If you told me that you went to a LEGO convention and saw something that reminded you of Ninjago City Gardens but was bigger, more varied, and somehow not derivative… I’d be skeptical. If you told me that the creation was also an AFOL’s debut MOC… I’d be even more suspicious. If you also mentioned that it involved super cool movement and an underground layer to a giant, intricate city full of humor… I just wouldn’t know what to say.

For context, I am not a total expert in Ninjago lore, but 70620 Ninjago City and 71741 Ninjago City Gardens are hands down my favorite LEGO sets. (Disclaimer: I haven’t built my 70657 Ninjago City Docks yet… something about lack of available shelf space.) I am also completely enamored with the Lunar New Year sets. With these gloriously complex official sets as the baseline, it takes a lot in an “Asian” themed MOC to get my attention.

But “Big Mashup in Little Asia”, built by Tom Parrish and displayed at Bricks by the Bay 2022, not only got my attention but impressed me too. (It also impressed the judges and attendees, winning both the convention’s theme award and Peoples’ Choice. It also caught the eye of the folks at Tested!)

Tom took up building this passion project during quarantine times. It started with a “simple” model of the Panda Hotel (based on a real hotel) and—as MOCs are prone to do—it got out of hand. The final build is massive.

As is common with an impressive MOC at a con, “photos don’t do it justice.” No stud here is wasted, and it's hard to capture that in a still image. Every brick in this behemoth helps to tell a story—from the underground train and skeleton beneath the foundation, to the rooftops.

And what rooftops they are! Each one is unique. From brick separators to hotdogs, from treads to windows, this MOC is a lexicon of roof building techniques. And while you can sometimes note that certain pieces of this MOC came from a LEGO set, their use is never just a slight modification. The creativity cuts deep, and quoting his LEGO inspirations in brick form makes the MOC feel familiar enough to be in the same design language as the giants that have come before.

Perhaps even more than the architecture are the number of characters. “Big Mashup in Little Asia” includes more than one thousand minifigures! Each figure is important to the narrative. No mere crowd scenes here! And boy, are there scenes in every nook and cranny.

While the “Bruce Lee - Enter the Dragon Live” theatre section of the MOC may take the cake, there are dozens of smaller tales to see. (And my personal passion, dragons are hidden everywhere!)

Taking a closer look, get ready to clutch some pearls: some of the figs are not official LEGO. Some of them come from knockoff sets brought back from his family trips to Hong Kong. His solution to this not-purist potential scandal could not be better: these fake figs are (mostly) integrated into the larger MOC as characters in cosplay attending a brick-built anime convention! (The Tyco figs are marching in a pride parade!)

You could stare at this MOC from all angles, all day long and still not see everything. But we don’t have all day. So you’ll have to savor these insufficient images, like so much dim sum.

Besides my in-person bombardment of nerdy questions, Tom humored me with a few extra thoughts about his MOC building process and the final model’s reception:

“There were two things I really enjoyed about building this. The first was the building architecture—I wanted this to look like a place that might really exist somewhere. Creating details that were unique but still worked together took a lot of time, but I really like the results.”

“The other thing was incorporating all of the elements of nerd culture, and of course, there's nothing as nerdy as a good mash-up! That part was a lot less planned and more random. A lot of scenes and even whole buildings were built around some custom minifig I happened to get. With LEGO, I really felt like nothing was off limits so I could incorporate comic book, anime, cosplay, maker, pop culture scenes, and even some sports and politics to boot.”

“I loved watching people's reactions throughout the weekend, especially when they spotted some not-so-obvious detail. Probably the best compliment I got all weekend: ‘I want to live there!”

I’d love to live there too! Tom says he might expand it in the future but is happy with how it is now. You can check out the Tested video below to see all the parts animated and moving too. I can’t wait to see what comes next!

What detail or Easter egg did you find in “Big Mashup in Little Asia”? Let us know in the comments below!

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