This is a review on Wange 6212 the Niomon of Kiyomizu-dera Temple of Kyoto (清水寺), one of the set from Wange World Architecture series. For those who had visited the temple before in Kyoto, one would enter through the Nio-mon Gate, a two-story structure guarded by two Deva statues or Nio and two koma-inu (Lion dogs). The photos of this review are courtesy of Wulinhai.

Open Box of Wange 6212

It’s a set with 2409 pieces of bricks with age recommendation of six years and above. Though we do have reservation on letting a 6 years old building this set. The box art had monochrome photo of the actual building with brick version in color.

Got a feeling Wange is targeting oversea market with English introduction on the back of the set.

No inner box. The bags filled 75% of the space.

Some of the parts scattered in the box because one of the bags broke.

There are 17 bags of parts, 8 pieces of the thick grey base plates, and one brick separator. But there is no sequencing of parts based on the building steps. For newbie, this can be a big challenge.

New design of brick separator, which the axle pusher can be twisted 90 degree.

The grey base plate. If you plan to integrate the Niomon with LEGO, don’t use the extra thick plate.

Instruction manual is printed on thin paper.

Suggestion on how to build.

One to one scale reference table for part.

List of parts, too bad no reference to LEGO part numbers. Note that there are unique parts that are exclusive to Wange.

Write up about the Niomon in English and Japanese. Seriously Wange is ignoring the Chinese market.

Catalogue on sets from the World Architecture series.

Building in Progress

Sorting the bricks based on types and colors. How we wish the set has numbering bags.

Unique part for the roof. Some may see this as plus point as it would recreate the roof in more realistic manner. Similar type of roof parts had been used in Wange Tiananmen Square set.

Wange part quality is known for its weak clutches and softness.

Excess bit at the edge for some of the parts, though it didn’t affect the building.

Printed part with name of the temple gate.

The Japanese calligraphy on Kyomizudera Temple, 清水寺. The writing is as close as it could get. Refer to next photo for reference.

We invite Princess Anna of Arendelle as guest of honor to inspect the building progress. The base is 32 x 32 studs wide.

No pop up of white parts, the part tolerance is good.

High quality clear parts.

A mistake in the manual. Pay attention to the green brick here, the part don’t have the hole behind. We thought there are missing parts initially as we couldn’t find the ones with hole behind.

See, there is no hole!!

First story done, and the inside is bare. Wange shall have included the two guardian statues. You can add them if you want to.

Basically we face no issue during the built of the second story. But the trouble is with the roof. Those 1 x 16 long parts are very tight. Rubber mallet would be handy in knocking the gap away.

Again, the problem of 1 x 16 long part which contributed to the jarring gaps.

Still, once the unique roof parts are added, the gaps aren’t visible anymore.

The yellow arrow pointed the weak joint in which a bit of pressure will cause the slope to fall apart. One way is to add a 1 x 1 brick to strengthen the support at the place of green arrow.

So many left over parts.

Finished Look of Wange Niomon Gate of Kiyomizudera

Wange didn’t provide any minifigure so we use Anna as reference for the scale. Taking a look at Wange 6212 Niomon of Kiyomizudera Temple in LEGO style.

Below is photo of the actual Niomon of Temple Kiyomizudera, the popular spot of photo taking in Kyoto, Japan.

The Wange set did a good job replicating the look of the Temple entrance gate. The gold parts is of dark brass feel. Replace them with LEGO ones if you could afford to.

The gate is not minifigure scale, though no issue if you want to put minifigures around.

The arrows are pointing to places where the support is through single stud only. Due to the weak clutch, often the part will fall if you touch it.

Showcasing some details…

Let’s have some fun by having tourists.

A little boy enjoying drum stick. In reality eating is disallowed at temple ground.

Lloyd from Ninjago is paying a visit!

Kai is having a great view at the second story of the Niomon. Do note that the upper story is inaccessible so don’t try to climb up the gate when you visit Kyomizudera Temple.

Lloyd is dating a girl on the roof, how dare you!

Summary of Wange 6212 Niomon of Kiyomizudera Temple

This set is doing a good job replicating the look of Niomon of the famous Kyoto Temple of Kiyomizu-dera. The set lacks play-ability and is for display only. Because of weak clutch of Wange bricks, those place with single stud support is easily fallen apart. In terms of faithfulness to the origin, the roof of the Niomon of this temple is covered by hinoki bark instead of tiles. Wange uses unique roof part resembling tiles which is inaccurate.

You could incorporate the temple gate into LEGO street scene of Japanese theme. If you MOC the set, you might turn it into a temple. To most people, they would think this is a temple rather than a gate in first glance. They won’t associate this set as Niomon of Kiyomizu-dera Temple without the name plate displayed. Great for display purpose and with a bit of work, you may turn integrate the Wange temple gate with your LEGO sets. The Wange 6212 set could be purchased at Aliexpress.