80040 Monkie Kid's Combi Mech LEGO Review - Monkie Kid, 2023

A powerful little mech.

TL;DR:

• Original Price:  $19.99
• Pieces: 227
• Minifigure(s): Monkie Kid (mech suit), Ink Demon
• Sticker Sheet: Yes 
  
• Pros: Good mech design, rare-ish minifig
• Cons: Not evenly balanced between protagonist and antagonist, build-wise

Assembly: 

Bag #1 - Monkie Kid, Ink Demon, terrain corner, torso

Bag #2 - Legs

Bag #3 - Arms

 Leftover Pieces

• Interesting Steps:
• 6: I'm always surprised by little things, like how the bar arm's "shoulder" nestles between the two studs beneath it; LEGO is so good at managing close tolerances like this. It should also be mentioned that this creates a place to put the Technic axle and pin connector #1 to act as an angled and flexible pivot point for the catapult.

• 27: This step has us placing "shoulder locks" in on the back of the mech's torso, sliding the short axles through the Technic plate's holes and into the ball joint bricks' axle holes, both serving to secure the layers, and to provide a buffer and brace for Mei later, as shown under Play Features.

• Interesting Techniques:
• The use of car hoods and wheels for pauldrons is a nice touch, adding to the chunky vehicular feel of the mech.

• Pain Points:
• While Monkie Kid sets are often very colorful, they also often suffer from color matching issues. In this set, however, a more pointed effort was made to incorporate the color differences—for example, pearl gold, bright light orange, and yellow, as shown here—by tying the pieces in to the color on adjacent stickers. On the wrist guards you can see gold printing in the sticker relating to the gold of the fingers; elsewhere, bright light orange is on the stickers beside those ingot pieces on the pauldrons, and yellow is on the sticker on the chest plate. I'd still prefer a more unified color palette, but I can't deny they did a good job with this one.

• Play Features: 
  
• The mech itself is quite poseable (as can be seen in the Additional Photos section below) and the weapons can be easily added to or removed from either hand.
• The thumb on each of the mech's hands is actually a stud shooter. 
• Monkie Kid (or the Ink Demon) can be placed in the mech's cockpit.
• The corner of terrain also comes with a catapult that can be used to fling ink globs (1x1 round bricks).
• The most complex feature, however, is the way this set integrates with 80041, Mei's Dragon Jet. As I mentioned in my review of 80041, it's interesting that one half of the pair retired in December of 2024, yet this set is still not retired (being active for 44 months as of September 2026).
• 1. Gather both builds:

• 2. Bend up the jet's nose (unclipping gold bar from green clip):

• 3. Place Mei between the shoulder locks, then raise jet's undercarriage bars over the mech's shoulders:

• 4. Clip the mech's double-clips (dark bluish grey) onto the jet's double-bars (pearl gold):

• 5. Save the world:

• My Modifications:  
• The orientation of sticker number five didn't make much sense to me, putting the joystick and button pad on the mech pilot's right side (the clip of this assembly points to the pilot's feet) and leaving the targeting screen to take up the right side of the control area. I rotated it 90º so that the targeting screen is at the top and both the button pad and joystick are easily accessible.

• The feet, as designed, seemed to have been built on the wrong sides: shoe toe boxes tend to be squarer at the inside edge, to allow more room for the thumb toes, and taper off toward the side. Simply swapping the feet (as shown in the second picture) remedied this admittedly minor stylistic issue.

• Final Build (additional photos)

• Overall:  This is a great set, and really feels like you're getting your money's worth. The mech is very poseable and finely detailed; the Monkie Kid minifig's mech suit is a nice Iron Man-style look, and since the only other set that it's available in is the far more rare and expensive 80034 Nezha's Fire Ring set, this is a good way to get it. On the other hand, the Ink Demon minifig is pretty common, and the little landscape side-build seems more like an afterthought. It is designed with the double-Technic pin connector seen in other Monkie Kid sets, so it could be linked to other builds.

That aside, I'm still impressed with how fun the Monkie Kid side of the set is, so the Ink Demon side seems less paltry than it would if the mech and minifig were less well-thought-out. There are some creative part uses and techniques at play, but nothing too complicated. At such a low price, this would make a great gift or addition to a collection, and I could see the mech (perhaps with a less-valuable minifig pilot, just in case) being a good toy to include in a road trip play pack...or posed on a desk, holding your writing implement or phone charging cable handy.

Score (out of 5 🧱):

• Price: 🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱
• Process: 🧱🧱🧱🧱
• Presentation: 🧱🧱🧱🧱
• Play: 🧱🧱🧱🧱
• Pieces: 🧱🧱🧱

• Total: 🧱🧱🧱🧱

Official Instructions: here