Old Manu: Toa of Stone, probably the 5th version (I’m calling it 3rdB, I just remembered a previous version without any waist articulation that looked almost the same as this version, it was just before this one in fact. also the version names are weird bear with them, they are mainly to reflect on the type of body he had or major change made to his appearance.) I made of him, the oldest is a bit cringy, though I’ll need to find a picture and remake it so you can have a glorious picture of what he was at the beginning.
3rdB
New Manu, not much changed…
New Manu, Toa of Stone, a heavy revamp using the base of the older version.
I did try to improve my photography, let me know what you think.
Here are the basic front back pictures.
3rdC
The ~fancy pictures: (2 of them are basically the same as before, IDKW I put them in, but ehh… why not?)
Action!
IDKW people think Manu is similar to Onewa, I just don’t see how they could be alike. It’s not like Manu’s design was based on him or anything…
Manu was probably my first Self-MOC growing up. His story changed over the years, though parts of him remained the same. One thing Manu lost was his original name. It wasn’t Manu, I know that. A long time ago I forgot his name and had to give him a new one, so I did what I thought was best, I renamed him with a name similar to my main fictional character, Moner. That’s how Manu was named and that name stuck till now. His very first version had the golden armor chest piece from the Star sets. He had the exact same arms,except for those silver upper arm bits and he had the exact same weapons. His eyes were green, because I gave him a av-matoran body and head piece. His legs were basically Onewa’s hordika’s legs. That was the very first version of Manu… (salso he had Pohatu’s mata feet, without the extensions). I can literally rebuild that version from my mind, it was the basis for Manu’s color scheme going forwards. The second version 1stB was essentially a foot swap for the dark grey feet and tan leg extensions. I believe Manu gained the lime green claws at this point (the borok eyes), he may have gotten the silver arm on his upper arms during this point. 1stC was a toa of light version of Manu, using a kualsi instead of the mask of light. He still had the golden chest plate from the Gresh stars figure, and dark golden armor was added onto him. He gained a shield and a modified sword. (I don’t remember what the sword looked like though). 2ndA was a switch to a Inika-like body. It’s best we forget this version, it’s a nightmare to remember, (WHY DID I MAKE THE SHOULDER ARMOR LIKE!?!? WHY!??!?!?) 3rdA was my nice looking version of the inika body, it’s the previous version before the one I first posted on the boards (3rdB) 3rdA had no waist articulation, but otherwise at the time I considered him perfect… which is not the case there is no way any MOC is perfect, only a MOC which is perfect in the eyes of their creator. 3rdB was born from the desire to add an ab crunch to the figure. The rest is visible history.
Manu wan’t originally from the Iden Nui AU, he had his own AU which was much much more different then either the source material or Iden Nui. It had an alternate history and different artifacts, pretty much the crossroads for this AU was the ending scene of Bionicle 3 Web of Shadows, when they left in the blimps, what happened in this AU is Makuta attacked blimps, blimps split up, each on ends up somewhere else and on a different island…somehow…(I didn’t know Metru Nui was under Mata Nui at the time…) Time passed and a new island was formed from three different islands colliding, it was called “Yuka Nui” and was where Manu started his story as a matoran. He found the Armor of Elements, an ancient artifact which he wore on his chest. It allowed Manu to take toa form and act as the toa of stone, when the previous toa of stone died. Manu later discovered his cracked mask had previously belonged to a toa of stone that preceded him. (Onewa, also death was permanent thing, this was before I knew what the Red Star was… actually this was main based off of waht I saw in the movies and only that…). Manu was able to telepathically talk with the spirit of that toa of stone and learned wisdom from that toa. Manu soon discovered that if he wore a mask belonging to a dead to a he would be able to telepathically communicate to that toa and borrow their elemental abilities. The reason why he had Onewa’s mask in the first place was because the mask was cracked and left for trash. Manu also develops personality traits similar to that toa even parts of their appearance.
That’s basically what Manu originally was in his AU…yeah it’s something I made without much knowledge on G1 lore…so a lot of it is not really ‘correct’ if looked through a G1 lenses but I don’t care I loved that AU when I was growing up. I also may have not known how powerful Makuta were in that AU, because I basically considered them as shadow toa, but a little more bestial or monstrous…and that was it.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this little backstory on what Manu is/was. I have no idea what will come next for him though. I haven’t really expanded much on his story other than creating mroe characters for his AU.
