With the introduction of the Castle Ninja subtheme which left it's traditional European setting and visited medieval Japan in the 16th century and featured Samurai and Ninjas.
2000 LEGO Sets
The turn of the millennium was an important year for LEGO. Not only did LEGO produce some investible sets for 2000, we saw some transition in the company. First, set designer and the inventor of the minifigure, Jens Nygaard Knudsen, retired from The LEGO Group. Second, The British Association of Toy Retailers name the LEGO brick "Toy of the Century". With 2000 LEGO released just a couple of new themes including TECHNIC Roboriders and Race. The Rock Raiders, Nijna and the Slizer/Throwbots themes were discontinued.