ONUA: MASTER OF EARTH

BIONICLE

Okay, time for more Bionicle stuff! It’s like potato chips; you can’t have just one! This time around, it’s the Toa (now “Master”) of Earth, Onua. With the original Toa, Lego grouped them into two groups of three that were meant to stick together. Onua was grouped with Tahu and Pohatu, but I had him for quite a while before getting the other two. For my figures, he always stuck with Lewa, Kopaka, and Gali. I always felt Onua had one of the more unique designs, and that’s only been more apparent with the new figures. Let’s see how he turned out!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Onua is part of the first assortment of the 2015 Bionicle line. He’s one of the three larger “deluxe” releases. Onua is about 8 inches tall (he’s a little shorter than Lewa), has 14 points of articulation, and is built from 109 pieces. While he’s a little shorter than Lewa , he’s like three times as wide, which is quite impressive. In the original line, Onua was the same size as the others, though a lot of the other material indicated he was the big bruiser of the group. So, the increased size of the figure for the new line is definitely a cool touch. While Lewa offered an amalgam of his original and Nuva looks, Onua seems to be sticking pretty strictly to his original design. The mask in particular is a pretty straight update of the original, brought up to the more modern standards of building. The body is the biggest (heh!) deviation point, as it’s more organically built, and it doesn’t use the same chest plate and such as the other figures. Onua actually features no paint. His pieces are all molded in the appropriate colors and the detailing on his chest piece is a sticker, as opposed to the paintwork on Lewa. The color choices are probably my only issue with the figure. The original figure was done in a simple gray and black. This figure has added gold and purple to the mix, and while the additional colors do make the figure stand out a little more, they are a bit too present on the arms and legs. The original Onua didn’t have a weapon, just big clawed hands meant for digging. This Onua has been given a giant hammer as his weapon of choice. But it’s more than just a hammer! It can be disassembled and the two pieces that make up the bulk of the head can be placed in Onua’s hands, replicating the big claw hands from the original. Onua also includes a gold version of his mask and a skull-spider thingy, this time molded in a really great pale green. Like Lewa, Onua features a gear feature which swings his arms up and down, which is cool.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Onua was picked up from Target at the same time as Lewa. Onua was probably my second favorite of the originals, so getting the new one was pretty important to me. While I don’t quite like Onua’s update as much as Lewa, it’s not bad. All in all, Onua’s a fun update on the original figure, and he looks really great with the rest of the set.