Invincibility Robot

[Dunjohn]

I'm not a fan of clone brands. In fact, I can't stand them and don't own any, in case they "infect" my collection. However, I'd never seen a Bionicles clone before, I had no idea they even existed. I presumed all clone brands tried to emulate System, but then I saw this on a shop shelf yesterday, and figured €2 was a fair price to satisfy my curiosity. Don't expect to see me do this too often

Another thing to keep in mind is that I'm not a Bionicle fan. I only own a couple of Pirraka that I got in a closing-down sale because I thought it might buff my Exo-Force brickset, but I've yet to use them. So do forgive my lack of knowledge in this area.

INFORMATION

Company: BELA

Origin: China

Set Name: Invincibility Robot

Pieces: 48

The thing that made me notice it on the shelf was the shape of the container; I don't know if it's exactly the same as a Bionicle pod, but it sure had me thinking for a second that it was the real deal. The Engrish on display isn't too bad, but it's still definitely Engrish.

This guy is one of six, though the shop I was in only had these brown guys. As far as I can see, the only differences between them are the colour schemes, and the mandibles.

The pod contains two bags and the instructions. The colouring was badly shifted on the front and back, but the instructions themselves on the inside were fine (or should I say, "grand show"). The instructions used the same kind of 3D graphics and occasionally used box-outs, but were still hard to follow. They included half of the instructions needed to combine this set with one of the others.

Here are the parts. I recognise a few parts from my limited collection, but I don't know which, if any, of the others are completely original. One elastic band is spare, and it includes two spinning blades, even though it can only hold/fire one at a time. The plastic is strong and sturdy but rough to the touch and well below LEGO standards of finesse.

A close-up on some pieces that I do have direct equivilents to hand for: Bela on the left, LEGO on the right. As you can see, there's quite a bit of flashing still intact on some Bela parts. I could have removed it with a hobby knife, but since most kids wouldn't, I left it there to see how it affected the build. You can also see the differences in texture and plastic quality. There's barely any shine on the Bela parts.

There are four different shades of brown among the parts, here compared with two LEGO rods. The ball joint's reddish-brown is pretty much the same as LEGO's. the dual-socket element in the top left is actually trans-brown. It's the only trans-brown element in the set, and I don't know why they bothered, because it's not visible on the finished model.

Specifically, this finished model. The other blade isn't visible because it's somewhere under my bed. At least the mechanism works. For a small set containing four shades of brown and two shades of red, the end product still manages to look garish; those two bright red bits stand out a little too much. Overall, the colours just seem so random, with no real thought put into applying them organically. I had fairly sore thumbs after assembling this guy, some of the connections took a lot of effort to make, a fact not helped by the flashing issue. The ball joints are squeaky and difficult to position right - it took me an age to get it standing even this straight, and the camera angle is hiding some remaining problems there. The elastic band is supposed to give the mandibles some snap but fails miserably; I could have positioned them closed for this shot and the band wouldn't have drawn them open again.

I'm so anti-clone that there's not really a chance of me getting any more of these, in fact I'm thinking of just leaving it here when I move back home at the weekend. For €2 it's quite a god toy, it could easily not have been Bionicle-compatible and still been worth the price.

[prateek]

I saw this here in Canada at some Chinese store for $8. That is too much considering you can buy a real one for $8.

[Thrund]

The only pieces which might not be direct clones are the main body and pincers, I'm pretty sure I recognise all the other parts. I only ever bought a couple of second-hand Bionicle sets to steal the ball-joints for a wargame modelling project, long before I really got back into Lego, so I'm not that familiar with the range but I've seen a lot of the smaller parts in bulk lots.

The €2 price is pretty silly, I've paid more than that for real Bionicle in charity shops, but it does look really rough.

[vexorian]

I have had close encounters with this brand. It is a bootleg. The plastic quality is simply terrible and the sets are almost impossible to disassemble. Color varies extremely between two of the same sets. It is not noticeable in this set, but kanohi masks use an even worse plastic that basically looks awful, plus I remember a pohatu nuva kanohi that was completely white but the front was painted in pink. If you ever try to use invincibility robot pieces with real Bionicle pieces, they will be either too loose or too tight and you seriously risk causing damage to your legit pieces when trying to disarm them.

The price is incredibly low, like around 2 USD for a 'canister' set. But even at that price it is theft, really. Completely recommend against even looking at one of these directly. Hearing that a Canadian store would try selling those at 8 $us actually offends me :/ .

I don't even get why they are so popular in here. In my city, you can get an used bionicle canister for less than an invincibility robot's cost if you know where to look ^^. But it seems people buy these... things (they keep popping up in the streets and even super markets), possibly because of lack of information.

Edit: Anyway, this set seems to be a bootleg of 8745 Roporak, the random color scheme is admittedly LEGO's fault, although I think that LEGO has been experiment with the 'brown' characters since that year with more or less success in some waves.

Edited August 5, 2010 by vexorian

[Emperor Claudius Rome]

I remember seeing some Bionicle clones at a dollar store one time. I think they're rarer.

[Wout]

Some two years ago, I saw some bionicle sets from Megabloks. As far as I know they didn't sold to well.

Edited August 5, 2010 by Wout

[Sisco]

Definitely a bootleg. They copied the entire Bionicle Series, along with Exo Force. Website: Bootleg Mania!

[prateek]

Definitely a bootleg. They copied the entire Bionicle Series, along with Exo Force. Website: Bootleg Mania!

Wow. They even copied the huge Technic sets

[vexorian]

Some two years ago, I saw some bionicle sets from Megabloks. As far as I know they didn't sold to well.

Hmnn that would be mega shifters. They seem to sell well. Plus I keep getting into them when buying bulk bags of used bionicle. They are a lot more technological than bionicle's biological attempts. I think I would be interested in neo shifters if the plastic did not look that bad in my eyes. Somehow, neoshifter's plastic seems very bad to me. Albeit some mega bloks pieces I found the other day looked like the quality had improved, so maybe newer neo shifters are better.

Neo-shifters are somehow different from bionicle, the ball joints are almost not compatible (mega's are smaller) so although you can attach a bionicle ball join to a mega socket, you can't do the opposite.

Of course, when I refer to neo-shifter's plastic quality, it is still MUCH, much better than "invincibility robot" plus all their designs are original and not copies.

Edit: Nice, coincidentally neo-shifters were renamed to neo-machines in a similar way than Bionicle got renamed to Hero Factory :) Some look a lot like bionicle but some don't and really, SEVEN pieces? I guess they are trying to compete with ben 10 : http://www.megabrands.com/Shop/MEGA_Bloks/Neo_Machines/

Edited August 5, 2010 by vexorian

[Peppermint_M]

As vexorian said. bootleg not clone. There is a difference (I do keep on saying. I really do).

[Sirius Black]

This reminds me of the Enlighten products

[Dunjohn]

*checks 8745 on Brickset*

Wow, yeah, this is definitely a bootleg. Don't worry, Peppermint_M, I do know the difference, thanks mainly to you I thought the model itself was original while using mostly LEGO-standard elements, I didn't realise it was an exact copy of an actual LEGO set. The spinning blade mechanic in particular was something I didn't know LEGO had ever done. Now I feel even worse for buying it