it's stunning.  It depicts a dystopian future where the earth has been ravaged by climate change and the last few citizens live on this giant floating structure called the Lighthouse.  The rich and powerful live on the top side of the Lighthouse and the poor, who are called Dust People, live in cramped container housing suspended underneath the Lighthouse.  The TvTropes.org website probably has the best info about this anime.

Apparently Pantasy brand is officially authorised to release the Spirit (Ling) Cage set.  I hope they do more sets from this movie in future.

Anyways, enough of me yakking, let's look at the pictures (Warning!  massive picture dump as usual).

My set came in a generic box with  all the parts bagged with the Pantasy branding.  Each bag is clearly numbered and associated with the respective section in the user manual.

The instruction manual is quite thick with over 226 pages and 398 steps.  Cover art is really nice to look at.

The first few pages show you pictures from the set, nicely depicted and stands out against the black background.

Unfortunately, all the text is in Chinese, so I couldn't decipher the meaning.

There are seven sections to build this set, and this page shows you the breakdown, which is clearly marked.

At this point I'm just going to show you the pictures of the completed build.  If you are interested to see more detailed pictures of the set during construction, please check out the second part of this post called Building the Pantasy 81101 Spirit(Ling) Cage set.

In the Spirit (Ling) Cage anime/movie, there are dozens of hanging structures suspended underneath the Lighthouse, where the lower class people live.  This block of container structures is a typical live/work dwelling, where the Dust people live in the containers and sleep in bunk beds right next to the machinery they operate.

As you can see in the pictures, this set is rich in details.  There's so much going on and no matter which angle you view it from, there's always something interesting that catches your eye.  I really like the colour pallette used, combining sand green, sand blue, brown, tan and burgundy together. 

Each container home in this set is different from the others and all the interiors are fully furnished inside.  On the outside, there's lots of signage using solely printed parts.  No stickers here!  There's several cylindrical storage tanks attached to the underside of the building platform as well as different pipes giving it a real industrial feel.  There's even what looks like electrical wires and transformers on the side.

Just showing you all the different sides of the structure.  The giant girders above the containers would be attached to the underside of the Lighthouse.  I guess that this is how they re-position the hanging buildings.  There are a total of 5 long cables that the entire structure!

I imagine that the rooftop crane would be used to hoist heavy machinery and objects from floor to floor.  Makes you wonder how they would add new container homes to the complex.

If there's one thing I would improve on this set, it would be to increase the platform size and catwalks so that there's room to walk all the way around the structure.  Although there are ladders to the various levels, they don't seem to be connected.

Those white blocks underneath the platform are mean to simulate clouds, I would imagine.

The set comes with six minifigures, although similar in appearance and size to Lego minifigures, they aren't compatible because Pantasy uses a different torso.  They use ball joints for the arm connections, plus the waist can swivel.  The head and hair might be interchangeable with Lego minifigs, though.  There's two facial impressions for you to choose from. 

Having seen the anime, I feel like they could have done a better job on the minifigures.  You can find more info about the characters in my part two post. Here are pics of Mark, Ran Bing, and 4068 from the anime:

The hairpiece on Ran Bing is the worst. And too bad they didn't do a minifigure for Fan Di, her outfit and headpiece rocks!  

Here's a list of the characters from the show.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/LingLongIncarnation

I found this little bonus piece in the set which isn't referenced by the instructions.  It features the Pantasy brand and the Spirit Cage Incarnation logo.  How cool is that?

Regarding the number of pieces in this set, there's no reference anywhere to be found, but I'll guess there must be around 2000+ pieces though.  I only had 1 missing piece out of the entire set, but I'm not sure if it was a packaging error or me dropping it somewhere, it was a 1x1 nougat round piece. I'll probably just replace it with a different colour.  Brick quality and clutch were very good.

Anyways, that's it for part one of this post of the Pantasy Spirit Cage set.

For part two of this post, I'll show you the build pics where you can see all of the interior details, plus a breakdown of the parts bags for each section of the build.  

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Visit brickkk.com if you want to see more cool sets like this one.  Don't forget to use the discount code!

Please check it out if you like!

Unboxing and Building Pantasy 86218 221B Baker Street Set (Full Review)

Hey alt Lego brick fans!  Welcome back to another episode of It's Not Lego.  Today we will be unboxing and reviewing the Pantasy brand Sherlock Holmes 221B Baker Street building block set.   

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This set depicts the interior of the fictional address of 221B Baker street, the domicile of Sherlock Holmes.  There are three rooms which you can build, the kitchen, the sitting room and the study.   This set reminds me of the layout of Lego Central Perk set and as you can see later in the details, it is roughly the same number of pieces.

This is going to be a long post with lots of pictures, so let's get right into it!

First off, I'd like to thank www.brickkk.com for sending me this set, complete with box.  

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The box art is beautifully detailed and very high quality.  The set colours really pop against the jet black background.

Opening the box, we find a big instruction booklet with the name of the set which is 221B Baker St. and the Pantasy set number 86218.  The bricks for this set are neatly packaged in several pink and blue numbered bags.  I also got a 150 rmb/yuan discount card in the box, but not sure if I can use it for future purchases or not.

The instruction booklet is prefaced by a few pages of intro and some pictures of the set highlights.  Although I couldn't get google translate to work with the wording, I'd imagine that the intro probably mentions that this set is officially authorised by the estate of Conan Doyle, the creator of the Sherlock Holmes franchise.

On this page we can see the breakdown of the numbered steps and what part of the Sherlock Holmes set they pertain to.  Steps one and two build the kitchen, steps three and four build the study and the final steps five and six build the living room.

Building the Kitchen

Step 1 consists of 3 bags of parts.

This is what the first part of the kitchen looks like after completing step 1.  The primary colour of the kitchen is sand green with sand blue curtains and a dark green backsplash.  Lots of cupboards, a sink, a small stove and various pots and bowls and other assorted knick knacks.

Although this set is supposed to be displayed from the front, the back wall is not without it's details, such as the flower box under the window.  Those little pieces are extras that came in step1.

In case you were wondering, Pantasy provides a very pink free brick separator in the set.

To finish off the kitchen display, there are two more bags of parts in step 2.

One of the bags build the kitchen table and chairs.  Lots of bottles, a chicken leg and a microscope sit on the table.

The other bag contains the minifigure Mrs. Hudson, Sherlocks' landlady, with a teapot.

Building the Study

Step 3 consists of the three bags to build the study.

The study room without any adornments.  Walls are dark red with brown strip floors.

Here too, there is an exterior window treatment and flowering vine.  A few extra pieces as well.

Step 4 contains three bags to complete the display of the study.

Oh btw, I had a chuckle when I saw these instructions.  You really can't screw up this up!

That deer head above the desk has to be my favourite piece of this set.  It just looks so cool.  Another cool item is the typewriter.   Rounding out the furnishings in the study is a floor lamp, a sofa, and a round table.

Almost forgot to display the office chair and the extra pieces in this step.  The Dr. Watson minifigure appears in this step.

Building the Sitting Room

Step 5 has four bags of parts.

Constructing the sitting room floor.  Of note, there are some shiny gold tiles used on the area rug.

This step builds the dark red walls and bookshelf of the sitting room.

Step 6 has seven bags of parts to complete the display of the sitting room.

A fireplace for the sitting room, complete with knife, metronome and a skull?

Next up is another book case.

Placing the fireplace and book case into the sitting room.

Does Sherlock Holmes have a drinking problem?  We'll never know.

A chess set and old school telephone.

A hat rack and some kind of musical instrument.  Does it look like a violin to you?

Ta-da!  The fully furnished sitting room with two chairs, a sheet music stand and wall sconce.   I'm not that familiar with the Sherlock Holmes franchise, so if there are easter eggs to some of the stories, I'm completely oblivious.   Please let me know!

I realized I forgot to take a picture of Professor Moriarty earlier.  Anyways here are the four minifigures pictured together.  All of them have two faced heads.

Here are the minifigures with their alternate faces.

Each character has its own accessory.  Not sure if that gun Moriarty is holding is right for the times!

Final thoughts

This was a fun set to build.  So many cool little details and the minifigures are top notch.   For the most part the bricks used were near Lego quality in finish and clutch.  I did have a scratched door glass piece that was part of the sitting room book shelf, although the rest of the window glass was clear and scuff free.

Another big plus to this set is that it doesn't use any stickers.  Here are all the printed pieces that came with the Baker Street display.

I was curious about the total number of pieces in this set, so I took it upon myself to count up all the pieces.  The total is 1016 pieces, which does not include the parts to make up the four minifigures.   Additionally, there were 60+ pieces of extra parts.

This makes the set similar in size to the Lego Central Perk set because I think that set is also between 1000 and 1100 pieces.

I've seen people make a sitcom tower modular building consisting of the sets from Central Perk, Big Bang Theory, Seinfeld's Apartment and Bro Thor's Apartment.  I bet one could totally add this Sherlock Holmes set to the sitcom tower as another floor in the building.

I'm not 100% sure but the Pantasy Brand Sherlock Holmes 221B Baker Street set can't be found anywhere else except on the www.brickkk.com website.   

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And, as a bonus of this writing, the set is on sale as part of brickKK's holiday sale.   Do check it out if you get a chance.

Thanks for spending your precious time reading this blog post.   Take care and see you in the next post!   Bye!