Something i really like about 2001-2003 Bionicle is how, within the context of the full story, it has such a comfortable but bittersweet layer of separation. It has its own unique mythology that the turaga made up after their civilization was literally rebooted, and it has its own separate physical place of existence after said civilization was removed from it's original universe.
The Mata Nui matorans lived in a peaceful culture and resided in primitive huts, in tune with nature on their beautiful island, with a simple creation story as the core of their beliefs. They lived in a utopia, blissfully ignorant of what was and what's to come.
The Mata Nui arc is nostalgic and favoured by many Bionicle fans, myself included, and coincidentally its story almost reflects how we often look back on our childhood as a simpler time, but in truth times were never simple.
“In the replicas of Kanohi from the period of late Metru Nui, a particular motif can be found, one that is shared by most of the known specimens. It consists of a circular element with a smaller circle inside intersected by an oblong shape. I believe this motif to represent either a piece of additional technology that was integrated into the masks, or a common design pattern that became a leftover from said technology, after it stopped being implemented.
If we inspect the placement of the components that have said motif, it becomes apparent that they are most commonly located once on each side of a mask, near areas where the audio receptors of its wearer would usually be. Furthermore, a replica of Kanohi Ruru from the same period appears to have a similar yet complementary shape, like a negative, located at the mouth section. This leads me to form a theory that those components, in their original form, were responsible for enhancing audio properties of Oropi who wore Kanohi modified this way. Masks containing the convex shape would enhance hearing of their users, while the ones containing the concave shape, like the mentioned Ruru, would enhance their speaking.
The only Kanohi replica that has the hearing enhancement component placed somewhere different than on the sides is that of a Komau, which has a single component located on the top surface. This particular mask is said to depict the version worn by Toa Metru Onewa, who during his time as a Matoran was a Po-Metru carver, so a configuration like this one could have enhanced his awareness of sounds coming from up top, like those of rocks falling down, which would be useful for Onewa's profession.
Similarly, we can compare the Kanohi Ruru from this collection to its alleged historical wearer, Toa Metru Whenua. He, in turn, used to be an Onu-Matoran archivist, known for giving tours around the Great Archives, so a modification that enhanced voice strength would have allowed him to be heard better by the tourists he spoke to.
An interesting observation is that amongst the commonly known replicas representing Kanohi worn by the last Toa Metru in their state as Toa Hordika, only Mahiki Hordika of Toa Matau retains the discussed components from its regular form, unlike Hordika mask worn by Toa Vakama, Onewa and Whenua. If we were to believe the theory that the components could have been merely design leftovers, it isn't outside the realm of possibility that from all the mentioned Toa Metru who had those kind of designs in their Kanohi, only Matau had actual enhancement components and so they retained their form even when the mask underwent Hordika mutations.”
(cannot seem to find any on the web, or I'm bad at finding things, so)
There is mainly two head types in the pack, Matoran Universe head and Agori/Glatorian head. Had to differentiate them cause apparently they have different eye heights and the latter type is a lot less forgiving in space
The Matoran Universe head is compatible with Mata, Metru, Okoto connections (except Hewkii Mahri's Garai, rip, also prolly Teridax's Kraahkan). The Agori/Glatorian head is compatible with Agori/Glatorian, HF Breakout, HF Brain Attack (screw HF 2.0 and 3.0 heads)
(Edit) Things to note about the models:
-Garai is incompatible due to space needed for the Okoto's mask connections, may be revised soon
-had to cut a bit of the bar from the HF Brain Attack to make the head fit into Agori/Glatorian helmets
-Agori/Glatorian heads are smushed to make sure Brain Attack visor+helmet fits
-the heads are a little bit taller (half an axle/pin taller) for light pipings
-will prolly edit the models soon so the light pipings will work better, especially for the nyan head
-idk why but stud.io seem to make the parts ricochet wildly when inserted
Also bonus torso piece and foot, its articulated (why haven't they thought of this)
Also apparently every rendering software I had broke when I tried exporting the stud.io model for render
File is here, idk what other free anonymous file hosting sites there is, remind me if you want it reuploaded since PixelDrain only hosts it for a few months
It's a little guy :D
More seriously, it's a monster. All monsters in Cassette Beasts can be "recorded" so you can turn into them!
"A Jumpkin is a special monster created by smearing the goo from another monster, Jellyton, on a normal pumpkin. It's pretty much the only monster with this kind of capture method.
Jumpkins are just funny little guys that, as their name implies, jump around! They have such zest for life. A jumpkin tape can be ""remastered"" into two other monsters, Beanstalker and Draculeaf."
Karzahni:
in the time before time, when the evil mayor impersonator makuta was planning his plan to get the little robot meat guys in their little memory-erasing containers and before he'd impersonated the mayor (i think; don't quote me; i am Not Good at the timeline) he was like "hey i should make a plant that will force these four-foot fuckers towards the big sports and politics stadium under threat of murder so i can easily get my bastard robot cops to force them into the amnesia balls" and then he made karzahni. who was too smart and cool and powerful. so he did not get deployed. he is named after the legendary Lego Hell and Lego Satan where Bad And Naughty Disabled Robots Go For "Repairs" And Never Return. it's expensive to copyright names. they had to double up on occasion. or triple up. or quadruple up. anyway so evil mayor impersonator who is also ANOTHER Lego Satan but that's besides the point, creates this plant. but the plant is too smart. so he puts it somewhere and forgets about it and makes the morbuzakh
NEW PARAGRAPH anyway so basically most creatures in this universe are immortal bar murder and fucked-up circumstances. no old age, basically. but this plant has one, because Bionicle Satan (Not Karzahni) makes his shit with limited lifespans so they can't wait for ten thousand years gathering their power and then kill-murder him to death. six big robot meat superheroes fight a fucking big monster in a tunnel. the cool smart one who used to be a teacher gets poisoned. but because karzahni (plant) is so fucking cool it can make an antidote. and it holds the antidote hostage in exchange for Cool Oil, which is oil from the apocalypse planet where the robot meat guys' creators are from, but they fracked too hard and split the planet into three pieces so that's a bit fucked-up and yet besides the point. anyway they get the magic juice and give it to karzahni (plant). previously in the story (but later in the timeline; this is a TWO-YEAR FLASHBACK EPISODE BABY) some other robot meat superheroes took a dunk in this cool fucking water and got mega-boosted powers. super-superheroes. but that's because god exists and has predetermined what can happen in each individual's life. those guys got Good Results From Applied Goo. karzahni (plant) does not. it just fucking. dies. it is then chopped up to make some lorries float so they can take the amnesiac sphere guys up to a cool new island they found, because their old island got FUCKING WRECKED
NEW PARAGRAPH anyway a cutting of karzahni survived (known as karzahni ii) with all the memories and shit of the real one and just sort of goes. FINE. i will join you, Lego Satan (not karzahni but the evil mayor impersonator) in gaslighting this mentally ill man into thinking he's short and his life is a lie in order to get the time travel device he made out of some magic fucking frisbees. karzahni took on the role of the morbuzakh. then the guy's like "this is bullshit" and gets thrown off a cliff but Karzahni II catches him and goes "hey. everything's alright. i tortured and killed a guy and he said you're doing good and everything is gonna be okay" and then the evil mayor impersonator (who by this point has not been impersonating the mayor for like. at least a week?) kills it. again. for real this time
Rebuilt matoran are much more fun to pose. However making sub assemblies for each character is a headache...
The VC parts pack definitely makes for more posable mata figures. Here's Macku, Gali, and Tamaru talkin about girl things. Like how best to take down a swarm of bohrok.
I was gonna post the rest of the mata and the company, but apparently the ensemble file got corrupted. :/
I’ve been thinking about how each metru is a slighly different flavour of sci-fi aesthetically speaking. (Heads up, the links go to a wiki unfortunately hosted on Fandom, don’t click if you wish to avoid that site)
Ko-Metru: Cyber Glacier (fairly self explanatory)
Ga-Metru: Cyberprep x cybercore (with a slight Nautical influence in the lighthouse styled architecture)
Le-Metru: Retrofuturistic ( check out those mushroom towers)
Onu-Metru: Dark Aero x Hexatron ( lots of black tech with glowy bits)
Po-Metru: Post-Apocalyptic x Decopunk ( not literally post apocalyptic pre Great cataclysm, but evokes the aesthetic through the appearance of structures that are falling into disrepair or abandoned unfinished. But the art and architectural style seems to have an art deco influence)
Ta-Metru: Heatwave x Dieselpunk ( industrial factory looking structures combined with the glow of lava and furnaces)
The dieselpunk for Ta-Metru one’s not quite perfect, as I was looking for something that evokes factories and industry more than vehicles, and I feel like there’s maybe a missing component for Ga-metru as well ( it’s not quite solarpunk but perhaps something adjacent to it?)