Simulacra: Bootleg BIONICLES - Xiang Yu, I presume?

Pretty sure that this guy is this character from Dynasty Warriors.

Pretty sure.

But whether he is or not, he's pretty cool.

As far as the overall build, I have to say this is amongst the most sturdy bootlegs I have. Likely this is because his build is a variation on the same basic skeleton of every CCBS figure. It's a design that works, so why mess with it, a la my last two reviews. He is, of course, not quite LEGO quality, so there are some shaky bits. The axle on one of the red shoulder guards (more on them in a moment) is loose in even official parts, a problem that is unfortunately not quite solvable (though now that I think about it, perhaps plumber's tape). There's also a kind of odd addition to the leg that doesn't quite work, though I think I've figured it out in rebuilding the figure.

And speaking of rebuilding, let's look at some of the features of this guy. First, I realized, as I was dismantling Mr. Yu, that I've never actually shown the basic torso structure of all of these models.

At first I wasn't a fan of the little addition at the bottom. Why not simply use the larger CCBS torso? But then I noticed that all of the characters now have this extra spot for armouring, and it's a spot that really suits the East Asian style of armouring that we see throughout that region's martial history. So that's one of the cool things about these original builds coming from China - the designers, building on the very basic structure of one of these figures, have rethought the basic build through a different cultural lens. Armouring of CCBS figures follows a very European tradition of armouring. This small addition to the torso allows another culture to be expressed in the build.

The leg, once again, is a bit weird. The double ball joints at the bottom there are meant to hold some large armour, but the positioning of the front ball doesn't allow any natural ankle flexibility. In rebuilding it, I instead but the front armour on the main ball, and raised the back armour up a bit. The difference is negligible. That aside, the legs function very well, though the dual friction piece to accommodate the leg armour is a bit weird.

And here's the pieces that are cool and new to this set:

Aside from the hands (of course), and the new prints on the armour (of course), and the new face (of course), the neatest bit of this set is the red Hero Factory Brain Attack mask that serves as shoulder armour. These, I think, are only officially available in gold, so that's neat. The Black sword is also great, and I should mention that the sword build for this figure is pretty cool. I've already copied it a few times for my own builds. The red triple axle piece is cool, but not particularly well-molded.

Overall, a decent model. Not quite as much new stuff, but a much more satisfying build, in that when I finished him, out of the bad, he actually stood up properly and didn't have bits falling off of him.

We'll hit up Lu Bu next.

Simulacra: Bootleg BIONICLES - Chu Han Han Xin?

The name I give this figure is the one that's on the AliExpress (who, no, are not paying me for the advertising) page. There's no video game reference, and I have found characters who just might be this one in both Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI and Destiny Warriors.

So I'm just going to start headcannoning the names I'm giving them. Last week's is now officially "That Blue Guy." And today's is now Chu Han Han Xin.

I've got a couple more pictures of the full model this time, since they're much more poseable than That Blue Guy (see, it's catching on):

What do we make of Chu Han Han Xin?

Well, first, a much sturdier figure than That Blue Guy. This is evident just from the fact that I can pose them a in at least 2 poses. You never know...we might discover a third one of these days. What this of course speaks to is a better quality of ball and socket pieces, though even on the bottom picture you can see that I've had to replace those white balls with the official black ones to increase the figure's sturdiness. It, too, has awesome poseable hands, this time in black (as I'm writing this I've just pulled the figure apart and I'm dying to make something using all these bits!), and a great selection of CCBS armour in light blue like last week's figure, and light grey, another colour not produced officially by LEGO. Further, as you can see in the pictures, the shoulder armour is the helmet from Hero Factory's Furno 3.0.

The cons? I'm coming to realize that even though these articulated hands are amazing to look at, they're not actually great for holding tools. Not that every MOC has to hold a tool, but it's always fun to make them. So, from an aesthetic point of view the hands are amazing. From a practical stance? Not so much. Then there's that antenna-looking get-up on the helmet. I like it, don't get me wrong, but these pieces just did not want to sit still. Very little friction going on up there.

But that's not the worst of it. That is, as with last week's model, left for the legs.

The arm and body construction are much the same as That Blue Guy. But the leg construction differs vastly.

At top is the armoured leg from the model. It looks pretty cool. It's hard to see, but those feet are actually a really, really dark purple, and the thigh armour is pretty close to original Toa Mata brown. But then shorn of the armour, you get...well, I'm not sure. I can see why this build - it opens up possibilities for attaching armour on the leg. But it also removes the knee, kind of in the same way that That Blue Guy's legs do, but much sturdier. Any leg poseability for this figure comes in the hip joins and ankle joints, which is super-awkward without the knee. When I get around to rebuilding this model, that leg will be undergoing some radical reconstruction.

What else? There's the tool (I've stopped calling them weapons - the original Toa and Turaga had tools, and I think it's important to think about the way we normalize weaponry. Isn't this kind of the problem that the United States is having right now?).

Kind of a generic staff, though the three prongs up at the top are cool, in that they're pieces not traditionally available in those colours. I'm actually not even sure if the little one with the barbs is even an official LEGO piece. I don't know that I've ever seen it outside of this set and last week's. Again, when I rebuild this, I'll be thinking about ways of making this staff much more agreeable to being held in the figure's hand.

A final wrap up of the bits and pieces that are different and interesting that come with the set. The two skeleton pieces in white there are very cool, though they're also amongst the more flawed pieces in these bootleg sets. They're nice for decoration, but if you're looking to be able to manipulate a figure, they're probably not the way to go. The real prize of this set, hands aside, is the armour. Look at the cool prints and colour of that light grey stuff. It's going to make for some fantastic MOCs. Once I've bought one of these figures, I bookmark some of them to a wishlist called "Another, Perhaps?," reserved for stuff like this that comes with parts I simply can't get anywhere else. Add in the dark brown armour, the big round gold shoulder pieces, and an axle that is dark purple (as well as the feet!), and it's worth what I paid, certainly.

The other three sets in this series are not quite so gifted with new parts, as they use colours that are official colours. But we'll get to that next time.