Review:70787 Tahu - Master of Fire/Berrybrick
Berrybrick
Country: America the Beautiful Gender: Male
Joined: February 2010 
№ of Reviews: 46 
№ of Featured reviews: 1
Building Experience: Enough is enough
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You know, I've never been the biggest fan of Fire. Elementally, at least, I like to be warm. I like it as a symbol for passion and warmth, but BIONICLE has generally depicted fire characters as loud and bombastic hotheads. Okay, maybe that's mostly Tahu, I didn't follow the story too much when the Metru and Inika took over, but the character left a bad taste in my mouth. Why am I telling you this? I'm not nostalgic to see Tahu again. With the other Toa Mata back, I wouldn't have it any other way, of course, but with Tahu the fire guy at the forefront of BIONICLE's marketing (as always) I can't help but feel that some views of this set are clouded. Of course, reasonable opinions differ, but for a lot of the praise I've seen, I don't think this set is so great.
Instructions/Box[edit | edit source]
I like the trapezoidal box designs used for most of these sets, it gives them a cool look. They aren't the canisters many people associate with BIONICLE, but I was honestly never the biggest fan of those. They took up too much space and, especially in later years, weren't sufficient for storing sets. Most of the masks on the boxart look strange, certainly not as good as in real life. Tahu's is possibly the worse. Like, I'm not even sure what is going on there. The masks just look so bad. The golden one, seems fat, and something about the red one is just extremely off. I do have to commend the posing, however. It manages to hide a good amount of the issues I have with this set. I don't quite like the boxart though; the blue sky doesn't pair well with the lava fall. I would have liked something more volcanic, or sooty. The bags fit inside of the carton no problem and take up enough room. The box does, however, feel a bit thin and could possibly be damaged easily.
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 are no stickers.
Parts[edit | edit source]
Probably the best thing about Tahu's part selection is that he has six of the new piston add-ons (more than any other set so far). They are all in gold, which for my purposes is the least useful of the three colors, but still, they are cool pieces. Those swords which combine to create the lavaboard, which Kopaka includes in white, look really good in silver and are fun weapons. The only other parts which are particularly rare are the trans orange shells (which only came in the non-US Chima Ultrabuilds last year; though Protector of Fire and a System Chima set do include them now) and the exclusive red torso shells, of which there are three included. Of course, Tahu also has the usual parts which are appearing in the Toa sets: The new gearbox, head, eyestalk, and a skull spider. Additionally, he also has the Mask of Fire (or Hau, it's still the Mask of Shielding to me) in red and warm gold and an exclusive chest print. Though they come in a few other Ninjago sets, I also really like those golden swords. Small gears, friction add-ons, and loose ball joints are always good to have, too.
Personally, I don't think that Tahu is the best parts pack for MOCers. He doesn't introduce any new or rare colors like the other Toa, and his recolors are just limited to those torso shells.
The Build[edit | edit source]
By the time I got Tahu, I had already built the five other Toa. There really isn't anything special about him when it comes to this area. There is the gearbox, yes, same as the other Toa, and he basically uses the same design as Gali, just with wider shoulders, two moving arms, and mounts for his extra swords. The differences aren't too substantial.
Figure[edit | edit source]
When I first saw that Tahu would be red and gold, my mind immediately went to two places: Lhikan, and Stars Tahu. I like this move. With the insistence on using metallics all over the place in the reboot, Tahu's at least seems elemental. Gold is a fiery color. Though I do have issues with the way that the figure is armored, the gold does seem distributed fairly well. I like the transparent orange, too, but I don't think that it is placed quite so well. There just isn't enough of it, so it sort of feels out of place. I find it odd that they didn't give Tahu any trans orange bones when they did appear in the Chima sets last year (the trans light blue ones bled over into BIONICLE) and I think that it would have helped. One thing about the figure that I was expecting to modify but ended up liking is the silver hands and feet: They make it look like Tahu is wearing a suit of armor.
Speaking of the suit of armor, something that seems kind of interesting to me is that while other Toa (Pohatu, Lewa, Onua) have designs which reflect their environments and powers, Tahu and Kopaka's bodies (I'm not so sure where to lump Gali) seem to be more indicative of their personalities. I do have my own opinions on what they should look like, of course, but I'm not going to knock of points because it doesn't match my interpretation (though I will praise it if it does; thinking of Pohatu). While Kopaka looks heavily armored and very guarded, Tahu has this heavy warrior flair going on. That idea works for me, but the execution really doesn't.
Possibly my biggest issue with Tahu is his legs. What seems ridiculous to me is that while Tahu towers over Pohatu, their torsos and arms are the exact same size, yet Tahu's legs are (if I'm counting right) four modules longer. It doesn't help that he uses the same piece to armor his shins as he does his abdomen, because that just draws attention to how long his legs are. The shin armor is really the root of the problem, since it requires Tahu to use a friction extender on his foot (which raises his ankle higher than I would like) and just makes him look even farther off when he is posed. Removing the other pair of extenders on his thighs would make his legs the same length as Kopaka's (a set which works much better with this size, I think, but more in his own review), but the proportions would still be off. The thighs have their own issues, too. The way that the bone is designed, when it is paired with a friction extender, the ball joint for connecting armor is a module lower than where it would be ideally, leaving a large gap in the leg armoring. Tahu tries to fix this problem by using a pair of the piston add-ons on the side, but that doesn't really work for me. Using add-ons on the side of the thigh makes the hips look rather wide, and since Tahu has such a small waist (as do all the others; this isn't necessarily a con) it really draws attention to that, and not in a flattering macho "waist of a hamster shoulders of a gorilla" kind of way.
The armoring on his arms bothers me too. I like the "gauntlet" armor on the lower arm and I like the way that the pauldrons fold down over the shoulders, but that leaves a gap in the gold on forearm, ruining the continuity. Raising the pauldrons, though a bit of an improvement, still leaves the forearm as a distraction. It looks kind of silly to leave the lower arm so much thicker. Adding extra piston shells doesn't help, because that hinders movement too much and kind of ends up looking like overkill. I like the piston add-on when it is used creatively or adds to the look, but its placement here detriments the figure.
I really like the way that the extra swords are mounted. Though impractical, it looks cool to have them flaying behind Tahu and adds to his flair much better than the shin armor does. However, as soon as the gear on his back is turned, pretty much any pose that they are put in other than vertically up or down causes them to collide with his arms. The mechanism, itself, is a little sketchy, too. There isn't enough friction for the broadswords to stay in place very well. It could have helped to add an extra gear the same way that they did with Gali, or even use the balljoint technique that they did with Onua (just hidden under the torso). The rods on the gearbox also have a tendency to slide out because the swords are so heavy and they are not reinforced properly.
Okay, I've had enough of that. Tahu's chest print isn't my favorite, but it's pretty good, using some metallic pink lining and an orange background. I'm not sure what's up with the red paint since, as with Pohatu, it looks like gashes to me. I'm not sure what they were going for with that, since it looks neither alien nor tribal. It's not a huge detractor though. The mask isn't my favorite. I think I like what they were going for with the jaw, but it is so wide whereas other lines on the mask seem to indicate that the face is supposed to be thin. I'm not so sure about the brow, either, since the jaw is so exaggerated while it only pokes out a little, making the look seem a bit unbalanced. I don't know. It looks better from some angles than others. Though it's not quite as bad as it seems on the boxart, the mask does more or less look like the golden one does there.
Speaking of the boxart, it successfully manages to hide the following things about the set:
- Silver feet (though I find myself liking those)
- The gappiness created by the "bell bottoms"
- Tahu's high ankles
- Just how much the thigh covering makes his hips stick out
- The break in the golden arm covering created by the pauldron and gauntlet
There is also a mint green Skull Spider included. It's a great color, and really looks out of place on Tahu (which is a good thing, since it is parasitic). The only issue is that there aren't any other CCBS pieces to use on a MOC that will work with it. That's not Tahu's fault. He's got 99 problems, but no mint green ain't one.
Summary[edit | edit source]
Building Experience: The only reason that Tahu gets a three is because the gearbox is new this year. He doesn't do anything more spectacular than any of the other Toa, and at this price point, I would expect at least a little bit more.
3 / 5
Parts: LEGO loves red. Red is a common color. There is a lot of red to work with out there. Tahu doesn't bring much new to the table. He has character exclusive parts, of course, but those are character exclusive; not necessarily versatile.
2 / 5
Playability: Not too much better than the other Toa. His adrenaline mode is possibly one of the best, because lavaboarding was such an iconic and nostalgic part of the old BIONICLE. His poseablity isn't very good though, and he does have that issue with his arms falling out. However, since I'm so harsh everywhere else, I'll be more generous here:
3½ / 5
Figure: I think I covered this pretty thoroughly. The proportions look silly next to some of the other Toa and the armoring isn't very good. However, even I have to admit, when you place him on his lavaboard, those problems do dissipate, if only for a moment:
2 / 5
Value for Money: Volume of pieces concerned, yes, Tahu is decent, and what he includes is mostly useful, but honestly? I'm still a little uncomfortable with Toa being $20 sets, since they still feel more like canister builds and not Titans. Even then, Onua is a much better value for money, and even Kopaka includes a few more desirable pieces (while being a better figure). Despite being cheaper, Gali, Lewa, and possibly even Pohatu (certainly Protector of Stone) all have more to offer as both figures and part packs:
2 / 5
Overall: I'm sorry to say it, but I'm just really not feeling this version of Tahu. As BIONICLE's poster boy, I can sense that they put a lot of ideas into him, but it seems to me that they tried too hard to make him look like a larger than life, towering warrior hero, but he plays it safer more than other characters, and the execution just leaves the figure feeling unnatural. Tahu'll have his fans, for sure, and one of the spectacular things about this reboot is the variety that it offers, but as the guy who actually loves the unpopular Pohatu set, Tahu is the most disappointing figure. As a set which should embody the best aspects of the BIONICLE reboot, Tahu represents the worse. He is only for people looking to complete the whole team, or people who are fans of the character:
2½ / 5Truthfully, I want to rate him lower, but I'm just not usually a very harsh person and that wouldn't be representative of the scores I gave.
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