It only took (looks at watch) far too long but Bonk is back, and we're going classic today. Very nice.

Bionicle has always been one of my least favourite themes. I don't know, I just don't like them. But they are classics, so I can't complain much.

After Hau, Pakari is my favorite Kanohi. They’re the only two that really look like they were carved out of tropical hardwoods.

Note, Onua has a cameo in the Hidden Side Paranormal Intercept Bus on a computer screen depicting the canceled Legend of Mata-Nui game that was finished and released by a fan lead effort years later.

One of my friends at school brought this to Show and Tell one day. That was a good day. That also prompted at least one more copy of that set to be sold, to me. Which is precisely what the Lego company hoped would happen with the first wave of Bonkles.

For whatever reason, the initial images of the six Toa seen in mini-catalogs that I found in "Life on Mars" sets at the end of 2000 had Onua here as the prominent one (as in, his image was larger than the other five Toa). As such, he captured my imagination and defined the word "BIONICLE" in my head for the next few months (until I got Tahu and Vakama, of course).

Even after getting Tahu and poring over the contents of the mini CD-ROM, Onua still provided a lot of fascination, mainly on the set design side. While Tahu had been revelatory in terms of understanding the pieces and design language of the TECHNIC BIONICLE sets, Onua gave my 12 year-old mind more to wonder about. He clearly looked smaller than Tahu, but how was that achieved? I remember watching the BIONICLE PC Game trailer over and over again just trying to get clues as to how Onua's head attached to his torso. It was mostly enlightening, but I was happy to finally see it for myself after buying Onua and Kopaka for myself in early July 2001 at the local Wal-mart Supercenter.

A digression: I remember this day pretty well, mainly because of BIONICLE. It was one of those multi-stop outings my family regularly went on, and the discovery of all the new BIONICLE sets on the shelves was a surprise to me. I have a solid image in my mind of floor-to-ceiling shelf coverage of nothing but a jumbled mess of Toa canisters. There were so many! I had never seen so much LEGO product on store shelves outside of Toys R' Us. Another thing I was glad to discover was the price; each Toa was $6.88 ("Always low prices...always!") and this afforded me and my humble savings to buy two Toa, Kopaka and Onua. But Wal-mart wasn't the only stop. We ended up going to the local video rental store, Hastings, to pick up some movies. We ended up renting "Castaway" starring Tom Hanks. When we got home, of course, the first thing I did was build Onua and Kopaka. But after that and dinner, we all gathered around the TV to watch Tom Hanks make friends with a volleyball on a deserted island. I'm fairly certain my Toa collection thus far was nearby on the couch or coffee table. I had half of the team, and that was more exciting than the actually very good movie we watched.

Though Kopaka ended up becoming my favorite Toa of them all, I always had a soft spot for Onua. He'd (or the Toa of Earth) would just about be always be one of the first three Toa I got for any collection. As a character, he was described initially as one of the wisest Toa, but he came off in the MNOLG and the comics as more of a level-headed, dependable friend. Sort of like a more muted Pohatu. Interestingly, he played Pohatu to Lewa's Kopaka. That was the first memorable story moment for Onua. Lewa had disappeared on his search for the Kanohi masks, and it turned out he had been infected by the essence of the Makuta in a Rama hive. In order to free other captured Matoran from the hive, Onua burst in to battle with his Toa brother in an epic fashion. Claws against axe made for a stunning display in the darkness of the hive, but Onua prevailed with a little help from a Hoto (lightning) bug and the noble Mask of Telekinesis. Lewa's infected mask was removed, and the hive was routed. A friendship was born that day.

Lewa would keep getting into trouble, just for Onua to bail him out. Months later, during the Bohrok invasion, Le-Koro was taken over by Lehvak and the populace, including Turaga Matau, were taken over by the Krana launched by the Lehvak. They even managed to get Lewa's face covered by one of the mind-dominating creatures. Once again, Onua, this time joined by several Matoran from Onu-Koro in Boxor vehicles, had to battle Lewa and free him from the control of evil. Again, Onua was successful, but not by skill in battle. By appealing to the heroic personality within Lewa, buried by the Krana's consciousness and will, Lewa found the strength himself to wrest the Krana's parasitic hold off of him and become a Toa once again.
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[continued from my post above]

Once Onua become Onua Nuva, even his wisdom didn't prevent him from taking sides in the Toa Nuva civil war. Alongside Lewa and Tahu, Onua managed to best even Pohatu with his elemental command over earth. However, he quickly saw the need to re-unite once the Bohrok Kal struck. After reclaiming their powers from the Kal, Onua Nuva aided in the rebuilding of Onu-Koro. It was just in time, as the Rahkshi, the sons of Makuta, attacked the village in the pursuit of the Mask of Light. Onua found his strength (granted by the Kanohi Pakari) sapped by the power of Vohrak, but the timely arrival of other Toa Nuva ensured the Rahkshi did not win that day. Onu-Koro, unfortunately, was destroyed with Onua absent-mindedly brought the cave ceiling down on the Rahkshi. Not a good look for the so-called "wise" protector of Onu-Koro!

After the defeats of the Rahkshi and Makuta, and the return to Metru Nui, Onua Nuva didn't get to enjoy peace long before being shipped to Voya Nui with the other Toa Nuva in the quest for the Mask of Light. They were beaten to the island by the murderous Piraka, who after a protracted battle, defeated the other five Toa Nuva. Onua was the last Toa standing, and realizing he would rather go down fighting than surrender to the evil creatures, he performed a glorious charge against the six Piraka that resulted in his utter defeat.

Though saved by the Matoran of the island and restored to full strength, Onua and the rest did not continue the quest. They left that to the Toa Inika/Mahri. From there, Onua went on various adventures to restore different parts of the universe in preparation for Mata Nui's awakening. After meeting Arthaka and getting adaptive armor, Onua and the Toa Nuva were transported to Karda Nui, the core of the universe, for the final battle with the Makuta. Onua went with Gali and Tahu down into the mutagenic swamps where he faced off against Makuta Bitil in a particularly troublesome battle involving time-displaced duplicates of the Makuta, but Onua persevered and managed to enter the Codrex and help jump start the process to waking up Mata Nui.

Of course, if you've been even lightly paying attention to the BIONICLE story from my posts, you know Onua's quest was all for naught (at first), as Mata Nui's colossal body awoke with Makuta's mind. In the dark days that followed, Onua acquitted himself as best as possible. When Mata Nui defeated Makuta for good, it is presumed that Onua and the rest took up residence in the glorious restored paradise of Spherus Magna. What became of the mighty Onua after that is left to the imagination.

Unique: None*

Rare: 1
32566 Bionicle Mask (Pakari) in black x1

*This character was also released with a CD rom which has been classified as a distinct set. If we combine both into a single variant than the rare piece is actually unique and 4 other parts would be eligible for "rare" categorization (32489, 32475, 32476, 32482)

@Galaxy12_Import:
Nope. Even if you treat all Onua canisters as the same set, the black Pakari still comes in the Kanohi pack (which is also treated as two sets, even with two different set numbers, because there was a polybag version for Europe, and a boxed version for North America). Bricklink refuses to inventory stuff like the mask packs because of the random components. Oddly, they have no problem with the CMFs being inventoried, even though it requires treating each unique minifig as a distinct set.

My least favorite part of every Bionicle set is the complete and inexplicable lack of anything related to Johnny Thunder.

Mmmmthats good classic Bionicle. Second Toa I got (after Tahu) because his hunched over figure and double-time digging arms just gave him so much character. My sister ended up disliking him after treading on one of his claws (and you thought treading on regular bricks was painful) which really only increased his standing in my eyes

I own two copies of this guy. Those things were selling out so fast back in the day that they were constantly being restocked up until 2003, despite upgraded versions of the same characters coming out in 2002.
I said this in when Gali was on random set of the day, but I'll say it again. Reportedly, Bionicle's original 2001 wave made a total of about 128 million dollars in sales. Because of this, it was considered the most successful product launch in the LEGO Group's History for about a decade.

Bionicle was exactly the success LEGO needed in order to stay aflout during their worst financial period. Without those iconic six heroes, LEGO as we know it may have not existed today.

And yet, for whatever reason, sometime in the 2010's LEGO decided to distance themselves from the line, to the point of treating it like the unwanted step child. They even tried to sabotage its success in the 90th anniversary poll by giving it a crappy picture of a Canister instead of a proper Box art scan (like all the other themes in the poll). I just don't understand what their mentality is for treating one their most popular themes like something we should rather forget about, when all evidence suggests this line was not only profitable, but it saved the company from going bankrupt.

@LegoDavid said:
"And yet, for whatever reason, sometime in the 2010's LEGO decided to distance themselves from the line, to the point of treating it like the unwanted step child. They even tried to sabotage its success in the 90th anniversary poll by giving it a crappy picture of a Canister instead of a proper Box art scan (like all the other themes in the poll). I just don't understand what their mentality is for treating one their most popular themes like something we should rather forget about, when all evidence suggests this line was not only profitable, but it saved the company from going bankrupt."

Bionicle might have saved LEGO in a tough time, but it doesn't mean it supported them all throughout a decade. They came out at a time where other series had warmed the waters (like Throwbots), and at a time when action figures were still very popular. But there's fatigue with the series as well: the models aren't all that unique, and they are so extremely similar from wave to wave. At this point, I'd be interested to see the financial numbers for the later years, and I wouldn't be surprised if they showed a huge downwards trend. Constraction has not been as successful lately despite original attempts.

So what I'm saying is that trends change, and Bionicle might have once been a hit, but it certainly didn't stay a hit all throughout or we'd still be seeing them, like Harry Potter and Star Wars. We don't really hear from series beyond their lifetimes, so it's quite something that we still discuss Bionicle this often, compared to... Rock Raiders, for example.

@Phoenixio said:
" @LegoDavid said:
"And yet, for whatever reason, sometime in the 2010's LEGO decided to distance themselves from the line, to the point of treating it like the unwanted step child. They even tried to sabotage its success in the 90th anniversary poll by giving it a crappy picture of a Canister instead of a proper Box art scan (like all the other themes in the poll). I just don't understand what their mentality is for treating one their most popular themes like something we should rather forget about, when all evidence suggests this line was not only profitable, but it saved the company from going bankrupt."

Bionicle might have saved LEGO in a tough time, but it doesn't mean it supported them all throughout a decade. They came out at a time where other series had warmed the waters (like Throwbots), and at a time when action figures were still very popular. But there's fatigue with the series as well: the models aren't all that unique, and they are so extremely similar from wave to wave. At this point, I'd be interested to see the financial numbers for the later years, and I wouldn't be surprised if they showed a huge downwards trend. Constraction has not been as successful lately despite original attempts.

So what I'm saying is that trends change, and Bionicle might have once been a hit, but it certainly didn't stay a hit all throughout or we'd still be seeing them, like Harry Potter and Star Wars. We don't really hear from series beyond their lifetimes, so it's quite something that we still discuss Bionicle this often, compared to... Rock Raiders, for example."

There is no concrete proof to suggest that Constraction as a concept simply isn't popular anymore. Yes, you are right in saying that Bionicle's sales went downhill after the first few years, but that was mostly due to other factors, such as the story getting too complicated and in inaccessible. After Bionicle ended, they tried to reinvent Constraction with a new line, Hero Factory, and guess what? That line proved popular enough to last for four and a half years, compared to the standard three years a LEGO theme usually lasts. But in 2014, they decided the end Hero Factory and bring back Bionicle, but that turned out to be a mistake... because at that point in time, it was way too early to reboot Bionicle, and LEGO failed to recapture the same magic of the original Bionicle line with one of the most atrocious marketing campaigns in the company's history. No wonder the reboot failed.
I feel like whatever "failures" Bionicle has experienced were mostly to blame on external factors rather than people not being interested in it. Just look at how much media attention Quest for Mata Nui, a Bionicle fan game, recently got... pretty much every major gaming website reported on it, and even a few well-known movie websites, such as Screen Rant. So regardless of what the LEGO Group might think, the nostalgia for the line is still certainly there, even among people who aren't usually fans of LEGO.

So to be fair, I feel like if if LEGO would have given it the proper treatment it deserves, I am pretty sure Bionicle could have easily reached the ranks of something like Star Wars or Harry Potter.

@LegoDavid said:
"And yet, for whatever reason, sometime in the 2010's LEGO decided to distance themselves from the line, to the point of treating it like the unwanted step child. They even tried to sabotage its success in the 90th anniversary poll by giving it a crappy picture of a Canister instead of a proper Box art scan (like all the other themes in the poll). I just don't understand what their mentality is for treating one their most popular themes like something we should rather forget about, when all evidence suggests this line was not only profitable, but it saved the company from going bankrupt."

I mean did you see the reaction of outrage that occurred when Bionicle started topping that anniversary poll they ran? There’s a small but loud subset of AFoLs who seem to see Bionicle as heresy, possibly Lego is just trying to avoid tantrums from them

My first Toa! :D

I'll be honest, there was one reason, and one reason only, that I chose Onua over all the other Toa when making that first purchase: and that was the fact that I could NOT figure out what was going on with his neck and wanted to solve the mystery xD ALso, I wasn't sure what his claw pieces were - on the upraised hand, I thought they looked like little mechanical bird heads, with the claw bits being the beaks and the moulded hinge on top being the eyes - so I was also curious about those.

Though I won't deny that those glowing green eyes intrigued me greatly, too...

I never regretted it. I think it was only, like, the day after I got that first Lego World Club magazine of 2001, which proudly showed them off, that I got my mum to take me into town after school so I could pick him up for myself. I think the little independent toy shop had all of them in, but I only had eyes for Onua; and WOW, what an experience it was to empty out his canister and see how all his pieces went together! I was enthralled; I'd had a couple of Slizers before, but Onua was a whole other league and his eyes seemed to glow if you held him to the light, and his mask was a FANTASTIC piece, and he seemed to carry the same air of epic mystery to him that the whole franchise did at that point...

*nostalgic sigh*

Good memories :D

@Phoenixio said:
"We don't really hear from series beyond their lifetimes, so it's quite something that we still discuss Bionicle this often, compared to... Rock Raiders, for example."
I would LOVE to discuss Rock Raiders more often...

@LegoDavid said:
"And yet, for whatever reason, sometime in the 2010's LEGO decided to distance themselves from the line, to the point of treating it like the unwanted step child. They even tried to sabotage its success in the 90th anniversary poll by giving it a crappy picture of a Canister instead of a proper Box art scan (like all the other themes in the poll). I just don't understand what their mentality is for treating one their most popular themes like something we should rather forget about, when all evidence suggests this line was not only profitable, but it saved the company from going bankrupt."

I am going to admit, the canister photo was pretty crappy; but as a whole with the Bionicle fandom we need to get out of this self pity mode with conspiracies that Lego absolutely hates the theme. Bionicle has 12 years of sets (2014 just barely counts thanks to the NYCC Fire Mask, but it has one Bionicle set that year so it slides in). When you consider that in 20 years, Bionicle was in production for 12 of those its actually really amazing. The only other Lego themes to last that whole time was Star Wars and Harry Potter (and Harry Potter had several hiatus years too...).

Is it fair to say Lego doesn't understand Bionicle? Well yeah. We do have to view it from the production angle though and admit, a special separate system only for Bionicle is a massive investment in tooling and factory resources. So Bionicle has to be doing gangbusters like it did in 2001-2003 to justify that machining investment, break even, and make a profit.

But the Bionicle fandom has this weird habit of making it out by treating Lego cancelling Bionicle as sign of active hate... which doesn't line up. Its one thing for an executive to not give Bionicle a chance to run because they are afraid it won't make money (like what happened to G2). But the Bionicle fandom has a strong habit of treating Billund like an 80's Saturday Morning Villain. It seems we paint this image of Mr. Lego sitting in his high office surrounded by laser sharks laughing at his maniacal plan to keep Bionicle off shelves again.

That might sound like hyperbole... but not just stuff like saying "sabotaged the 90th anniversary poll with just the canister image." I have seen the 2014 Lego Movie's quick Bionicle scene complained as "offensive" because it was played for a gag and not as a full segment to derail the plot to worship Bionicle. I have seen people complaining about the Bionicle easter eggs on stickers such as the Hau in the Chamber of Secrets or Voya Nui in the CITY plane as "Lego rudely teasing us" instead of just appreciating the Bionicle fans who work at Lego for leaving their mark. Hell we even had an entire Bonsai tree model in the "Inspiration" section of the Bonsai set's instructions that was made entirely of Kakama variants and we still are complaining that Lego has forgotten Bionicle and has betrayed us.

Let me say this, whining isn't going to make our time waiting for Bionicle to return any easier. Let's make our voice heard yes, make it clear we are still Bionicle fanatics and would love to see it again. But this issue we have to lean into conspiracy and ingratitude for everything Bionicle related when it falls short of "sending every single fan a Platinum Avohkii in gratitude for us saving Lego!" is blindly self focused and naïve. We have to collectively as a fandom drop this attitude that Lego is picking on us, and just enjoy what we have already. Maybe in another 10-15 years Bionicle might be getting regular tribute sets, much like how Classic Space sees a few one off retro-sets semi-regularly now. Or not... we never know. But we can't raise a crusade against Lego every time it seems they made a slight offense towards us.