KOPAKA: MASTER OF ICE

BIONICLE

The following is a guest review by Tim Marron. For more from Tim, check out Timsical Thoughts and Tim’s Blarg.

Okay, Ethan’s been on my case for not having any guest reviews lately, and that’s fair. Although in my defense I’ve been very busy with very important stuff like Youtube and Amazon. But anyway, Bionicle. Boy do I love Bionicle. Remember way back when I said Beast Wars was my jam? Well forget that, Beast Wars pales in comparison to Bionicle in my books (and I do actually have books). Of the original six Toa, my personal favorite was the arctic badass otherwise known as Kopaka. After the whole Hero Factory debacle, you can imagine my disappointment when it seemed like Bionicle had come to an end. Then, out of nowhere, it was back. Naturally, I texted Ethan the news along with my plan to find these new figures. Thus our adventure began anew.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Kopaka was released as part of the revived Bionicle series earlier this year. He is one of the larger deluxe Toa along with Onua, and I guess Tahu but mehhh… He is the tallest of the lot at about 8 inches tall and features 13 points of articulation (15, counting the big shoulder pads). Each Toa having differing heights and builds was something I was pretty excited about because it makes them seem more like individual characters as opposed to cookie-cutter stamp clones with different colors. His mask this time around is a neat little blend of his original Akaku and his Akaku Nuva masks. Also, it seems the designers felt like forgoing his classic sword and shield combo for a spear and shield: a little disappointing for nostalgia’s sake, but I’m cool with spears so it works out. Kopaka’s set is made up of 97 pieces, mostly molded in clean white and funky transparent blue. He also features a fair amount of gold pieces such as his chest piece and big chunky shoulders. I was initially a little hesitant about Kopaka having gold as such a prominent color but it’s grown on me, plus it makes his gold mask seem less out of place. Kopaka does actually feature some paint on his chest piece which adds some cool detailing to an otherwise flat surface. There is more detailing on his legs as well but for whatever reason, these are handled through the use of stickers. I’m not sure why they couldn’t just paint them the same way they did the chest, but they look fine so it’s not really an issue. In addition to his spear and shield, Kopaka comes with a gold version of his mask and a silver Skull Spider which seems to be the new reimagining of Krana, just minus the whole Bohrok thing.

 THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This is all my fault, I’ll admit that. I picked Kopaka up from Target after “convincing” Ethan to “help” me track down these new Bionicle figures, as well as a couple Nerf guns for myself. Having spent an entire day at Ethan’s house with several huge tubs of Lego pieces rebuilding the entire original Bionicle roster, I had a sneaking suspicion he might also be interested in the news of the reboot. As I mentioned before, Hero Factory was a huge disappointing end to the original Bionicle line and after seeing how Lego handled the redesigns, it was just a matter of time before we got them. But it is all my fault, though.