Review:70784 Lewa - Master of Jungle
| Lewa Master of Jungle (2 Reviews) | |||||||||||||
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$14.99
€14.99
£12.99
$19.99
$17.99
Reviews
Berrybrick
Country: America the Beautiful Gender: Male
Joined: February 2010 
№ of Reviews: 46 
№ of Featured reviews: 1
Building Experience: Enough is enough
You are not entitled to view results of this poll.
- Theme: BIONICLE
- Pieces: 85
- Minifigures:
- Price: $14.99 / £12.99
- Brickipedia / Brickset
In the jungle
Welcome to the jungle
Watch it bring you to your
Knees, knees
I wanna watch you bleed
New: Master of Jungle with improved sarcasm! Lewa is back with a new look and new powers as he trades his winding winds for jabbing jungle jinxes. With how long it took me to get the six Toa, I thought I knew what I was expecting, and for the most part, I was right. I could tell what I would like and what I wouldn't just from pictures and other reviews (what, this isn't the first 2015 BIONICLE review?). Lewa is the exception.
The pictures I took for this review were more of a photo test for a new device than an actual review, so despite questionable quality, quantity, and posing, consider them an added bonus!
Instructions/Box
I have to hand it to Lewa. I think that, among the Toa, he has the most eye-catching box, and yeah, some of the best art. The colors work well with him without drowning him out. The figure pops, and he is instantly recognizeable. With twelve other sets, it is sometimes hard to tell what sets the story is carrying, but each time Lewa, Lord of Skull Spiders, and the Protector of Stone (an odd mix...) have immediately jumped out. I love the way that the obelisks and foliage is positioned to give a dynamic, high-speed look, and there are plenty of skull spiders lurking if you look carefully enough. As usual, I'm not pleased with how the mask looks on the box art, but it isn't too different from how the actual mask looks (whereas things like the Mask of Fire look completely off), so it gets a pass.
The instructions are, thankfully, rather unremarkable. They are easy enough to follow if you are used to LEGO instruction manuals and pay close enough attention. There is are no stickers
Parts
Unlike fellow mid-sized Toa Pohatu and Gali, Lewa does not introduce any new colors to the CCBS palette. He does, however, take two rare colors (flame yellowish orange and bright green) and introduce four size 4 shells for each of them, plus a bright green torso piece. Throw in two piston add-ons, three silver "beast legs" (which look great in that color), plus the gearbox, the same axe-heads that Gali uses (just darker), a pair of friction joints, two 6m bones, the not-so-rare-but-still-cool silver swords, and a few new/uncommon TECHNIC pieces and I think that Lewa is probably the best value among the smaller Toa. Gali is good too, of course, and Pohatu has some cool parts, Lewa just comes out on top. It helps that the Protector of Jungle doesn't use most of Lewa's shells, instead introducing another new color (which, likewise, makes him a good value amongst the Protectors).
Lewa uses the new head with the trigger function for popping masks, the new Mask of Jungle in both bright green and warm gold, a dark blue skull spider, and a silver chest piece with exclusive printing.
The Build
Lewa's gearbox is a little bit different from the other Toa because of the way that his shoulder and back armor is attached. It's not super complicated by any stretch of the imagination, but it does help. These figures are all snapped together pretty quickly though, so if you are looking for a build, look somewhere else. These are all about the parts, character, and finished model.
Figure
What is great about these new Toa sets is that each of them are different. What sets Lewa apart from the others is a gearbox which is raised two modules and arms which are also two modules longer than most other Toa. Using only 4m shells on his limbs, it gives him a lanky, light look. I didn't think that I would like it, but it has a lot of personality and looks good, at least from the front. I love the way that they armored his shoulders, because it hardly impedes his arm movement (if at all), but because of the raised gearbox and offset arms, when viewed from the side, Lewa looks less lanky and agile and more like the Hunchback of Notre Nui. With the gearbox so high, it also prevents the trigger on his eyestalk from being pushed down far enough to eject his mask or to move his head, which is an issue for a Toa which can fly. Moving the gearbox down one module is an easy fix without sacrificing much of the look.
Lewa has the best back armor. On all of the other Toa, it is protrusive and makes their torsos look too thick, but his, using a beast foot, works perfectly. I've modded Onua to use the same piece, and would do the same with the others if I had more of them in the right colors.
The colorscheme of the old green air characters is something I've complained about before (because they were all green and gray or silver, so it was the most bad and boring combination among other combinations which were bad and boring; except being the Mistika/Phantoka where Lewa was better than the bad, boring, and ugly colors that Tahu was dressed in) but Lewa fixes that by adding flame yellowish orange to his arms and shins. From pictures, I didn't think that I would like the color blocking or layering, since besides the shoulder/chest silver is just kind of thrown anywhere where they didn't want to cast colors in new parts, and well, it still looks that way to me but it isn't as bad as I thought it would be. Both the green and the orange are good, bright, vibrant and fun colors which work better than probably anything that an old air character came in back in the old days (except for maybe Gresh or Kongu as a McToran)
Lewa's axes are, admittedly, kind of ugly. I'm mixed on that headpiece, but the way that the sword handles swoosh and how long they are compared to how high he holds the axes just doesn't look great. What it does do though is give him a lot of personality. The long arms and the high grip sets the blades low and does make for some cool poses. However, I prefer Lewa in his adrenaline mode. The one advertised on the back of the boxes is, admittedly, kind of stupid and doesn't look good with the wings facing out from his arms and then suggesting that you swing his swords for battle...what? I like to turn the axe-heads towards his torso, which does impede movement a little, but looks more convincing, and then position the swords more like Lewa Nuva's. Then, using the gear function to make him raise one arm and lower the other works well for simulating steering.
The biggest thing about Lewa coming in that I didn't think I would like is the Mask of Jungle. The old Miru is one of my favorite masks of all time, and they took a really simple design, buttoned the mouth shut, and plastered all sorts of ridges all over it. To be honest, it looks like Ultron to me, and I don't like that. The mask is better than I thought it would be, but it's still far from my favorite. The smile is there, most ways that you look at it, but from some angles (especially from the side) it goes from a grin to a snarl. I don't particularly like the golden mask on Lewa, because it clashes with the orange, but it's a nice inclusion and the golden masks looking out of place isn't necessarily an issue; they certainly were that way back in 2002. The skull spider is dark blue, so it also doesn't fit in with the colorscheme, but I don't get the impression that it is supposed to.
Lewa doesn't have the most exciting chest piece, but it has metallic yellow printing, which is cool, and manages to look tribalien. The color choices are kind of strange, since they aren't used anywhere else on the figure, but it looks fine. No red gashes is good.
Summary
The mighty jungle
Muaka sleeps tonight
3½ / 5
4½ / 5
4 / 5
4 / 5
4½ / 5
4 / 5
Berrybrick
Country: America the Beautiful Gender: Male
Joined: February 2010 № of Reviews: 46 № of Featured reviews: 1
Building Experience: Enough is enough
While I was writing my full reviews of the six Toa, I realized that I was sort of skipping over several features that they all share in common because they are all common, so there was really no right place to speak about it except for everywhere (since I'm not a fan of "See my review on Harley Quinn's Unicycle for what I think of this piece" type writing, though I resort to that with some minifigures), but I ended up doing it nowhere. The exception was the boxes, which I really should have waited for this, because every Toa except for lucky Lewa got pretty much the same spiel. So, here we are, with a review of some of the common features of the Toa, and a ranking too.
What I think is the most immediately striking thing about the new Toa is their colorschemes. Even though some of them are poorly plotted (in my opinion) and rely too much on metallics, they really are striking and bright, unlike a lot of figures from before which had dull or dark and boring colorschemes (though not all of the Glatorian were so bad in that regard; mixing a brighter color with a darker one a lot of the time). When stood together, five of them look really good. Unfortunately, Pohatu's dark orange doesn't go with the others so well. His scheme is still really good (I think that he has the best distribution of any of them, for one thing) and I don't think that he would look as good as a figure if he were, say, bright orange or yellow instead, and I think LEGO did what best serves the set.
Secondly, the gearboxes are a big thing. Functions were a stable of earlier BIONICLE sets, but they sort of withered until they disappeared completely to be replaced by gimmicky launchers. It is fun to turn a gear and have the weapon slash (or whatever) through the air, though there isn't always enough friction, and, as mentioned in some reviews, it is more likely that a Toa's elbow or wrist will bend unnaturally when it makes contact with something stubborn enough (which, in some cases, is a lot of things), so that is kind of unfortunate. That seems to include the Toa's masks (especially the Skull Spiders) which, despite reintroducing a knock-off feature, aren't knocked off so easily. Actually, it seems downright impossible.
The Toa's masks have problems of their own. They tend to wobble a little bit, and most of them don't allow light through the eyes very well unless they are backlit. I find Tahu and Pohatu's to be the worse, with their beady eyes and elongated faces. The Skull Spiders are both the sturdiest and best allow the eyes to be seen. They kind of go unsung in my reviews, but they really are a well designed piece.
I think that is about all there is to say about the Toa as a group. It is good to have the Mata back, and I am pleased to see the variety that they come in. Personally, my ranking would go something like this:
- Gali
- Kopaka
- Onua
- Pohatu
- Lewa
- Tahu
That's just me though, and I do like them all except for Tahu, though even he turned into one that I really like after I made some pretty easy mods (shortened the legs, bulked up the arms, gave him some flamboyant shoulder pads). I think that, if you like BIONICLE in any way, shape, or form, and aren't too attached to the old theme to write-off these sets as "too different" (though I think there is an argument to make for the Theseus Paradox, and not just because I love to drop Minotaur references everywhere I can) there is at least one Toa for you.
So, which Toa is everyone's favorite? I wouldn't ask if I didn't actually want to know, so please comment!
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