Lego Ninjago: The Ultimate 15 Season RANTrospective

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Zane being revealed as a robot was the biggest revelation seven year old me ever experienced

Honestly, retconning the "good at everything girl character" into basically being a burnt-out gifted kid was one of the smartest things this show ever did.

It never dawned on me how much of an asspull Misako's entire arc was as a kid. She really left Lloyd at an EVIL OVERLORD PREP SCHOOL, then ran off to go cure her baby daddy that was there for Lloyd more than she was. And he's compelled to do evil 24/7, mind you.

You forgot to mention Season 8's biggest flaw. It's the season they stopped using The Weekend Whip for the theme songs and that's like half the reasons anyone watches Ninjago. :(

Only real Ninjago fans remember when Kai was the main character and driving force before Llyod and the green ninja.

"Long before time had a name, the first Spinjitzu created Ninjago." This line says a lot about the entire Ninjago lore.

The original plan for Crystalized was for Nya to not come back until the end, where Lloyd would have been driven mad in his Oni form, defeat the Overlord and take his place only to be defeated by water form Nya

Gotta love the fact that when lloyds mom returns she doesn’t even question why her child is suddenly a grown adult

For zane defeating the overlord, I took it as zane channeling the power of the golden weapons for mere moments. Something that should very much kill you.

This show did a good job with the chosen one plot. It really annoys me when a protagonist of the show is given the tile of the chosen one. I think its more interesting to give it to a side character and let them fight along side the protagonist. Also, I love the fact that Lloyd has a giant green 5 on his first uniform that is never explained. It's foreshadowing that is ironically funny because it's just there for no reason.

You forgot that harumi recruited pythor on the crystal council even though he was the one that released the great devourer and got her parents killed which sent her on the path she went on

Something I was annoyed by even as a kid was that, in the end of the Jin arc, undoing everything also undoes the redemption of the members of the Jin's crew, meaning they go back to being evil and trapped in their realms

Another weird part of Ninjago is the "exclusive lore". The staff are surprisingly open to discussion on Twitter, so the writers have actually given answers to unexplained questions, making them basically canon. So now there's "extra lore" that's exclusively dug up on Twitter or archived in the Wiki. As cool as it feels for a fan to get their question answered in the moment, it's bad because the show itself should've explained those things Also, unrelated, but what made me personally love Ninjago was the inter-connection between the show and the "Lego side". In the first few years there was an insanely high-effort website that gave an absurd amount of detail and context to every single thing in the Lego sets. Every weapon had a name and description, every minor enemy had a bio and even a perfectly-looped animation, there was an entire flora and fauna encyclopedia, and there were full games that gave new lore (ex. one game establishes Jay and Cole as best friends 4 years before the show did). The Lego sets themselves also gave tidbits like the differences between the suits the Ninja wear. Add the amazing set commercials to that and it was genuinely the best marketing I've ever seen. But now Ninjago doesn't have to try as hard, I miss stuff like that

The first 3 seasons of Ninjago were my childhood obsession for a time. I remember not being able to find a Samurai X in stores after saving up for it, and crying when I got home. My mom ended up ordering an overpriced one on eBay. Good times.

I love how Jay spent 6 seasons trying to get Nya to be his “official” girlfriend then she gets turned to water, he mourns her for a year, then she comes back like nothing happened. I don’t know if he’s the luckiest man alive or if he’s just traumatized

Let's all put respect on this dude for watching EVERY LAST OUNCE of Ninjago content. This was a trip down memory lane (plus everything post Season 4).

TBH, it’s always killed me immensely that Kai’s (and Nya’s) relationship to Lloyd has never been properly expanded on, especially considering that REALISTICALLY, they SHOULD be the closest to Lloyd. They, like Lloyd, felt (and highkey WAS) abandoned by their parents, and basically had to raise themselves. Kai and Nya should have been the first to empathize with Lloyd when they found out about his parents. Kai and Nya should have been the people he got closest to, because they mirror integral aspects of Lloyds life and experiences. Nya constantly ends up having to play second fiddle to Kai (and the boys in general actually), and is always on the sidelines, similar to Lloyd pre-aging up. Nya wanting to be a good sister figure to him should have been added in, especially since she knows how important having someone like a sibling would be if you didn’t have your parents. She’d never want someone like Lloyd feeling alone. Kai’s protectiveness would 100% be extended to Lloyd by pure virtue of him being essentially an orphan with parents that explicitly chose to leave him. Like there’s so much character that could have been built here but I guess it just never crossed their minds. Or if it did, they didn’t have enough time to establish it for whatever reason.

For how Zane is captured, it's explained in the video-game "Shadow of Ronin" that Chen hired the Bounty Hunter Ronin to capture Zane and Pixal for him. It explains how Zane was captured and gives credit to Ronin, showing him to be a skilled and intelligent Bounty Hunter who knows how to do a job effectively. I won't hold this against you though as a) This question was answered in a video-game instead of the show itself (bad look) and b) It still doesn’t answer how Chen even knew or cared about Zane and the Ninja unless he already had spies keeping tabs on them.

The aesthetic of Crystalized has something really interesting, that being the switcharoo of which race between dragons and oni are the “good” and “bad” ones. The Crystal King and his army are dragon themed, and Lloyd has his oni form and the plot’s need for oni powers. It’s even more interesting when you look back and realized what the Overlord’s final form was in season 2: a dragon. They totally had the opportunity to connect Overlord TO dragons, recontextualizing an unimportant detail from the past, but never did. I know it means nothing compared to all the season’s other problems but it’s another missed opportunity to me.