ever since it came out i have criticized the bionicle line for not being real lego. it looks nothing like the lego i grew up with, the sets have strange made-up names that sound like a 4-year-old kid trying to speak chinese, and the whole concept behind it just seems odd to me. lego is all about castle sets, and pirates, and blacktron! oh yes blacktron, what every space lego set should look like and never looked like again, and probably never will… blacktron was awesome.
anyway, the point i’m trying to make is that for me, this was what lego was about. building castles and spaceships and stuff. building robots that aren’t supposed to be robots that wear goofy masks and are made 90% out of pieces that are hardly recognizable as lego? why would i want that?
so i’m at wal-mart a few days ago and i’m checking the lego aisle and i see these bionicle sets and for some reason i’m like whatever i feel like something different i’ll give this a try and i get this toa matau thing. i’m really not a big fan of the naming system but it looked kinda like it might be a cool robot. so i get to work and i dump out the parts on my desk (they come in a can for some reason which is kind of weird, but it’s kinda cool too) and there’s more than i was expecting to this thing. gears and axles and some pieces even look like lego to me. so i put it together and it’s actually a pretty fun set to put together and when it’s done i got this awesome looking ninja robot thing with two swords and he can swing them around and i’m thinking this thing is pretty awesome. i was really surprised. it was about twice as big as i thought it would be too.
so the very next day i check out wal-mart again and i look at the bionicle aisle and i start looking at these cans and the pictures on them and i realize something. there are six toys here but they are all exactly the same! the only thing changed is the colors, the head/mask things, and the weapons! everything else is the same! so i’m feling ripped off here. then i check around the corner and i see more bionicle stuff. these ones are all rahkshi things and they look even cooler than the other stuff i got. and then the price on them is like $3! so i pick up the black one and his name is vohrahk, and i figure that is actually a kind of cool name. again there are 6 and they are all the same toy with slight remolding and different colors. these ones even have the same head though. i dunno what the inspiration of buying more than one is. apparently this whole toyline is like that. anyway, i get this rahkshi vohrahk thing to work and dump it out and much like the toa matau thing there is more to it than i thought. so i build i and this one is even better than the other one. he even has a slug living in his back. a slug living in his back! and when you whack him on the head the slug goes flying! anyway, i spend the rest of my shift beating matau over the head with this vohrahk dude because he has this awesome two-ended spear staff thing that he swings back and forth. and i put them in cool poses and stuff and it was awesome.
so the moral of this story is that bionicle is pretty cool and you should go buy a couple sets. just be careful you don’t buy the same set 6 times over without realizing it. then again some of you may like doing that sort of thing. i’d buy the same g1 seeker jet over 6 times with new paint schemes so i guess it all depends. i’m already half tempted to buy another rahkshi because they just look that cool… maybe one for my home desk or something. anyways, that’s my story. have fun.
