Review:70784 by KZN02

BS01 Reviews

70784 Lewa – Master of Jungle

By KZN02 (Review Gallery)

It should be Master of AIR, but if you can stomach that, how does the new version of Lewa hold up?

Review: 70784 Lewa - Master of Jungle

The Box

Box is pretty much the same like the other Toa, with displaying the character in front in a dynamic pose with demonstration of set functions and combos and a comic on the back.

The Bits

Contents consist of 2 bags of parts, a torso piece, and the instructions booklet.

Lewa's mask differs a lot from his original, the gaps are much smaller and therefore covers more the head, you don't see much of a smile like on the Miru. It kind of makes sense if you see Lewa in the animated episodes on how he doesn't seem to have as much enthusiasm (but still retaining his joker status).

The X-Glider piece (also used as Gali's Shark Fins) is a pretty cool piece; it has a turbine on it that would make a great piece for VTOL MOCs. The shape also works well as part of a fin as used on Gali.

The Build

The Skull Spider comes in blue for Lewa. Nothing too special like any other one.

Assembled, Lewa stands as a good figure visually. I thought the long arms would be problematic as it was on the Inika build for the later half of BIONICLE back then, but the gearbox mechanism is attached much higher on the torso than Kopaka, so it negates the gorilla arms problem. (that being said, I recall the bio for Lewa back in 2001 described him as monkey-like). The talon pieces introduced back in Invasion from Below does a great job hiding the gears on the gearbox and does not hamper the turning whatsoever, very impressive engineering. The color scheme of green, silver, and yellow is decent and in no way an eyesore.

On the back, another talon piece is used as back cover, instead of the usual shell piece like on Kopaka. This is due to how high the gearbox is attached on the torso, meaning that there's no secure way of using said shell piece. It does feel like it's a pseudo-tail, but other than that, it doesn't do that good of a job covering the back.

The Battle Axes make great use of the new axe-head piece, though to be honest, I don't like how low it's being held in conjunction with the sword pieces. Probably would be better if the axe shaft was a bit longer.

The X-Glider makes a great wing suit for Lewa along with invoking Lewa Nuva's flight mode back in 2002. The swords work well in keeping him armed while flying. The X-Glider pieces in no way hampers his arms (other than if you consider weird double jointed poses) and can work well as arm blades if you imagine them as such.

With such a mode, you'd think Lewa would be able to turn his head up, but due to the way the gearbox is attached on the torso, his head articulation is really limited. It even makes removing his mask via the eyestalk difficult. Kind of a downer for a character that flies a lot (despite not being the Toa/Master of Air). For the X-Glider mode, you pretty much have to leave his head facing mostly forward, but it can still work.

The Skull Spider can be attached to Lewa's head, but like other Toa, doesn't have much head articulation, not really helped with Lewa's already limited articulation on that area.

Lewa's Golden Mask kind of works with the yellow on him and despite the silver.

The Brass Tacks

Did we like this set? No	What We Liked: *Distinct look *Good parts *Gearbox assembly...
	What We Didn't Like: *... except in the back *Poor articulation *Doesn't excel at anything other Toa figures do
	Other Comments:

Out of the 3 new BIONICLE sets I have, Lewa isn't my favorite, but it still gains the advantages of CCBS with articulation and the new gearbox system to elevate it beyond some of his past incarnations. Still worth a buy if you're a Lewa fan or want to get the X-Glider piece along with some talons and swords.

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