But the valuuuuuuuuue! 😂😭 It's so great to see these minty fresh Bionicles in the sunlight again! Mine saw so much play in my childhood, I had forgotten how good they could look! ❤
The tohunga were the best! The popularity of the characters in the Mata Nui Online Game pushed these guys to bionicle stardom. Such great colors, I only wish we had more
I'm a fan of both and always have been. It's been nice to see a resurgence of bionicle love in the afol community lately. Glad you were able to get into it. I'd love to get all of these, I have maku complete, but that's it. I had no idea they were so expensive these days!
The Tohunga were technically not released until September of 2001, after the Toa, Turaga and Rahi had been relesed between May and August of that year. Most of their parts were exclusive to them, though the white and black torsos and arms would appear in parts tubs in 2005, and the black ones were used for Nuparu in the Boxor (8556) from '02. Onepu's purple Pakari also came in the Nui Jaga (8548) as well and the feet in that color and the teal ones on Kongu are also exclusive to these sets. While somewhat lesser-known, that shade of purple first appeared in the "CyberSlam/Competition" subtheme of Technic (1998-01), and was seen very rarely after that period. Being phased out in 2010.
Stumbled across your channel while I was looking for classic castle reviews. Then I saw this video and had to give it a watch. I was a huge BIONICLE fan back in the day (and still am, although I've since sold a lot of my collection), but I never got my hands on these original Matoran. Great review and it is so cool to see these sets in pristine condition like this. Hopefully someday I will get my hands on them as I try to get a full BIONICLE collection together again (I fully regret selling all those sets and wish I had held onto them lol).
An interesting bit of trivia is that another reason to call them McToran is that their original name was a point of contention when Lego was sued by Maori cultural representatives for misuse of their language... if I understand correctly, it was inappropriate and disrespectful that Lego used the culturally significant word “tohunga” for these characters and Lego changed it to Matoran as a result.
