On June 1st everyone’s favourite boy-wizard returned to LEGO form with a wave of new sets dedicated to celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the LEGO Harry Potter franchise in all it’s glory. With a wealth of sets ranging from single rooms through to a glorious Chamber of Secrets castle build, there’s something for every Potter fan to suit any budget.
Set Number: 76386
Pieces: 217
Minifigures: Harry Potter (20th Anniversary Golden Fig), Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger
RRP: £17.99/$19.99
The new sets not only expand out the LEGO wizarding world, but much like the special anniversary LEGO Star Wars sets we saw a couple of years back, Harry Potter’s latest bricked adventures include additional special edition collectibles. A large portion of the new sets include a specially printed golden minifigure of a popular character from the franchise as well as random collectible wizard cards. These cards are printed 2×2 tiles representing the wizard cards included with the chocolate frogs from the franchise. Here’s the two that I received in the set I’m here to review, as well as the golden Harry Potter minifigure:
These collectibles are a great incentive for collecting the full list of sets on offer and brilliantly add to the anniversary celebration of one of contemporary literature’s most beloved franchises in LEGO form.
In the last few years fans have seen a number of larger Wizarding World sets released such as the Great Hall and Astronomy Tower which interconnect to form a good portion of a minifigure-scale Hogwarts. At the time that this new wave was announced, it was confirmed that the new sets wouldn’t follow the same design and so wouldn’t extend that specific sub-theme, which, as one can imagine, did disappoint.
Whilst it is a shame that the newer sets don’t integrate outside of the wave without modification (it is LEGO, after all, so there’s nothing stopping you making it work), a number of the new sets do connect together beautifully for a huge multi-level display with elements inspired from both The Philosopher’s (Sorcerer’s) stone and The Chamber of Secrets.
One of three sets that make up this amalgamation is the low-priced Hogwarts Polyjuice Potion Mistake, which is my first build in the new anniversary collection. Based on the Chamber of Secrets movie scene where our young heroes attempt to brew Polyjuice in order to sneak into Slytherin’s dorm room, the set features the primary trio of heroes in minifigure form and an elegant 200+ piece recreation of the second-floor girls’ lavatory, more commonly known as Moaning Myrtle’s Bathroom. This is definitely a great entry point for those looking to explore the new series.
Minifigures
With a set in this price-range, finding the three main characters from the series, as well as a special edition golden minifigure of the titular character is incredible value for collectors, especially considering the new Chamber of Secrets inspired variants for Harry, Ron and Hermione. The only disappointment with all of the minifigures, the short legs still don’t feature the bendable legs we saw in the minifigures collection.
I have to start with the stunning golden Harry Potter minifigure, look at the glorious beauty. I was a big fan of how Star Wars celebrated their 20th anniversary with retro-looking minifigures, but very glad that LEGO decided to try something different with Potter. The golden minifigures show up across the new wave and so I’m genuinely shocked that they put what will likely be one of the most sought after in the cheapest set. Almost entirely golden from head to toe, the minifigure features a secondary yellow tone, a light red and dark red outlines to detail the character’s Gryffindor Hogwarts garb.
The front of the torso features a V-neck sweater wearing Harry, embronzed with Gryffindor logo, as well as shirt and tie. In addition to the standard waist lines and crease lines, the printing also features sparkle shapes of varying sizes, used to emphasize the golden design. The head pieces features only one face, the standard bespectacled smiling Harry, again almost entirely golden but utilising red outlines. Similarly, the hair piece design will be familiar, as it has been used throughout the last two decades, though usually in black. The figure also includes a golden wand.
The back of the figure also includes the sparkle design, though it is almost entirely covered by the “20 Years LEGO Harry Potter” special edition branding. Unlike the aforementioned Star Wars anniversary figures, the stand tile doesn’t include any printing.
Away from the special edition minifigure, the normal figs in the set each have three different looks that can be achieved, used to approximate the titular Polyjuice incident from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. First up, it’s Hermione Granger and the very interesting addition of a feline head-piece. As fans will know, the trio’s first adventure with Polyjuice went a tiny bit sideways for poor Hermione who ended up using a hair from a cat, rather than a Slytherin student. The result, was a human/cat hybrid which is recreated fantastically with this unique over-the-head piece as the design merges the shape of the used hair-piece with the features of a cat printed on the front. The piece also feature moulded ears on the top. Strangely, the figure doesn’t comes with a tail piece, however.
The more human version of the character is almost identical to previous sets with regards to the hair and dual-printed head-piece. The major change, however, is the Slytherin uniform she is wearing which includes colour specific printing on the logo and tie and portrays a V-necked sweater under the partially closed cloak. The back of the torso is fairly simply with outline printing showing crease lines and the cloaks hood. The cat head piece is definitely the major selling point with this figure.
Moving on the Harry, and he’s definitely not happy about something as his head piece features a angry looking bespectacled face. The most interesting aspect of this Harry variable, is that the other side of the head piece features a complete different face. In case you’ve not watched the movies recently or aren’t familiar, during the scene that the set is based on, Harry and Ron use Polyjuice to turn into Slytherin students Crabbe and Goyle and LEGO have found a way to bring that transformation to life here in brick form. Despite the simplicity of the facial design, the designer has done a fantastic job of approximating the actor that plays the character in the movie with a subtle quizzical look to him. Along with Harry’s standard younger minifigure hair, the fig also comes with a secondary hair-piece more fitting for Crabbe.
Torso and legs wise, the minifigure features the exact same Slytherin uniform print as Hermione.
Much like Harry, Ron too features a unique two-person head piece showing his transformation into Goyle. Ron’s own face is one of grimace, clearly having just downed the potion for the first time, with a large misshaped mouth, squinting eye, and raised orange eyebrows. The other face on the head again does a really good job of recreating the Slytherin student from the movie, with his small mouth a podgy cheeks. Along with younger Ron’s signature hair piece, Goyle also gets his own dark brown parted hair. Much like the other two minifigures, the rest of the figure in terms of design is the Slytherin uniform printing.
The three minifigures offer a wonderful amount of flexibility for play purposes and recreating the Polyjuice potion scene in LEGO form. One other aspect to consider is that if you’ve already got a Harry and Ron, this set essentially give you bricked up Crabbe and Goyle minifigures for use elsewhere, so you’re getting a lot of value for money in this set minifigure wise.
Bathroom Build
On to the main build of the set and it’s a small recreation of the second-floor girls’ lavatory, more commonly known as Moaning Myrtle’s Bathroom. This 16×8 build packs a lot of detail into such a small set and as you can see from the top and the technics connectors on the right side, it’s modular.
Being a 200+ set, the actual build will only set the average builder back about 30 minutes at best, with the only stickers included being the three shiny metallic mirrors. In terms of build techniques used, there isn’t anything overly mind-blowing that we haven’t seen in other themes, though the design of the toilet in the cubicle is definitely something I’ve not see elsewhere. It’s uses vertically sitting 2×1 pieces on a 1 stud lamp holder rather than the more traditional horizontally stacked approach. The cubicle door itself isn’t familiar either and yet a great addition to the set – though we tend to have our bathroom doors a little bit closer to the floor here in the UK.
The largest section of the build is the tap area, which is made up of three individual builds, primarily white with golden taps and a light grey 2x1x2 piece to add the metallic sticker for the mirror. The left and right tap are clipped directly to the back wall of the build and remain static, whilst the middle tap area is connected above via a hinge which allows it to be lifted up to reveal a secret entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. For such a small build that already offers so much in the way of play options with the versatile minifigures, this is an added bonus.
The simplistic use of white rounded pieces to construct the pillars either side of the golden taps works exceptionally well, it looks fantastic and the end result adds an incredible level of detail to what could have been an otherwise bland area with such few pieces.
In addition to the bathroom layout, the set also includes a cauldron, mixing spoon, and a couple of ingredients potion bottle, great for both display and addition play.
Overall
Overall, as my first experience with the 20th Anniversary Harry Potter sets, I am very pleased with the quality of the build, the fantastic minifigures and value for money with the Polyjuice Potion Mistake set. As one of the cheapest of the sets you really do get your money’s worth here with the three main characters in the franchise in new variants, two of which actually double as Crabbe and Goyle minifigures brilliantly.
The bathroom is fantastically detailed, well designed and strong, it successfully survives a drop to the floor from my desk, put it that way. The 16×8 room is a perfect example of LEGO’s continued brilliance when it comes to creating great detail with minimal parts and the fact that the only stickers in the build are for mirror effects just adds even more to that build design quality.
Golden Harry is the cherry on top, a fantastic collectible that will forever have a special place in my collection…well until I get the Chamber of Secrets set opened and built, at least.
Fun build, great play opportunities, a wonderful display piece, and amazing minifigures, well worth a purchase to any LEGO Harry Potter fan.
