What Was Your BIONICLE Childhood Like?

when i was a kid i had lewa, and 2 masks. i also had the nui kopen and i won any battle i was challenged to by my friends in the club. so what was your childhood with bionicle like?

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I would adjust the category and topic title to more accurately fit the content, but Iā€™m not really sure whatā€™s being said here.

You were in a club?

What do you mean by battle?

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Kopaka with a sliver kanohi kakama and a gold hau, alongside a Bohrok of gravity weā€™re my first two Bionicleā€™s that I still have today.

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Me and my friends started a bionicle club, and we used the 2001 gearbox functions to battle.

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changed topic title and category to better reflect contents -ghid

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I remembered what masks I have. The green hau, the lime ruru, and the green miru.

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Onua Mata was numero uno for me back in 2001. I distinctly remember having tremendous difficulty finding Kopaka Mata (yā€™know the white one!). My great aunt who lives in NYC had to go to FAO Shwarz on 5th Avenue to find him but I had to wait until Thanksgiving to get my mitts on him. I also remember someone in my neighborhood was handing out Mcā€™toran on Halloween and me and my friend (not a bonk fan) both saw the OG Huki and my poor 9 year-old brain short circuited long enough for her to snatch it away before my shock subsided. Iā€™m still scarred by this.

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probably widely different from your one. Iā€™m a good generation younger than most of the og fanbase, Iā€™m a g2 fan. I bought 5 sets and then fell out of it for 8ish years. wow it been that long?

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Probably different than most people here: my Bionicle childhood just didnā€™t really exist. I had a Hakann without spine and Korahk which I got as a hand-me-down, though most of the time they just sat on the shelf because I wasnā€™t interested in them.

Thatā€™s where it gets interesting, though: I spent many hours studying the Lego catalog as a kid. I especially remember looking at the Bionicle pages in the few older catalogs I had, thinking that they looked curious. I kept looking for my two figures in the older catalogs (and the Hero Factory pages in the then-current catalogs) but couldnā€™t find them anywhere (didnā€™t have the 2002 or 2006 catalogs, so they obviously werenā€™t featured).

Thatā€™s the way I also got interested in Bionicle a few years ago. I wanted to know more about these two figures. Being a few years older now and knowing how to use the internet, I turned to Google and quickly found what I wanted to know. I read some info on the characters and Bioncile as a whole, found it pretty interesting, and thatā€™s where the madness beganā€¦

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Woah, canā€™t believe I never posted here!

My first set was an Ackar my mother got from a car boot sale in around 2012, missing his shin guards and Thornax. I got Thunder from Hero Factory at the exact same time and much preferred him, so I focused exclusively on Hero Factory for a bit until getting Lehvak and Nuhvok from that same car boot sale in late 2013, which made me realise that Bionicle was in fact not rubbish and convinced me to start collecting it. I began getting into Biotube too, primarily KylerNuva135 and BioRockDude. Through visiting car boot sales and such several more times, my childhood collection consisted of:

  • Lewa and Onua Mata + Gali and Kopaka without masks
  • Turaga Nuju
  • All the Nuva except Lewa and Tahu
  • All the Bohrok except Pahrak, with Kohrak missing its Krana
  • Headless Cahdok
  • All the Rahkshi
  • Takanuva
  • Jaller & Gukko
  • Takua & Pewku
  • Kohliitoran Hewkii and Macku
  • Nuhrii, Orkham, Ehrye and Ahkmou
  • All the Vahki except Bordakh
  • Vakama missing his disk, Matau, Onewa and Nuju
  • Krekka
  • Turaga Dume & Nivawk
  • Suukorak
  • All the 2005 titans
  • Zaktan and Hakann
  • Kongu Inika
  • All the 2006 titans twice minus both Vezonsā€™ capes, with the second Brutaka being fairly incomplete
  • All the Mahritoran/Hydruka
  • All the Barraki except Pridak, minus Kalmahā€™s tentacles and most of their squids
  • Jaller, Hahli and Nuparu Mahri, with Nuparu missing his shield
  • Maxilos and Spinax
  • Nocturn with a missing spine
  • Karzahni
  • All the Kardatoran except Solek
  • All the Phantoka except Lewa and Vamprah
  • All the Mistika except Tahu and Bitil
  • Vultraz
  • Rockoh T3
  • Mutran without his wings
  • Raanu, Metus and Tarduk
  • Gresh, Strakk, Tarix and Skrall
  • Tuma
  • Ackar and Mata Nui
  • Rahkshi, Takanuva and Gresh Stars

Barely any of them stayed built for any amount of time, with a few never being built to begin with. All their pieces went into moc making, with my creations being somewhat regularly posted to the Lego Galleries (which is actually where almost all the remaining photos of them come from). My first ever mocs were the ā€œBIONICLE RECON TEAMā€, consisting of these fine fellows

The incredibly hunched caped guy in the back was my first ever self-moc, Cyphor. He would remain my self moc for all of 2 months before getting replaced by Photez.

The lady herself, along with some Rahkshi friends. From left to right, these were Photez, Onorahk, Orzehk and Rahkshi - the latter being my sisterā€™s uncreatively named self-moc, who would later get renamed to Katuna. My sister and I always played out storylines together, spanning such a number of years it became the most complex universe Iā€™ve ever created.

In the beginning, the cast of characters was as follows:

On the Makuta side, there was Cyphor, Sawdris, Intor and Zardok, aided by the aforementioned Rahkshi. They fought against a team of three Toa, Arvak, Rawzak and Vorcan. The Matoran Tanma and Takua were prominent residents of the area who often got involved in the conflict. Inspired by Biotube, I filmed a coup,e of primitive stop motions with them in addition to the played out stories, but these were ofā€¦ questionable quality and I stopped 4 episodes in despite having 20 planned.

From there, I basically justā€¦ never stopped. Both collecting sets and adding to my own story universe. My sister stopped playing out storylines about 4 years ago, but the universe itself is still alive even now. Iā€™ve ended up creating an entire wiki to document the nearly 7 years of content.

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That reminds me, I should also post what I built back then. Combining my huge collection of Bionicle sets, circa 9 year old me came up with this:

Itā€™s basically Hakann with a longer torso, weird arms and a paper face. Say what you want, but this is peak Bionicle design.

Iā€™m pretty sure that this guy even predates Robo-Jesus!

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My Bionicle Childhood wasnā€™t as good as others on hereā€¦but, buying Toa Inika Matoro at Toysā€œRā€Us in the summer of 2006 was the highlight of my Bionicle childhood.

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This man is beautiful and he undoubtedly tops any MOCs built by the powers we see nowadays

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My first experience with Bionicle was in the fifth grade. My teacher had a little mini-library, and inside was the first 3 novels. I didnā€™t even understand there were toys, i just saw the LEGO logo and though ā€œhm. must be good thenā€

Not long after reading them (i enjoyed them despite me not handling the sheer amount of jargon well), my local community center sold off a bunch of toys, including a bunch of bionicle parts in a bin. Right at the top? Onua Mata & Gali Nuva. Still some of my favorites. Having a vague knowledge of the story and enjoying playing/building MOCs with what i had, i needed to go deeper.

A few towns over thereā€™s this thrift store, and my mom, knowing i loved bionicle, saw this place post about getting some in on Facebook. she had one of her friends get them and hold onto them until we could come over, bless her heart. At this point I had some Bohrok, as well as lewa, Gali, and Pohatu.

After this i really started collecting, and the joy i felt then still hasnā€™t left. I swear getting Kopaka and Tahu in the mail and completing my Toa was some Inside Out ā€˜core memoriesā€™ type beat

reading this back, this is sooo sappy but i canā€™t hear you over the song in my heart carried over from child me

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My parents bought me the Toa Mata when I was 3 to indoctrinate me into becoming an engineer.

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