About three weeks from now, the year will change from 2018 to 2019. And just over a month after January 1, 2019 there will be another year change, this one for the Chinese zodiac calendar. From the Year of the Earth Dog, it’ll be the year of the Earth Pig. We’ve been getting signs of the coming Year of the Pig even in LEGO sets, particularly the pig guy minifigure included in the Chinese regional LEGO set Dragon Dance (80102). But even mainstream LEGO is getting on the act with one 2019 seasonal LEGO set to welcome the piggy-ness; and thanks to Brickset, we now have our first look at this lucky piece of a brick-built set, the LEGO Seasonal Year of the Pig (40186) set.
As expected, LEGO has in readiness one new Chinese zodiac figure (40186) of the coming year’s Animal, a wide-eyed and plump pink piglet carrying the now-familiar yellow LEGO hóngbāo. The big guy’s even standing on a circular platform with growing veggies fit to go into a New Years’ pork feast.
Since this set’s immediate predecessor, the LEGO 2018 seasonal Year of the Dog (40235) was the first made available worldwide (after being an exclusive to the Chinese market), we can expect the Year of the Pig (40186) to follow in terms of availability, likely in LEGO Shop@Home. With this, six out of the twelve Zodiac animals have already been interpreted in LEGO, and with more to probably come in the following years.