He hides his true emotions behind a permanent happy face. Poor guy.

Bionicles… sssssiigghhhhhh.

And so the great debate is...

LEE-wa
LAY-wa
or
LOU-wa

How did you say it as a kid, and which is the correct way to say it?

An axe never made sense for Lewa. Not only is it a cumbersome weapon for an Air-based character, but a machete makes more sense in a jungle. The axe would have fit better with Kopaka.

Im actually gonna beat GSR!

In the time before time, the Great Spirit Mata Nui created an island for his children, the Matoran/Tohunga (the Mcdonalds polybags in 2001). His children praised him, and named the island after him. However, his brother, the Makuta, was jealous. He cursed the Great Spirit into a great slumber, and terrorized the Matoran once he slept. However, there was hope, in the shape of the 6 Toa! The elders foretold their arrival to the island, and so they came. They arrived in the packaging of the sets, being round canisters.

The Matoran had 6 tribes, correlating to their powers. The fire tribe had a base of red, Water with Blue, Stone (Desert) with Tan, Earth(think Rock Raiders) with Black, Ice with White, and Air with Green. Lewa (Lee-wah) is part of the Air tribe, and wears the Mask of Levitation, the Kanohi Miru.

Sorry for barebones explanation, I'm trying to be fast

@MCLegoboy said:
"And so the great debate is...

LEE-wa
LAY-wa
or
LOU-wa

How did you say it as a kid, and which is the correct way to say it?
"

As a kid in 2015, lou-wa. Now, Lee-wa

@MCLegoboy said:
"And so the great debate is...

LEE-wa
LAY-wa
or
LOU-wa

How did you say it as a kid, and which is the correct way to say it?
"

LAY-wa is how it was pronounced in the promotional mini-CD, so I always pronounced it that way.

My very first Bionicle set in 2001! I remember getting him after school as a kid.

@TeaWeevil said:
" @MCLegoboy said:
"And so the great debate is...

LEE-wa
LAY-wa
or
LOU-wa

How did you say it as a kid, and which is the correct way to say it?
"

LAY-wa is how it was pronounced in the promotional mini-CD, so I always pronounced it that way."

Or if one has any kind of European influence on English, as I do, Leh-Vah.

Ah, Lewa... The last of the original Toa I got. Well, it was either him or Gali. I say it was Lewa, because It was his canister I got last. Man, the toa canisters are almost more nostalgic for me than the Toa themselves.

And I always pronounced it LEE-wah, the way it's said in BIONICLE: Mask of Light; The movie.

@PurpleDave said:
" @MCLegoboy:
I feel like the latter question has been sufficiently put to rest. And for the former, nobody had even conceived of this theme when I was a kid, but I thoroughly scoured the original mini-CD when the Toa first went on sale, so I got the official pronunciations of all six Toa. Obviously, that’s not much help for anyone who got into the theme after those went out of production.

@R1_Drift:
It’s not hard to beat him, if you check right around the time new sets are posted. It takes a while to type all that out (especially when it takes multiple posts to fit it all in), and he doesn’t appear to have everything written out in advance.

@TheOtherMike:
I had already landed on the solution of using 2L axles to lock the shoulder gears in place. I’m not going to waste any of the ~1000 black friction axle pins I own on that."

Maybe you'll waste one of your ~1,000,000, blue ones?

It still blows my mind how Bionicle's plot twist from 2008 was already set up in 2001.
This happened:
https://youtu.be/Yh5-7_elDSI

After all that time it was revealed that Mata Nui, the one from the legend R1_Drift describes... IS their universe. At least the one below the surface. The Island of Mata Nui from the first trilogy is just camouflage for his face. The Bohrok swarms from underground are a cleaning system. The city of Metru Nui his brain, complete with 'districts' focussing on stuff like learning, creativity, teaching etc. He wasn't 'asleep' but comatose.

And the canisters of these first Toa sets? Pills with tiny soldiers sent to fight Mata Nui's disease. Hence the name Bionicle, or Biological Chronicle

And all because one of the creators had experienced cancer himself and got the idea from his medication.

Eight years doesn't sound that long, but we've been through 16 waves, each with a part of the larger story. There had been movies, serials, games and books all with bits of story. And at that point we've had two trilogies snd one duology as story arcs.

This is why the story stuck with people. It had a vision so well thought out and communicated that there was no more funky regional difference in lore like Slizers/Throwbots. Even if the later years were written by Farshety on the seat of his pants, there always was a collaborative unified vision at the core.

Lewa and Tahu were the first two Toa my brother and I got — I chose Lewa because he's green. Like most kids that didn't understand that the Toa were supposed to be a team we pitted them against each other, which funnily enough is exactly how Lewa and Tahu in particular probably "get along" (i.e. don't) canonically.

Lewa Organa

Ooh, right in the nostalgia!

You know, given all the times Lewa got brainwashed in the story I’m surprised the only corrupted masks we’ve had are Hau and not a Miru or two so you can play out the scene in the Nui-Rama nest

Bionicle occurred during my deep, deep Dark Ages. I had no kids, no toys, and I didn't spend much time with anyone who had either.

So, my reaction to Bionicle is relatively the same as my first reaction. "That's NOT Lego!!"

I'm trying not be so judgmental. But, maybe it's the unicolored background for Bionicle sets, all I see is a mess (like for this set, a green mess).

Can anyone enlighten me regarding why they love it? Being serious, and trying to understand. I love Lego and robots, after all.

@StyleCounselor said:
"Bionicle occurred during my deep, deep Dark Ages. I had no kids, no toys, and I didn't spend much time with anyone who had either.

So, my reaction to Bionicle is relatively the same as my first reaction. "That's NOT Lego!!"

I'm trying not be so judgmental. But, maybe it's the unicolored background for Bionicle sets, all I see is a mess (like for this set, a green mess).

Can anyone enlighten me regarding why they love it? Being serious, and trying to understand. I love Lego and robots, after all."

It's the same interest that kids have for action figures. They can be posed, they can be played with, you can hold one in your hand and do all kinds of action. It's just a great toy overall. So a lot of people have fond memories because of that, plus there are tons of supporting material like comics, series and movies that just kept those people hooked.

So when you look at those from an adult collector's point of view, they're disappointing with easy builds and huge pre-made pieces, but you kind of had to be there at the time to get it. And probably be the proper age then too.

@Phoenixio said:
" @StyleCounselor said:
"Bionicle occurred during my deep, deep Dark Ages. I had no kids, no toys, and I didn't spend much time with anyone who had either.

So, my reaction to Bionicle is relatively the same as my first reaction. "That's NOT Lego!!"

I'm trying not be so judgmental. But, maybe it's the unicolored background for Bionicle sets, all I see is a mess (like for this set, a green mess).

Can anyone enlighten me regarding why they love it? Being serious, and trying to understand. I love Lego and robots, after all."

It's the same interest that kids have for action figures. They can be posed, they can be played with, you can hold one in your hand and do all kinds of action. It's just a great toy overall. So a lot of people have fond memories because of that, plus there are tons of supporting material like comics, series and movies that just kept those people hooked.

So when you look at those from an adult collector's point of view, they're disappointing with easy builds and huge pre-made pieces, but you kind of had to be there at the time to get it. And probably be the proper age then too."

Additionally, they're fun to build bigger figures with.
They're literally technic sets with balljoints and a more mechanical design for the action-figure focussed parts.
Just think of them as buildable technic action figures!

With just the official sets you could make impressive combiner models. Combining, mutating and upgrading are a part of the story and the parts are surprisingly versatile once you set your mind on creating figures with them. It's a lot easier to do than creating mechs from system parts, especially at the time when 7314 was the best mech you could make with the limited joints.
The theme is also highly collectible with a huge variety of mask and colors. Each of which you can then use in your builds.

My favourites as an adult are the larger sets. They're technic builds at their core, but build giant robots and creatures instead of vehicles. Often with NPU to turn 'single-use' parts into other parts of bodies.

Not only are they playable sets, but you can make anything to go alongside them as well, such as weapons, vehicles or even furniture!

@Brickodillo said:
"Lewa Organa"

Robot Lewandowski

After reading some of the comments here, I have to wonder how many of the people who use the term "Bionicles" will get on your case if you say "Legos."

@MCLegoboy said:
"LEE-wa
LAY-wa
or
LOU-wa"

LEE-wah, same as the movie, for me. I know what the official encyclopedia pronunciation is (i.e., the second one), but for me the movies were at the heart of the Bionicle experience, so their pronunciations are the ones that stuck hardest. I can't even remember how I pronounced it before the movie was released.

Lewa was the last of the Toa who I got - on a Buy-One-Get-One-Half-Price with my first Bohrok, 8563. Honestly, he's never been my favourite of the team, while each of the others have held that title for a time, no matter how briefly... I guess his personality just didn't click with me the way that some of the others did. Still cool, though, but just... not as much so as his fellows, to me.

That said, I *did* dress up as him for a jungle-themed not-Halloween party one year, so...

(And before anyone else asks how it was possible to dress up as a Bionicle character? There were instructions to make a (rather simple, admittedly) Tahu costume on the Lego Club website at the time, which I adapted. Cardboard mask, chest-piece, axe, large hand... and lots of green clothes underneath to complete the effect xD)

Ah, my second--and favorite--of the Toa Mata. I pronounced him LAY-wah as a kid.

But yeah, basically these guys were a huge part of my childhood; and no matter how detached I became from the story at the end, I'm still very glad that they existed ^^

@ElephantKnight:
I try to only use the blue ones on blue stuff if you can see even a sliver of the axle pin.

@StyleCounselor:
I have no kids either, I was an adult when they debuted, I ran a Bionicle news site, and I kinda let trying to stay LEGO Star Wars complete slide so I could focus more on Bionicle. I really like the Polynesian feel of the first couple years, the set designs were a massive improvement over the Throwbots and Roboriders that preceded it, and the parts were much more useful for making organic designs than the contemporary System parts (there’s been a massive influx of tiny detail pieces with useful curves and slopes that has helped System catch up since then, but even the basic cheese wedge didn’t exist back then).

Besides stuff that’s intended to fit within the Bionicle universe, I’ve built over 30 characters from all six SW films, ten TMNT characters, a dozen Asian dragons (based on an IP called Legends of the Five Rings), Kiki the ferret from an online comic called Sluggy Freelance, and a giant dragonfly.

@Phoenixio:
What the sets came with and what you could do with them are two very different things. I haven’t built much or kept up with the theme since early 2004, but from what I’ve seen pop up here and there, a lot of the people who still build with these parts could MOC circles around most of the people who were complaining about Bionicle not being “real LEGO” back in 2001. They may have a stagnant parts palette, but some of them have grown up with, and spent over two decades building with those parts, and figured out a lot of weird tricks and techniques along the way.

@StyleCounselor a couple other things of Bionicle's early story that drew in kids was its atmospheric story telling. Drop by BioMediaProject and download their restored builds of the Mata-Nui Online Game and give it a run, its only a few hours to play through the game from start to finish; and its early 2000's internet vestiges are on full display from simple textures and highly compressed audio files. But despite that it showcases how atmospheric early Bionicle was with its mystical music, the strange unexplained happenings on the island, the strange star charts and ominous legends of the villainous Makuta. The game developers took inspiration from Myst, and as such Bionicle was imbued with a similar spooky and almost unsettling vibe; albeit mixed with the brand of silly whimsy Lego is known for.

The theme lost a lot of that early mystery over time, but dang for an early pitch those first few years Lego and its partners really managed to sell that Bionicle took place in a world very different from our own with lots of mysteries and hooks to get a kid's imagination flowing. It all looks very quaint now by modern standards (it certainly isn't a Skyrim or Elden Ring type game by any means) but as a kid in 2001 it was a mind blowing experience.

Lewa had the best weapon of all the OG Toa for mask dueling: the axe head could just as easily hook on the opponent Toacs mask as Gali's claws, but with the additional reach provided by the handle.

@MCLegoboy said:
"And so the great debate is...

LEE-wa
LAY-wa
or
LOU-wa

How did you say it as a kid, and which is the correct way to say it?
"

At first, we said LOU-wa. Then when we got the promo cd, the narrator said LAY-wa. Then the movie came out and everyone is suddenly saying LEE-wah? I still say LAY-wa is the correct pronunciation

Yay! My very first Bionicle set^^

I remember it was the decision between him and Onua - Onua had the more interesting mask and those cool claws, but I always had a weak spot for green Lego sets (Jungle/Amazon becoming my favorite Slizer), so Lewa became my first Toa. He was the mini CD edition - oddly enough there were 2 different versions of those CDs: one black and white, the other full color, however the contents were identical.

I also got a bag of 8530 Kanohi Masks with him, it was the blue eyed bag version (yes there were 6 different packaging variants of the EU version alone) containing a Hau and Kakama both in blue with an orange brainstalk/holder 'Mask Totem' as they called it in the early days. I really liked the idea of mounting the masks on top of the canisters. Sadly that never carried on (except for the Nuvas).

The official advertising campaign (TV and Lego club magazine) started right on the first January days (alongside Life on Mars), however the actual release date wasn't clearly stated, so I was really excited when the finally arrived in February. It was really strange to find out, US had to wait almost half a year longer!

As far as I can tell, 'Lewa' doesn't seem to be a word of Maori origin, at least I couldn't find any. Maybe his name is simply derived from 'Levitate'? Anyways most of the time I prefer to pronounce him 'LAY-WAH' rather than 'LEE-WAH', as that was the way the narrator called him in the 2001 promo CDs.

@Binnekamp said:
" @Phoenixio said:
" @StyleCounselor said:
"Bionicle occurred during my deep, deep Dark Ages. I had no kids, no toys, and I didn't spend much time with anyone who had either.

So, my reaction to Bionicle is relatively the same as my first reaction. "That's NOT Lego!!"

I'm trying not be so judgmental. But, maybe it's the unicolored background for Bionicle sets, all I see is a mess (like for this set, a green mess).

Can anyone enlighten me regarding why they love it? Being serious, and trying to understand. I love Lego and robots, after all."

It's the same interest that kids have for action figures. They can be posed, they can be played with, you can hold one in your hand and do all kinds of action. It's just a great toy overall. So a lot of people have fond memories because of that, plus there are tons of supporting material like comics, series and movies that just kept those people hooked.

So when you look at those from an adult collector's point of view, they're disappointing with easy builds and huge pre-made pieces, but you kind of had to be there at the time to get it. And probably be the proper age then too."

Additionally, they're fun to build bigger figures with.
They're literally technic sets with balljoints and a more mechanical design for the action-figure focussed parts.
Just think of them as buildable technic action figures!

With just the official sets you could make impressive combiner models. Combining, mutating and upgrading are a part of the story and the parts are surprisingly versatile once you set your mind on creating figures with them. It's a lot easier to do than creating mechs from system parts, especially at the time when 7314 was the best mech you could make with the limited joints.
The theme is also highly collectible with a huge variety of mask and colors. Each of which you can then use in your builds.

My favourites as an adult are the larger sets. They're technic builds at their core, but build giant robots and creatures instead of vehicles. Often with NPU to turn 'single-use' parts into other parts of bodies.

Not only are they playable sets, but you can make anything to go alongside them as well, such as weapons, vehicles or even furniture!"

Thanks! Nice input. You're really getting me thinking about this. I like big robots, I cannot lie.

@stylecounselor

When I was a kid, "Bionicle" and "Lego" were two words that were basically interchangeable. Most of the sets I bought from 2001 to 2010 were Bionicle, and I learned to read from bionicle comics. The story was much more engaging than anything I'd seen at that time, and I was heartbroken the few times I missed a comic issue since I moved and the magazine never made it into the mail. Basically, I have the nostalgia for Bionicle that older afols have for space/pirates/castle, and future afols will have for Ninjago.

Moving past nostalgia and basic literacy, building with Bionicle pieces (and hero factory, Ben 10, star wars figures) has a cool style of taking a big chunky piece, filling in the gaps with medium pieces, and then filling the remaining gaps with even smaller pieces. It's a kind of style I can't really build with system pieces, and in the hands of a skilled builder can look convincingly mechanical and organic. I also like to use the wide variety of ball and socket pieces for internal structures in builds. Sometimes they're really solid, sometimes they're wildly illegal connections that look pretty and fall apart if you look at them the wrong way. I think those issues are more on the beauty over strength attitude I used to have as a builder than on the actual system itself. Lime green on the other hand...