How does Lego Ninjago reflect a colonist legacy in children's entertainment?
Ninjago is one of the most profitable Lego lines, having been turned into 250+ box sets, multiple video games, a movie that made $123 million dollars worldwide, a TV show that has run for 13 seasons and is renewed for two more, and other various merchandise sales.
Lego Ninjago: a subdivision of one of the most successful toy companies in the world, the Lego Company. Originally created by Tommy Andreasen and the LEGO team and later written by the Hageman brothers, the television show is centered around a group of ninja living in the fictional land of Ninjago.
It follows them as they unlock elemental powers, vanquish villains, and pursue hijinks as a team. As the title may suggest, the world of Ninjago borrows heavily from East Asian culture, with the ninja roles utilized coming directly from Japanese history.
Psst: Never seen Ninjago? Watch the season 1 trailer!
It seems harmless enough. It’s a kid’s show loosely based around Asian imagery, marketed mostly to little boys. There’s nothing offensive about a show that alters its source of information for entertainment’s sake, right?
Actually, not so much. Kid's show aside, it's a harmful reinforcement of decades of western profit on eastern or "oriental" cultures and legacies of Asian erasure in western entertainment. Although that might sound like an overly harsh condemnation of a show not intended to be taken so seriously, it's a fact so inextricably intertwined with the show—from conception to design to representation—that it cannot possibly be ignored.