ARMY and AFOL: The Dynamite Combo of BTS and LEGO
Just over a year ago, LEGO announced that the next Ideas set would be dancing to the beat of Korean Popular Music (K-pop for short) and be based on the iconic boyband, BTS. The music video of their song Dynamite was submitted by fan designer Josh Bretz (@JBBrickFanatic) and Jacob Twerski (@BangtanBricks) and the rest is history.
Though many AFOLs reacted to the BTS set news with the question, “Who!?”, a large army of K-pop fans celebrated around the world. With the release of LEGO Ideas 21339 BTS Dynamite, we wanted to explore the set from the perspective of both an AFOL and an ARMY (a member of the BTS fandom).
the original submission by josh and jacob was one of the fastest sets to reach 10,000 votes.
But before we talk about the set itself, join us for a brief history of K-pop, Korean culture, and the global phenomenon that is BTS.
K-Pop and The Korean Wave
Seo Taiji and Boys. (2023, February 6). via Wikipedia.
To understand BTS, we must first understand K-pop and its cultural heritage. K-pop is a form of popular music from South Korea that mixes various musical genres such as rap, hip-hop, and R&B with traditional Korean music.
While Korean popular music traces its roots to the 1880s, modern K-pop as we know it emerged in the 1990s with hip-hop boy band Seo Taiji and the Boys credited to be the first K-pop group in Korea.
However, it is more than just music. K-pop is the ultimate entertainment package, complete with beautiful artists (or “idols” as they are called) performing flashy synchronized dance sequences in fashionable outfits during highly-produced extravaganzas.
K-pop forms an integral part of Hallyu or the “Korean wave”. Though it began as the spread of K-dramas and K-pop across Asia, the Korean wave has made its way around the world, powered by social networking services and online media-sharing platforms. The rest of the world can’t seem to get enough of South Korea, with South Korean culture, music, films, cuisine, fashion, and even cosmetics, making their way into our homes. This is the wave that BTS rode to become the group they are.
BTS as Icons
BTS is almost more of an ideal than a group now, but they didn’t start out like that. BTS actually stands for Bangtan Soneyondan which means “Bulletproof Boy Scouts.” It is composed of seven members who often are referred to by their nicknames: Kim Namjoon (or RM/ Rap Monster), Kim Seokjin (Jin), Min Yoongi (SUGA), Jung Hoseok (j-hope), Park Jimin (Jimin), Kim Taehyung (V), and Jeon Jung Kook (JK).
Logo via BTS.
As BTS member j-hope explained, “‘Bangtan’ means to be resistant to bullets, so it means to block out stereotypes, criticisms, and expectations that aim on adolescents like bullets, to preserve the values and ideals of today’s adolescents.” Later, BTS also took on the meaning “Beyond the Scene” symbolizing youth who don’t settle and instead move forward to achieve growth.
BTS debuted in 2013 and grew in popularity exceedingly fast. By 2017, the group was leading the global Korean wave. They have since won multiple awards, sold millions of albums, and have been included in Time Magazine’s list of most influential people.
One thing that sets BTS apart from many pop groups is their dedication to doing good in the world. In 2017, BTS partnered with UNICEF to launch the Love Myself campaign which supports child and teen victims of domestic and school violence. They have addressed the UN General Assembly on three separate occasions to speak on behalf of the youth. And their philanthropic efforts are numerous, including donating $1 million to Black Lives Matter—an amount that was then matched by their fans. (For an analysis of how fighting for social rights helped propel BTS to the top of the industry, I recommend this article by Aleydis Nissen.)
BTS at the 76th Session of the UN General Assembly, where they spoke from the perspective of youth living through the pandemic. click here for a transcript of their speech.
LEGO themselves named BTS as 21st-century pop icons in the instruction manual for the set, calling out their contributions to society (which in no doubt mirrors the guiding principles of LEGO itself):
“Members RM, Jin, SUGA, j-hope, Jimin, V, and Jung Kook have reached unprecedented levels of popularity world worldwide as 21st-century pop icons. Not only for their unique music style and tongue-in-cheek attitudes but also for acting responsibly as positive influencers and activists for equality and inclusivity, and ambassadors for self-love and joy, on and off stage.”
Though the band is a decade old, it is currently a time of change for BTS. I would be remiss to not mention that BTS is currently on hiatus to allow members to pursue individual projects and, more importantly, fulfill their mandatory service to their country’s military. At present, only Jin is in active service. Only time will tell what happens next for the group, but based on their global popularity, great things are hopefully in store.
ARMY and The Popularity of Dynamite
Beyond the catchy tunes, the message of BTS’s music draws millions of fans. Yes, there are catchy love songs in their repertoire… but there are also songs about loss and overcoming life’s daily struggles. Social criticism and introspection are key components in their music, tackling issues such as the generation gap, unemployment, overemphasis on achievement, and depression. Their songs are so relatable that their fanbase—known as ARMY (Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth)—is more than 40 million strong with members from all walks of life (myself included). The group is known for taking action, standing for something, and (occasionally) going a little crazy for all things BTS.
The music video that the LEGO set is based on is from “Dynamite” which BTS released in 2020 in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic. At a time when so many were struggling with feelings of isolation and despair, Dynamite provided much-needed joy, hope, and energy. It is the song that propelled BTS to mainstream music, debuting at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. To really understand the set, I encourage you to take two minutes to watch the video.
The official Dynamite Music Video has 1.6 billion views.
You can read a more detailed analysis of the lyrics or just read what LEGO writes about the song in the manual:
“Seen as a joyful reminder to allow space for light and fun in times of darkness, the song delivered on BTS’ mission to bring people together and spread happiness. It lights a fire under our own playfulness and embraces the fact that life really is dynamite!”
BTS x LEGO
You’ve made it through the history portion, congratulations! Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s get to the fun part: BTS x LEGO! As a fan of both BTS and LEGO, I always get a thrill when any of the group members talk about or build LEGO. (Yes, BTS are lovers of LEGO too! So much synergy!)
I’ve tried to document all the instances where BTS has expressed their love for LEGO and included them in a list below.
1. Let Go LEGO
Cover Via Amazon
Most importantly, one of their songs “Let Go” (2018) has the word LEGO in it! Let Go is from the album Face Yourself, which is Japanese.
Check out the lyrics:
これが散りゆく運命ならば my last letter
(If my fate is to disappear like this, then this is my last letter)
綴る言葉 書いては消してる
(Penned words, written then erased)
君への想いは so many to let go, unpuzzle my LEGO
(Feelings for you, so many to let go, unpuzzle my LEGO)
元の形に戻れない level
(At a level where it can’t return to its original shape)
So be it, don't cry (don't cry)
I'mma let you go and fly (ah)
“Let Go” from one of the live performances of BTS.
2. Bear & Flowers
Jimin showing off his builds. Posted on Weverse, February 10, 2023.
One of the interesting things about K-pop culture is that idols often go live on social media (without any prior announcement) to interact with their fans and just… do stuff. Fans send messages which idols can read on the screen. BTS is quite well known for their “lives” which can last for hours. BTS has done mini-concerts, eaten dinner or lunch, and celebrated birthdays with their fans live. It’s an excellent way for fans to feel like they were part of their idols’ day.
On February 10, 2023, group member Jimin went live while building two LEGO sets. He built the daisies from the 10280 Flower Bouquet before moving on to the 40462 Valentine’s Brown Bear.
3. Bouquet Building
Before that, on October 13, 2022, Jimin celebrated his birthday with ARMY by going live and building the roses from 10280 Flower Bouquet (and sharing a cute cake).
Jimin celebrated his 2022 birthday with army by building lego! image captured from weverse live.
4. Vlogging Realness
During an episode of the BTS Vlog from August 20, 2022, SUGA spent his day woodworking and making cutting boards. At the 12-minute mark, he casually mentions that he’d always loved making things like LEGO. You can watch the episode here.
Suga talking about how much he enjoys building things. image captured from bangtantv youtube channel.
5. Louis Vuitton
LEGO birthday cake posted by jin, in celebration of louis vuitton’s birthday. image shared by jin on his instagram.
LEGO has been partners with Louis Vuitton for some time now, including for their recent holiday window campaign. As official house ambassadors of the Louis Vuitton brand, LEGO must have sent the members presents to celebrate Louis Vuitton’s 200th Birthday which was posted by Jin on December 20, 2021.
6. Stranger Things
BTS In the Soop is a reality show wherein the members are filmed while on vacation. “Soop” means “forest” in Korean. Season 1, Episode 5 from 2020 shows j-hope building 75810 The Upside Down while the other members paint or play video games.
Image from Twitter user @bangdungie
7. The “LEGO” Store
BTS Bon Voyage is another reality show starring the members, this time showing their travels to different locations. In Season 3, Episode 3 from 2018, j-hope and RM visit a generic toy store at the mall (to revisit their childhoods) but refer to it as the LEGO store (look for this at the 12-minute mark).
Screencap of jhope and rm walking around a mall in malta.
Hopefully you can see that the seeds of the BTS LEGO set were there. When the LEGO Ideas’ IP team (intellectual property) reached out about the possibility, I’m fairly sure that BTS was excited about becoming even more immortalized as minifigures.
An AFOL Perspective
Now you know the “Who!?” of BTS and the “Why!?” behind LEGO Ideas 21339 BTS Dynamite, it is time to take a look at the actual model. So what does this ARMY-AFOL think of it? Here are my quick thoughts after building the set.
To an AFOL, the set is not particularly interesting. The build techniques are relatively simple and straightforward, especially considering this is an IDEAS set. The biggest draw is the minifigures which will certainly be popular. All the heads are dual-printed, and the torsos have great details (though the legs remain generic). The hair pieces are interesting as well, except in j-hope’s case, which is a common short hair minifigure hairpiece.
Also, I think there is an overreliance on stickers to provide the details. There are four little sticker sheets for 26 stickers! Even the BTS symbol comes from a sticker! (Doesn’t THAT at least, deserve to be a printed tile?) Even though stickers make sets more affordable and more detailed, I will always be thankful that BrickNerd published this explanatory piece on overcoming the dreaded sticker sheet given that more and more sets seem to be relying on stickers.
The price tag of $100 is also a tad steep for what is, essentially, a City Set. Comparing Dynamite with 60233 Donut Shop Opening from 2019, the latter comes out the winner with 10 minifigs versus Dynamite’s seven, a lower price tag, and a higher piece count. Overall, I’m sure many AFOLs will skip this set. If I weren’t ARMY, I probably would as well. But about that…
An ARMY Perspective
The thing is… I am ARMY… and my purple heart LOVES this set!!! 😅
My BTS minifigs and with my army membership card (yes, proud card carrying member here!)
First, I get to have minifigs of all seven members. Squee! Other types of figures of the members do not come cheap. For example, a similarly sized Funko Pop keychain costs almost $9 on Amazon. Per member! The slightly bigger Tiny Tan monitor figure (which does nothing but sit on top of your monitor) comes in at $9.50 per member on Amazon.
I would gladly pay $70 for the minifigs and the stage alone and consider it a good purchase. $30 for the rest of the set is likewise a good value.
Second, I love the attention to detail. The designers did a wonderful job incorporating the details from the music video into the set. LEGO knew well enough that ARMY will be scrutinizing every single aspect of this set, and the designers definitely delivered.
In Filipino, we have the word “kilig”, an adjective that means “causing or expressing a rush of excitement or exhilaration; thrilling, enthralling, captivating” (incidentally, the word has made its way to the Oxford English Dictionary). It’s that feeling of having your tummy filled with butterflies due to intense happiness and excitement. No word captures an ARMY’s feelings towards BTS merch like kilig. So here are my top kilig-worthy details (in no particular order):
It was so much fun discovering all the easter eggs hidden by the designers in this set! the addition of the stage with twirling minifigs is just awesome. the stage doubles as a display platform so you can keep the rest of your set and just display the stage with the minifigs when your merch shelf gets too crowded!
1. RM’s Dimple
The BTS leader has the best minifig for me – and his dimple is just perfect. I find that the other minifigs have captured the members’ expressions well enough, though my favorite would have to be Suga’s thoughtful face. I also like Jin’s look of concentration and Jimin’s shy smile. My one complaint is j-hope’s head because the expressions look too much alike. j-hope has such a happy, dynamic personality that sadly was not captured in the minifig. Other than that, I absolutely adore these minifigs.
L-R: Kim Namjoon (RM), Kim Seokjin (jin), Min Yoongi (suga), jung hoseok (jhope), park jimin (jimin), kim taehyung (v), and jeon jungkook (jk). the members are shown here in the order of the bts fan chant, with bts leader rm first, and the rest of the members listed by age.
2. The Minifig Outfits
I may have squealed when I flipped over V’s torso and saw the gold details on the back. V is known for wearing suits when all the other members are more casual. It’s awesome that the designers captured V’s two-toned Gucci Wool Mohair vest. The rest of the torsos are all nicely done, particularly RM’s star-studded black shirt and Jungkook’s tweed blazer—which are both by Gucci as well. (I wonder how many times LEGO produced minifig pieces based on a designer collection?) The members are all wearing Gucci in the video, except for Jin who is in Yves Saint Laurent.
I obsessed over these outfits in 2020 and even built a collection of BTS BrickHeadz on Studio. Here’s a quick side-by-side comparison that you can scroll through.
3. The Albums in the Record Store
MINIFIG ME HOLDS A COPY OF THE ALBUM BE, WHICH WAS THE FIRST BTS ALBUM I LISTENED TO! IT’S ALSO THE ALBUM THAT INCLUDES DYNAMITE.
I couldn’t get over the cute little albums! I do wish they were printed, but I’m just happy they were included. You can read about all the BTS albums here. Below are the album covers included in the set, for reference.
Wings (2016)
Love Yourself: 承 Her (2017)
Map of the Soul: Persona (2019)
Map of the Soul 7 (2020)
Dynamite (Single, 2020)
Be (2020)
4. Jungkook’s Cup of Milk
Jungkook is well known for his love for milk and begins Dynamite with “shoes on, get up in the morn, cup of milk, let’s rock and roll”. There’s a white mug in the doughnut shop, which I am going to interpret as a cup of milk.
jk’s room is the only setting in the music video that wasn’t translated into lego… so i made one for him in minifig habitat form! here he is with his cup of milk!
5. Righties and a Lefty
If you follow the instructions to the letter, you will notice that the manual shows you which minifig hand holds the microphone for each figure. Interestingly, all the members of BTS hold the microphone with their right hand—except for V, who holds his in his left. This is an accurate depiction of the members, as only V is left-handed while the rest are right-handed. AMAZING.
lefty v is front and center in this shot. this particular detail still blows me away!
6. Accurate Settings
In true LEGO fashion, the designers distilled the essence of all the settings in the video into a few key pieces. Almost all the settings are shown here, except for Jungkook’s room (which I personally recreated above). For a tiny LEGO set, it is amazingly accurate because of the more simplistic, near-animated feel of the settings in the video. Here are some notable features:
jimin cheers for his hyung (big brother in korean) suga, just like in the reality show, in the soop.
Suga’s basketball court. This was an awesome detail that the designers added to the original IDEAS submission. Suga took his name from the words “Shooting Guard” due to his love for basketball. The basketball court from where he raps his part in Dynamite has a colorful backdrop that captures the light and fun atmosphere of the video. This was executed brilliantly by the designers with a few pieces and a lovely stickered panel.
The donut and burger shop. I can’t believe how accurate this was—down to the ketchup dispenser. It’s even got the menu, which you would have had to zoom in to notice from the video.
The stage. This is my absolute favorite feature. It is a welcome addition to the original IDEAS submission and makes a wonderful display piece for the members’ minifigs. I particularly love that it has a hidden play feature that allows the minifigs to twirl in unison… though I would have liked a hand crank to move the mechanism easier. My son (who is also ARMY) had so much fun making the minifigs dance to DY-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA! The stage also comes with scaffoldings for lights and speakers. The backdrop from the disco/stage scene in the music video is incorporated via two stickered panels. A casual watcher would have missed the backdrop and stage, so the fact that they’re here clearly shows that the designers have combed through the video for details.
The ice cream truck. This was sadly lacking in the original submission, so I was very pleased to see it included in the set. Richard from Rambling Brick pointed out that the ice cream truck (and indeed, the set itself) seems to be a nod to the 90s Paradisa theme, and I quite agree!
the 4-stud wide ice cream truck has fun details like the pink splat tiles on the roof and ice cream cones inside the freezer. here’s minifig me bringing lego bts some ice cream!
7. The Box
The box is so pretty!!! Aside from the striking combination of the black box with the purple trim, the back shows individual photos of each member in minifig form depicting memorable moments in the music video. I wish they had those scenes in photocards, I would definitely collect them all!
the box with its lovely purple trim and scenes showing the individual members during key moments in the video.
i wish the members’ individual photos came as photocards, too!
8. Simplicity
While the straightforward construction has been a criticism of many AFOLs, the simplicity of the build will be a plus factor to ARMY who will be buying LEGO for the first time. LEGO truly knows its market for this set—and it isn’t the usual LEGO fan. For many, this might be the only LEGO they will ever purchase (unless LEGO makes a whole LINE of BTS-themed sets. Oh dear, I can only hope!)
The instructions are easy enough to follow for first-time LEGO builders, even if it is labeled as an 18+ set. That it is City-scale is also a good thing, as City is way easier to build than say, Modulars. This makes it easier for aspiring builders to create MOCs complimentary to the set and perhaps build their own Bangtan City.
my bts minifigs with my magic shop moc. magic shop is a song from the album love yourself: tear, and speaks about a place of love and comfort. for many army, being in the fandom means being in the magic shop. while the build itself does not particularly blend in with the set, i think it’s a good start to my bangtan city!
Call Out the ARMY
To sum up everything I’ve discussed in this article, non-ARMY AFOLs will likely skip this set, unless they like the colors and minifigs or take a chance on a LEGO investment. But to ARMY, AFOL or not, this set is a must-have. This model will light you up like, erm, dynamite, and will be a proud addition to your BTS merch collection—something that I know most all ARMY has!
My BTS Dynamite set on my merch shelf with all the other bts stuff.
Personally, I had the most fun putting my sigfig in the various settings of the music video. Hey, if I can’t meet BTS in person, at least I can meet their minifigs!
Encore!
So now hopefully when you hear the question “Why BTS!?” when chatting about this set, you’ll know the inside scoop. The Korean wave has moved beyond television and radio, and onto our toy shelves. Are we here for it? Absolutely. Other than the Beatles and the Spice Girls, LEGO rarely chooses to immortalize musical groups in plastic.
i finally get front row seats to a bts concert - even if it is a lego concert!
Looking at this partnership from a (slightly cynical) purely economic point of view, BTS x LEGO can only mean good things for LEGO: the idea of millions of ARMY with disposable income surely makes hearts flutter in LEGO’s Finance Department. (Speaking of economics, LEGO Ideas 21339 BTS Dynamite will be available March 1st and if you use BrickNerd’s link, it helps us continue writing awesome articles like this one!)
However, LEGO is clearly making a statement with Dynamite. The group’s commitment to inclusivity and positivity makes BTS a natural subject for a LEGO set and one that shares its values. After all, what better brand ambassador could you get than an internationally iconic group that has been labeled “A Force for Good”?
Special thanks to my chingus Lia and LA from Borahae from Manila who helped me with the research for this article! DISCLAIMER: This set was provided to BrickNerd by LEGO. Any opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
What did you think of the BTS Dynamite set? Will you be getting one yourself? What other musical groups would you like to see LEGO-fied? Let us know in the comments below!
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