The Going Merry became the set the One Piece line needed
When LEGO launched its first One Piece wave in 2025, the design question was whether any set in the lineup could land as definitive. The theme had to be new enough to feel fresh and faithful enough to satisfy a manga readership that has been scrutinizing pirate-ship illustrations since 1997. Three tiers of product dropped at once: small playful sets like the Buggy Clown tent and Gum-Gum Fruit polybag, the mid-tier ship, and the 3,398-piece Baratie floating restaurant at the top.
Twelve months of reviews and collector commentary later, the verdict is surprisingly clean. The Going Merry is the set the theme found its voice through. It's small enough that the $169.99 sticker doesn't terrify a casual fan. It's complete enough that a One Piece reader's first reaction is recognition, not compromise. And it ships with five minifigs at once — Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Usopp, and Sanji — which is more Straw Hat density than any other launch set offers.
That combination is rare. Most licensed LEGO lines front-load a single tentpole and let the smaller sets fill in around it. The One Piece launch wave made the tentpole the Baratie, but the Going Merry is what fans actually talk about.
75639 Going Merry: 1,374 pieces, launched 2025 as part of LEGO's first One Piece wave
The Going Merry Pirate Ship
1,374 pieces, 5 Straw Hat minifigs, still at MSRP a year in — the One Piece set most fans recommend.
What the reviewers landed on
Wargamer's review — the most in-depth published piece on the set — singled out the rigging work as the strongest design choice. LEGO's One Piece team used stringing and mast construction in a way the Hidden Side ghost ships and Ideas Viking ships never quite did. The goat-head figurehead at the bow is the iconic silhouette every reader would lose trust in if LEGO got it wrong, and by consensus, they got it right.
Brick Fanatics' day-one impressions praised the pacing. The build lands around five hours across nine numbered bags, with each bag adding a clearly identifiable section of the ship. The reviewer noted that the hull plating uses a particularly satisfying clip-and-Technic-pin technique that reads as "real ship construction" rather than "LEGO studs stacked." This has become the technique most-copied by One Piece MOC builders during 2025.
9to5Toys' buy-or-wait coverage was blunter: at $169.99 for a 1,374-piece set with five licensed minifigs, the per-piece and per-minifig economics beat almost every other licensed LEGO ship on the market. Their verdict was a straight recommendation with a caveat — the set's play features are limited compared to older LEGO pirate ships, so it plays better as a shelf piece than a kid-toy.
Brickset's collector notes tell the longer-tail story: the 75639 has maintained MSRP without aggressive discounting across 2025 and into 2026. That's unusual for a set that's been on shelves over a year, and it's a signal of durable demand rather than a failed product.
The Baratie is bigger. That's not the same as better.
The launch-wave flagship was the 3,398-piece 75640 Baratie Floating Restaurant. It is — objectively, by several measures — a more technically impressive set. The Zeff minifig is a launch-wave exclusive. The fish-themed architecture has more distinct assemblies than the Going Merry. At $399.99, it's also the most expensive One Piece LEGO product in the lineup.
But reviewers kept arriving at the same caveat. The Baratie's appeal is narrow. It's a specific location from a specific arc, and if your relationship to One Piece is Luffy and the crew, the Baratie lands as an impressive side-piece rather than the centerpiece of your collection. Collectors who went all-in on the launch wave bought both. Collectors who picked one almost unanimously picked the Going Merry.
The 2026 wave appears to acknowledge this — the follow-up includes the 75646 Garp's Marine Battleship, which positions as a Going Merry counterpart (an antagonist ship build) rather than another large-location set like the Baratie. If that reading is right, LEGO is doubling down on ships as the core identity of the One Piece line.
The Baratie Floating Restaurant
3,398 pieces, $399.99 — more set, narrower appeal.
Battle at Arlong Park
Arlong Park at 923 pieces — the East Blue finale build.
How the 2026 wave changes what the Going Merry means
The 2026 One Piece wave — Hiriluk's Hideout, Captain Smoker Showdown, Tony Tony Chopper, Dorry vs Brogy Giants, Drum Castle Battle, Garp's Marine Battleship, and a new Gum-Gum Fruit polybag — is clearly moving the story forward. These are Alabasta-era and adjacent arcs. Drum Island, Little Garden, and the introduction of Chopper are all 1999-2002 manga content, which means LEGO is pacing through the Straw Hats' journey at roughly one-year-of-product-per-story-arc-cluster.
What that pacing means for the Going Merry: it stays canonically relevant. The ship doesn't get retired from the manga until much later in the story. For collectors building a themed display, 75639 is the connective tissue across every 2026 set — the Straw Hats keep sailing it through Little Garden, Drum Island, and beyond. That's a position Baratie doesn't hold.
It also means if you skipped the Going Merry on launch and you're getting into One Piece LEGO through the 2026 wave, you probably want to pick it up soon. LEGO has not given any signal that 75639 is retiring, but two years on shelves is typically when licensed sets start drifting toward EOL (end-of-life) status.
Dr. Hiriluk's Hideout
Dr. Hiriluk's Hideout — Drum Island arc storytelling.
Battle at Drum Castle
Drum Castle Battle — Chopper's introduction.
Garp's Marine Battleship
Garp's Marine Battleship — the Going Merry's antagonist comp.
The Straw Hat minifig question
Minifig collectors have one reservation about the Going Merry: the launch wave ships the five founding Straw Hat members as they look around the Arlong arc. If you read One Piece for the outfit variations — and a lot of collectors do — those early-Grand-Line looks are not the character designs the Straw Hats wear for the majority of the manga. Post-timeskip outfits, for example, are not in any current LEGO set.
The 2026 wave does not solve this. Chopper's debut in 75643 is the biggest minifig addition for the year. Luffy, Zoro, and the others appear to carry forward their Grand Line looks. Post-timeskip figures would be a natural 2027+ direction if LEGO chooses to follow the manga forward, which would give existing Going Merry owners a reason to rebuild the ship with the newer crew.
None of this is a critique of the Going Merry itself — it's a note on what the broader line is and isn't trying to do. The set ships five Straw Hats at launch. That's more licensed minifigs per dollar than the Baratie. If you don't need outfit-accurate post-timeskip figures, the Going Merry roster is complete.
Should you buy it now?
Yes — and preferably before the summer, if you can time it.
The 75639 Going Merry is still in stock at LEGO.com and at major retailers at MSRP as of mid-April 2026. Amazon first-party listings on One Piece sets have been reliable throughout the year. Target and Walmart physical-store inventory varies by region but online availability has been steady.
The case for buying now: licensed-theme sets tend to see small price movements (up or down) as the second-year wave reveals pull collector attention forward. Once LEGO officially previews the Chopper set and Drum Castle, attention will spike on One Piece LEGO broadly, and availability on the older sets can tighten briefly. If you've been waiting, the two to three months before summer reveals typically open the best cleaner buying window of the year.
If you want exactly one One Piece LEGO set as a shelf piece and a Straw Hat fan gift, this is the set. It beats the Baratie on completeness, beats the Buggy tent on scope, and becomes more valuable as the 2026 wave builds out the surrounding story.
