Happy 15th anniversary, 2006 storyline!

[Lenny7092]

What it says here. Happy 15th anniversary to Bionicle’s 2006 storyline! It’s where six of our Matoran friends, Jaller, Hahli, Kongu, Hewkii, Nuparu, and Hewkii, became new Toa called the Toa Inika, and they went to fight against a team of six evil lizard monsters that are counterparts to Toa called the Piraka. The Piraka are from a species called Skakdi, and they were once members of the Dark Hunters until they went rogue. The Piraka are Zaktan, the mysterious air-using leader who can turn into tiny insects called Protodites; Hakann, the egoistic fire-using guy who can shoot mental blasts; Vezok, the water-using spy who can absorb and copy powers; Avak, the stone-using engineer with the big cheeks who can make prisons that can counter his enemies’ abilities; Reidak, the strong earth-using hunter who can adapt to things; and Thok, the ice-using guy who can make inanimate objects to life and use them as weapons. The storyline happened because the Toa have to find a Legendary Kanohi with a mind of its own called the Kanohi Ignika, aka the Mask of Life, to heal the Great Spirit Mata Nui to prevent him from dying, otherwise their world will be collapsed. The mask is located in the island of Voya Nui, where the Piraka are here to steal it. They used Makuta Teridax’s essence called Antidermis to enslave all but six of the island’s Matoran residents. The Piraka teamed up with a rogue guardian of the Mask named Brutaka. The Toa Nuva couldn’t defeat these guys. Things get worse when a seventh but rogue Piraka named Vezon, who is actually a part of Vezok and is crazy, like the Joker from DC Comics and Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, got the mask and has an enlarged Rahi spider called a Fenrakk as his steed. The Toa got help from another guardian and Brutaka’s ex-friend named Axonn, who is Bionicle’s own Hulk from Marvel. The Toa freed the people and faced many battles, including one with Umbra, who is a guardian of the mask who has light powers. When the Toa reach to Vezon and fight him, Fenrakk was turned by the mask into the mighty Kardas Dragon. However, the Toa defeated all of the Piraka and the dragon and Matoro got the mask because it chose him to be its bearer, but the dragon hurt Matoro, and this caused the mask to fly into the ocean, which caused the events of the 2007 storyline, with the Barraki and Mahri Nui, to happen. 

The storyline has five chapter books, five comic books, a video game called Bionicle Heroes, which is one of the best things that Bionicle has, and a bunch of online games, including the Voya Nui Online Game. Sadly, there is no direct-to-video movie for this for some reason (why?).  However, the 2006 storyline is one of my favorite storylines because of the content that it has. This year also was the last year to have a combo Titan set, which is Vezon and Kardas, for some reason (why? Because of the budget?).  But, I love the sets. The spines, glowing red eyes, and glowing teeth of the Piraka are cool. So are the squishy masks and light-up swords of the Toa Inika. We also got some promotional videos, like “Yo, yo, Piraka”, which is a rap song with the Piraka, and The All-American Rejects’ song with the Toa Inika called “Move Along”. These songs are awesome.  

How do you feel about the storyline? What’s your favorite moment and set? I love the fights, and I love Reidak, Nuparu, Axonn, Brutaka, and the Vezon sets the most. The video game is quite awesome for how complete it is compared to Bionicle: The Game in 2003 because nothing gets uneven. The game may have glitches and it’s a bit repetitive and tedious, but it’s a very good game, and it should be remastered to have better graphics, set accuracies, dialogue with voices, and get rid of the glitches. I love that the game references to Bionicle’s past years before 2006, despite Bionicle not having its 5th anniversary celebrated for some reason. We got a lot of fan favorites in that year, and this is the first year where we got sets that have bendable arms and legs and can have human-based body structures at the same time (we always see people with stiff limbs, Toa Metru’s shoulders being in a V-shaped position, and uneven arms from the past years before 2006). I also love that the Toa have their own evil lizard-based counterparts to fight, despite the monsters having limited elemental powers that require using certain weapons or others. Fond memories, and I wish we can have that again if everything goes well in Lego Ideas’ voting campaign with Bionicle as a choice this year.  
 

That year was also the only year to have a Great Being in a set, who is happened to be in in disguise of a Matoran named Velika. 
 

That year was the second year to have play sets, where we have mini-figures that are made of many pieces rather than one or two (2005 was weird). 
 

This year also is the first year to have canister villains with individual personalities rather than swarm enemies.
 

We got some combo models, and one of them, Irnakk, was sold as a set that has the exclusive golden Thok spine and Technic tubes. It’s a pity that Jaller, Kongu, and Matoro don’t have a combiner.  If they did, I would imagine it would be a bulky-looking Toa, like Jovan. Plus, how come Irnakk got a set box rather than having the other three-canister set combiners get them, too.

This year is basically the last G1 year to have new designs before the other years used much of the same pieces.

Edited February 7, 2021 by Lenny7092
Forgot the tags and other stuff.

[TERIDAX941]

Personally I (and my brothers) LOVED this year. The order in which the sets were released went perfectly with the storyline, with the Piraka and the Matoran being released first, and then finally the Toa Inika arrived to save the day. Much better than the heroes being just there, and the villains being released later like 04-05. The titan sets were epic, we ended up only getting Brutaka, but man, he was epic! It's still my dream to collect Vezon and Fenrakk. We did get Irnakk though, and the golden piraka head is also quite epic!

I also enjoyed the LEGO system sets that included the Toa and Piraka in minifigure size. My favorite was the Piraka Stronghold, lots of play function, the giant piraka head gate, and the spider chariot to name a few. The "minifigures" were a lot better than the -05 hordika figures too.

Storywise, it was epic. I loved the Piraka as villains, it was so nice having villains that weren't a part of a horde or swarm (the Kal don't count). They were their own masters and they were on a rampage. We collected all the books and waited with baited breath to receive the next comic edition to see what happened next. The introduction of the Mask of Life was really cool and it was epic seeing the Nuva back. I was even okay with how they were defeated by the Piraka, it just set up how powerful those guys were (even though it still hurts reading about their defeat...)

All in all, it was a great year!

[Bambi]

41 minutes ago, TERIDAX941 said:

The order in which the sets were released went perfectly with the storyline, with the Piraka and the Matoran being released first, and then finally the Toa Inika arrived to save the day. Much better than the heroes being just there, and the villains being released later like 04-05.

This right here. 

I remember having a blast with this year. I thought it was cool to see some of the Matoran from Mata Nui becoming Toa, I loved Bionicle Heroes (even if it really isn't that good of a game, any Bionicle was good Bionicle), the sets, and the novels. The only thing I wasn't big on was the new art style for the comics; it's also too bad that the Inika build took over for pretty much the rest of Bionicle's lifespan. 

[Lenny7092]

On 2/6/2021 at 10:40 PM, Bambi said:

This right here. 

I remember having a blast with this year. I thought it was cool to see some of the Matoran from Mata Nui becoming Toa, I loved Bionicle Heroes (even if it really isn't that good of a game, any Bionicle was good Bionicle), the sets, and the novels. The only thing I wasn't big on was the new art style for the comics; it's also too bad that the Inika build took over for pretty much the rest of Bionicle's lifespan. 

Yes. 2006 was a good year where Bionicle’s building system has evolved, despite the Inika build being repetitively reused. 
 

On 2/6/2021 at 9:53 PM, TERIDAX941 said:

Personally I (and my brothers) LOVED this year. The order in which the sets were released went perfectly with the storyline, with the Piraka and the Matoran being released first, and then finally the Toa Inika arrived to save the day. Much better than the heroes being just there, and the villains being released later like 04-05. The titan sets were epic, we ended up only getting Brutaka, but man, he was epic! It's still my dream to collect Vezon and Fenrakk. We did get Irnakk though, and the golden piraka head is also quite epic!

I also enjoyed the LEGO system sets that included the Toa and Piraka in minifigure size. My favorite was the Piraka Stronghold, lots of play function, the giant piraka head gate, and the spider chariot to name a few. The "minifigures" were a lot better than the -05 hordika figures too.

Storywise, it was epic. I loved the Piraka as villains, it was so nice having villains that weren't a part of a horde or swarm (the Kal don't count). They were their own masters and they were on a rampage. We collected all the books and waited with baited breath to receive the next comic edition to see what happened next. The introduction of the Mask of Life was really cool and it was epic seeing the Nuva back. I was even okay with how they were defeated by the Piraka, it just set up how powerful those guys were (even though it still hurts reading about their defeat...)

All in all, it was a great year!

I agree that 2006 is better than 2005. I also loved that the Piraka aren’t awake or horde enemies. They’re villains with personalities, like the Titan villains. It was interesting that they came before the Toa Inika. Same with 2007. It was also nice that we went back to the present, and we saw the Toa Nuva try to fight the Piraka and Brutaka, but they couldn’t and then the Inika fought them instead. 
 

To be honest, the Inika are basically Bionicle’s own Teen Titans from DC Comics, and Young Avengers and New Mutants from Marvel, and Hero Factory’s Alpha Team’s rookie division is sort of like the Toa Inika. I wish the Toa Nuva could have trained the new Toa rookies, but the Toa learned how to fight like Toa, so yeah.

[Lorentz]

I was about 10 years old when the Piraka designs got leaked, and I genuinely prayed to God that their designs were just prototypes because I thought that their faces were so ugly and non-Bionicle.