"You're shorter than I expected"

@Norikins said:
"You know a Bionicle set is poor when 6934 has more pieces."

Eh, quality over quantity. Several of those pieces go into making a torso, as opposed to the molded one this one has.

@Eightcoins8 said:
"Apparently his flame sword is slightly different from the 2005 piece used in Vakama Hordika. I think might only be the color though?"

I think it’s the same. Sometime parts get new ID numbers when they go back into production after a brief hiatus.

But in this case it might be because Lego updated its formula for dark red around the time this set came out. It might be interesting to check whether other dark red elements from the time got an updated ID, but it could be that this one is different because it’s made out of softer plastic (iirc) or it’s a multicombo element.
https://www.newelementary.com/2019/05/has-lego-color-dark-red-changed.html?m=1

@Robot99 said:
"My Zelda-addicted brain read the set name as "Raaru""

"His name is

Rauru, hoot, hoot

Like the Great Sage

From Ocarina of Time, hoot

Who was named after

A village in Link's Adventure

For the NES, hoot, hoot

The worst part of having this

Owlsplained to you

In slow-motion, hoot,

Is the fact that

The Great Sage Rauru

Turned out to also BE

That damned owl, hoot, hoot

Shall I repeat everything from the top?

> YES
YES"

@Binnekamp said:
"I like how colorful he looks. The helmet and flame also does a lot to make this look less composed of large blocks if color. That said, I'm not a fan of the torso's color. It's too large a block of drabness.

Here you see the main drawback of the 'Avgori' build style: there are only three kinds of limb pieces (one of which only appeared in one of 6 matoran in 2008). And two torsos, which both don't have any detail beyond what's moulded. Even the toa mata from 2001 had a voodoo ball in black on the torso to break up the huge section of color, and they had smaller parts that naturally formed accent colors such as the black sockets.

Not here. In 2010 (the third and final year of this build) the Stars wave introduced a solution in the form of two insert parts that can create a smaller splotch of color. But by then the theme was only around because of internal lobbying to give the theme one last hurrah to properly end the story on. So although it was welcome, it was a bit too late.

Combined with that taking the ball and socket connection from sets from this era apart can result in the sockets breaking... I think I'm not rushing to ever get this guy.
I do have a few Avgori build sets again, but I don't disassemble them and have to awkwardly store them with the limbs folded to the sides."

if you're talking about the muscle-y limb pieces from 8945 Solek, they actually did appear in three more sets, in three more colours! the Stars line in 2010 had 7136, 7137, and 7138, which had them in black, dark blue, and dark bluish grey respectively

that said... the Stars sets sucked, and were the last sets ever released for G1, so they're quite forgettable. it is nice having them in more colours though, since they're honestly the most interesting Av-Matoran limb for moccing.

edit: upon rereading, i might've misread; when you said "only appeared in one of 6 matoran in 2008" i read it as saying the piece only ever appeared in one 2008 matoran, but i guess you meant that in 2008, it only appeared in that one set. my bad. i guess i typed this whole thing out though so i might as well post it

I remember thinking Raanu was particularly Turaga-y, which went against my assumption that Matoran and Agori were essentially the same thing. He's even got the incongruously-coloured torso of the original Turaga.

Best thing I can say about 09 Bionicle is the return to more colorful roots. The vomit of silver and gold that swamped the series really got old by this point.
Now if only the parts were sturdy enough to survive.

@Eightcoins8 said:
" @Norikins said:
"You know a Bionicle set is poor when 6934 has more pieces."

Don't slander Good Guy 2006, he's iconic and the greatest of all time."

Definitely not the greatest, but we might have to concede that he’s the goodest.

@SearchlightRG said:
" @Norikins said:
"You know a Bionicle set is poor when 6934 has more pieces."

Eh, quality over quantity. Several of those pieces go into making a torso, as opposed to the molded one this one has."

I’m not sure I’d count half a torso as the winner in “quality” either.

The Av-Toran/Agori/Stars sets get a lot of flak, but I love 'em. Simple, but effective. The Agori especially had some really nice colors. And love Raanu's dual-molded helmet!

@RogueWhistler said:
"I remember thinking Raanu was particularly Turaga-y, which went against my assumption that Matoran and Agori were essentially the same thing. He's even got the incongruously-coloured torso of the original Turaga."

The village elders were more or less Turaga, so the descriptor isn't to far off for Raanu, but it is a bit odd that the Agori wave were mostly normal guys - I thought Tarduk was supposed to be an elder too, but no, he's actually closer in occupation to Berix. Not helping things was how The Legend Reborn made all of the Agori of a given tribe identical beyond sometimes shoulderpads, and even that I don't believe was consistent.

On Raanu as a toy - yeahhh, the Avgori build system was pretty bad. It would have been moderately salvageable if they used the Ben 10 / CCBS sockets early as well as the Stars armor pieces, giving these even-more-cookie-cutter-than-usual toys the benefit of being easy quick-custom fodder for little kids, but as it is, this set's direct progenitor 8540 has exactly double the piece count for around half the price and far more potential for MOCing due to being mostly made of general Technic pieces that are useful for nearly anything. Yeah, Raanu is physically larger than Vakama and by way of ball joints can pose more, but there's no real build going on; uncharitably, they were the second coming of Galidor.

And Lego wondered why they were losing to Transformers in the late 2000s...

I wasn't deeply into Bionicle 2009. For the most part the move to Bara Magna and a set of 100%-new characters* lost me - before that point, even when Bionicle had jumped locations, the new sets of protagonists had always been characters who we'd known from the beginning... which at least from where I was standing was a genius move to keep me invested at the same time as varying up the main cast - and while I kept loosely in touch with the progressing lore that year, I really wasn't attached to it.

Still, from what I did gather, I didn't particularly like Raanu. Granted, his set looked neat for an Av-toran build, with effective colours and a cool new mask; but story-wise, he came across to me (whether fairly or not, I can't say) as an unpleasable leader who never seemed to appreciate anything the hero characters did, up to and including saving his whole village from Bone Hunter raiders. It seems like the comics gave him a bit more depth, such as the bravery he displayed in the Fall of Atero arc, but I didn't see those at the time; only having the Raid on Vulcanus novel and the Legend Reborn movie just gave me the impression of him as a not especially pleasant person.

I mean, in Raanu's defence, there's probably not much to be pleasant about when your entire world is a ruined wasteland that you've been living in for multiple hundred-thousand years...

(*well, except for Mata Nui I guess. But since he'd spent the first eight years asleep, he wasn't someone we *knew* in the same way the Turaga and Matoran were, so in 2009 he felt like practically a new character just with an old name.)

I liked and got Raanu because I saw that his shield was also used by Ackar thanks to "The Legend Reborn" DVD movie released in late 2009. When displaying Ackar, I removed his Thornax launcher and replaced it with Raanu's shield. Otherwise, I really liked the bright orange-yellow used as a secondary color on this guy. Unfortunately, the movie didn't give him much personality, though the comics (as usual) did a better job of fleshing him out, particularly with regards to his decision to have Malum exiled.