LEGO Pokémon launch day is almost upon us, and with it the theme's first-ever GWP – but temper expectations, because aftermarket prices are already getting silly.
Available exclusively with purchases of
40892 Kanto Region Badge Collection
Release: February 27, 2026
Retiring: While stocks last
Price: Free with
Pieces: 312
Minifigures: 0
Context is key with a set like 40892 Kanto Region Badge Collection. As a gift-with-purchase and a fun freebie designed to incentivise purchases of
Unfortunately, this isn’t necessarily the lens through which a lot of prospective purchasers are looking at this set. Because 40892 Kanto Region Badge Collection is not widely available and likely won’t be seen again in official LEGO stores after the first week of March, the set has already taken on something of a cult status. Pre-orders are already changing hands for frankly ridiculous amounts of money.
As a limited-edition collector’s item, a rarity that sells for triple figures, 40892 Kanto Region Badge Collection feels nowhere near as wholesome. Suddenly, for example, the use of stickers feels egregious, the inaccuracies in some of the badge designs are distracting, and the entire set feels like a painful reminder of all the worst elements of fandom and collecting in 2026.
For those who may be unfamiliar with even the basics of Pokémon lore, Kanto is the name given to the region that the player explores in the first Pokémon games on the Game Boy, and the land that Ash Ketchum roams in the first series of the Pokémon anime. Ash and the player are tasked with beating eight Pokémon gym leaders who all have their own unique gimmicks and quirks, and in return, receive a gym badge to prove their victory. Collecting all eight of these badges is the first step to becoming a Pokémon master.
In the cartoon, Ash wears his badges inside his jacket, while in the game, the specific storage method for these badges is never specified – they appear on the player’s trainer card, which is a bit like a driver’s licence if the thing you’re driving is a firebreathing dragon or a rock snake that’s as big as a house. Or a pile of eggs or a crab, it’s really up to you.
40892 Kanto Region Badge Collection most closely resembles the gym badge case belonging to Gary Oak, Ash’s rival in the Pokémon cartoon – except that in the show, Gary somehow manages to earn 10 badges rather than the standard eight, just to show how much better than Ash he is at Pokémon training.
The Pokémon Trading Card Game League was the first opportunity for Pokémon fans to get hold of real-world recreations of these badges – this was introduced as a cute way for fans of the card game to get together and play, and anyone who earned enough points across enough battles would be rewarded with a physical badge that they could wear to display their achievement.
Badges of this nature are a popular piece of memorabilia. In 2016 the official Pokémon Center website sold a set of pin badges in a frame for a spicy $179.95, which isn't too far off the price that pre-orders for this LEGO set have been priced at on eBay.
In the years since, the gym badge case has become a traditional way for replica badges to be displayed – this kind of badge set in a fancy box is a popular piece of merch (official or otherwise) that Pokémon fans love to get hold of.
Hence this gift-with-purchase, which is a natural extension of existing Pokémon fandom. 40892 Kanto Region Badge Collection is a recreation of merchandise that Pokémon fans are familiar with, but in a brand new, brick-built form.
The earliest of Pokémon games are uniquely suited to adaptations into LEGO form, for one simple reason: the 8-bit Pokémon Red and Blue (and Yellow and even Green if you want to be pedantic) share the same blocky limitation that LEGO fans come across time and time again. The Kanto gym badges, much like all Pokémon from the Kanto region, have simple designs that are easily legible when drawn at a very low resolution. This is perfect for LEGO.
With a few exceptions, the broad shapes of these badges have been captured fairly well. A few liberties have been taken here and there, and the badges’ sizes aren’t completely to scale, but for a gift-with-purchase, they’re close enough to do the job.
The biggest downside to the set is its use of stickers, especially as stickers are used at times when it would have been possible to achieve a similar effect with a slightly higher piece count. With one exception, every badge uses a sticker, and where it feels fairly necessary to create the contours of the Earth badge (which is meant to look like a frilled leaf), it feels somewhat less necessary for the Marsh badge, which is meant to be a yellow circle inside a yellow circle. As this is already the shape of the brick-built badge, a sticker on the top feels like overkill.
See also the Soul badge, which is shaped like a heart, and which is sometimes drawn with a line down the middle to denote a contour in the badge's shape. In this gift-with-purchase, this line is achieved with a sticker, but why not two triangular tiles instead? It almost feels like the sticker is here purely for the sake of it.
This is, it’s important to remember, absolutely not a level of scrutiny that a gift-with-purchase should be subjected to. Anyone who gets this set for free alongside their purchase of a larger, far more expensive Pokémon set is unlikely to find such a minor fault to be offputting. It is worth highlighting this simply to make it clear that 40892 Kanto Region Badge Collection is not worth an enormous mark-up on the aftermarket.
The only things contained within this set that are likely to remain exclusive indefinitely are the stickers on the badges, and even these are really not essential for enjoying this set (the box and instructions will also remain exclusive and will no doubt be collector’s items in their own right in years to come, so this is one LEGO packaging that might be worth holding on to).
If this is a set that you want, but you aren’t lucky enough to get it through the official channel, it’s probably best to save yourself the exorbitant fees that scalpers are trying to charge for the set. Instead, look up the parts list online, order pieces through Pick a Brick, BrickLink or other similar services, and put this set together yourself.
40892 Kanto Region Badge Collection is available exclusively with purchases of
Our honest opinion: 40892 Kanto Region Badge Collection is cute as a gift-with-purchase, but it’s really not worth paying scalper prices for a glorified freebie.
This set was provided for review by the LEGO Group.
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How do you get LEGO Pokémon 40892 Kanto Region Badge?
40892 Kanto Region Badge Collection will be available while stocks last as a gift-with-purchase set for customers who purchase 72153 Venusaur, Charizard and Blastoise from the LEGO website or in official LEGO Stores. Copies of this set that were available for pre-orders were exhausted quickly, so it's anticipated that the remaining stock will be depleted quickly on launch day (February 27).
How long does it take to build LEGO Pokémon 40892 Kanto Region Badge Collection?
40892 Kanto Region Badge Collection takes around half an hour to build.
How big is LEGO Pokémon 40892 Kanto Region Badge Collection?
When the case is closed, 40892 Kanto Region Badge Collection measures 3cm tall, 19cm wide and 10cm deep.
How many pieces are in LEGO Pokémon 40892 Kanto Region Badge Collection?
40892 Kanto Region Badge Collection contains 312 pieces.
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