You may have notice that lately I have become COMPLETELY OBSESSED with LEGO's new Mixels line.

Here's why.

1. Cost

These sets are VERY cheap. Most decent sets LEGO makes cost upwards of $60, and the cheaper ones are generally pretty boring. But these sets are only $5 each- and for the price, each one is a pretty decent model. I hear about the 'golden ration' a lot in the LEGO community, that when you divide the price by the part count of a set anything under $0.10 per piece is a good deal. Every Mixel contains 50 pieces or more, making them all at or below the golden ratio.

2. The pieces

For how cheap they are, these sets contain a surprising amount of really useful parts. The ball-and-socket joints are great, and the sets contain all sorts of plates, clips, rods, etc. that have many many uses, especially if one is into micro builds. Oftentimes small sets like this contain very few parts with very limited uses, but that is not the case here. The only parts that are not generally useful are the eye pieces, and even those are good if you like making larger scale animal builds. If you don't like the cartoonish characters, don't think of them as model kits, think of them as expansion packs for your LEGO bin, cause that's what they are: A bag of tiny functional elements.

3. Collectibility

OH MY GOD I am addicted to anything collectible, just ask the boxes of Pokemon cards laying around my room. This line, rather than having a few large sets, consists of a crapton of small sets, released in waves of 9 each. Only the first wave is out so far, but two more waves have been confirmed, and I suspect more will soon follow. I just feel so compelled to buy them all, and I suspect I will eventually. Yeah, not everyone likes that, but I do.

4. Personality

These models have a lot of character. They are bight, colorful, expressive and every one of them is unique. I like that. I think they have a certain charm to them.

5. Combinability

The main draw of the Mixel line. I used to love LEGO's old Technic figures- Bionicle and the like. One of my favorite things about these old sets was that, if you had the right ones, you could combine them into one big epic super-model. Sure, you can do that with any LEGO set, but they encouraged it with instructions for official combiner models that actually had a role in the story, that were unique canonical characters. I haven't seen that recently, but Mixels are bringing it back. For any two Mixels you buy, there is an official combination you can find on the website. You don't need specific ones- every combination is valid. The entire line is built around combining the guys in different ways. That is awesome.

Yeah, I've heard a lot of woe directed towards this line. Most of it towards the show that goes along with it. There is a simple solution to that- Don't watch the show. I agree it's not quality TV, but I'm willing to put up with it if it means that LEGO keeps making sets like this.

GO BUY SOME MIXELS.