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I’ll be honest; I don’t really like Pokemon. I have nothing against the series, I just never had a Nintendo handheld growing up. I like the animated show, but at some point the show was moved over to the Irish language TV channel and Team Rocket’s antics are a lot less fun when you barely speak the language they’ve been dubbed into.
I’ve only played one of the games, Sword, back when it released in 2019. This isn’t a unique observation, but without any of the nostalgia or attachment to the series those games are just extremely easy JRPGs. Safe to say I dropped the game pretty quickly. It was ugly, slow, and way too easy.
Still, the franchise itself is inescapable; anime, mobile games, merchandising, it’s everywhere, not mind that every time a new type of dog is confirmed for a new game most of my friend group spends 30 minutes dissecting if its breath can be used for war crimes or something. On top of not really enjoying Pokemon, I’ve started to tune it out. But at some point, when I wasn’t looking, I think Pokemon became Bionicles?
If you aren’t familiar with Bionicles, were you living under a rock in the early ‘00s? Bionicles are a Lego sub-brand that ran for a decade during the ‘00s and then returned for a year in 2015. They’re an original universe created by the corporation as its own style of action figures, where you got to assemble the characters and had more ability to pose and move them. The series started out as, let’s call it, problematically inspired by Polyesian and Māori culture, but within a year or two carved out an awesome universe with a overarching narrative of heroes, monsters, history, and unique biomes all held together by biologica-magic-tech and the occasional splash of body horror. In short, Bionicles were rad. At least they were rad to ten-year-old me.
After last month’s Pokemon Direct I saw a lot of hubbub over the upcoming Scarlet and Violet’s new additions. At first I didn’t pay much notice of the discourse brewing in the community, then I saw the two version-specific Pokemon shown off during the show, Armarouge and Ceruledge. These two animals are both humanoid, armoured beings, one with blades for hands and one with an arm cannon, they are also infused with an element type and other powers I can only describe as mumbo-jumbo-science-magic. They are Bionicles.
These two lads were basically digital versions of Toa Norik and Toa Iruni or Axonn and Brutaka - biomechanical nightmare monsters sold to children as cool humanoid creatures. I couldn’t believe it. But most confusing of all to little old Pokemon-ignorant me: when did Pokemon become pseudo-human beings? So I started to dig deeper, and now I can’t help but believe that countless pokemon are just Bionicles in a different form.
Koraidon and Miraidon, the two legendary Pokemon for the upcoming game, bear a striking resemblance to the dinosaur-like Cahdok and Gahdok. I later found out that Koraidon and Miraidon transform into motorbikes? Let me tell you, there was no concept the Bionicle designers loved more than making a Bionicle ride another, more animalistic Bionicle which would oftentimes have tank treads, wheels, or the ability to fly.
As I went further and further back into the Pokedex I couldn’t stop finding comparisons. The entire Visorak line of toys look like someone combined the Pokemon Galvantula and Ariados and made them look twice as cool. “Spiders look like spiders,” I hear you say, and I do hear you, but there’s more. The mantid Pokemon Scyther, Scizor, and Kleavor wouldn’t look out of place in a lineup of Takadox, Ehlek, and Pridak. One of sets like the long forgotten Fikou, who was just a damn spider may as well be the also six-legged Spinarak. This is all without mentioning Tapu Koko a Pokemon inspired by Kūka'ilamoku, a traditional Hawaiian god. Hell, almost every bi-yearly release of Bionicles saw cheaper companion sets that were just little dudes. Pokemon is 90 percent little dudes!
The similarities even extend to game mechanics. While Pokemon evolve, Bionicles characters like Takua would change with the generations and the Bohrok line of villains evolved slightly between the winter and summer of 2002 to become the Bohrok-kal. [Editor’s note: that’s the work of a Metal Coat if ever I saw one]
The more I analyse all of this the more similarities I see between these two niche subcultures and while I have always disliked one, the other was a core part of my childhood. I built and played with these sets, discussed them with my siblings, and just like Pokemon fans fuse their favourite species in online generators, I used to fuse Bionicle sets to make my own combination creatures.
I started writing this feeling that Pokemon, at some point, turned into dull Bionicles. That my childhood fandom was the cool version of the Pocket Monsters. But the further I dive into the Pokemon wiki and see the depth of the history and lore, the more I see of fan projects keeping classic aspects of the series alive and discover some of the cool and mature ideas played with by this line of fake animal toys. I knew all this stuff was here, but it never registered with me as something that someone could appreciate beyond liking it because of nostalgia. But maybe, Pokemon, like Bionicles, was ahead of its time, playing with concepts beyond what most would expect for kids’ toys. Either that or my favourite childhood pastime is just as disposable and pointless as I once thought Pokemon to be. But that couldn’t possibly be true, could it?