Confession time: I have never in my life bought, built or even played with a LEGO Bionicle toy. It’s not that I have anything against those types of LEGO sets–I’ve just never been real interested in LEGO sets that aren’t your typical brick-built fare, so I’ve never cared enough to pay attention to one. Until now. My wife’s eyes lit up when she saw the new LEGO Legends of Chima Buildable Figure sets in person last night, and she insisted on coming home with LEGO Chima CHI Razar 70205 and building it right away. And you know what? It’s really not that bad. And by “not that bad”, I mean that I’m totally astounded that the LEGO CHI Razar figure is such a super-fun toy…

The Right:

Let’s start from the top: the packaging. I really like the resealable plastic bag that this LEGO Legends of Chima Buildable Figure comes in. The graphics on the box are really eye-grabbing and charismatic–so much so that they instantly sold my wife on buying her first LEGO set in well over a decade!

The bag takes up less space and is easier to store than the typical rigid LEGO boxes, and I have to believe that the bag leaves less of an environmental footprint than those cardboard boxes do. I love the little three-panel “story” that describes (sort of) how Razar uses a CHI crystal to transform into his enormous CHI Razar mode.

The LEGO 70205 CHI Razar set itself consists of 68 pieces. My wife literally built the set in under 10 minutes, which I thought was pretty speedy given that she hadn’t built a LEGO set in many years.

The CHI Razar figure build is super-fast and simple, which isn’t a bad thing: The fun with this type of LEGO toy isn’t all in the building–it’s in the posing and playing with the figure, and the quick build time lets you get to that fun almost instantaneously.

As soon as she had completed building LEGO Legends of Chima CHI Razar, my wife declared that it was pretty much the coolest thing ever. And after holding him and moving him around a bit, I sort of want to agree with her.

The LEGO Legends of Chima theme is really done a favor by these Chima large buildable figures. The big (pardon the pun) difference between these large buildable figures and the Chima minifigures are that these buildable CHI figures are vastly bigger and have so much more articulation it’s nearly unimaginable (unless, I guess, if you’re a Bionicle fan). These Chima CHI figures actually allow you to have the kinds of battles that you’d imagine warring animal tribes members would have, but can’t in minifigure form.

There’s so many ball-joints on this summer LEGO Legends of Chima toy that I’m really having trouble counting them all! Each wing is made up of five ball-jointed parts, and each individual feather can also be swiveled! CHI Razar has ball-jointed hips, knees, ankles, head, shoulders, neck, hands, and elbows (hopefully I didn’t miss anything there!). Overall, I’m counting 30 points of articulation–that’s quite a bit more than the seven moving swivel joints on a regular LEGO minifigure!

Almost any pose you can imagine that you would want to put Razar into is possible. Whether you want your LEGO CHI Razar to be doing a high ninja kick, doing a tribal dance, roaring to the heavens, or extending his wings fully for a flight, this LEGO CHI figure can pretty much do it all.

LEGO 70205 CHI Razar includes two weapons: a pair of short scythes. These are really lethal and fun-looking, and I thought the chains hanging from the bottoms of the handles added a little extra stylish flair to the scythes. I love posing the large CHI Razar Raven Tribe buildable figure dual-wielding these scythes, and I am sorely tempted to pick up the CHI Gorzan Gorilla Tribe figure so that I can get the extra pieces to create a double-sided scythe and flail for Razar to hold.

The Wrong:

There aren’t things that are “wrong” with this LEGO Legends of Chima 70205 CHI Razar buildable figure so much as “things that aren’t there”. For one, this figure looks like it was made to have an opening jaw. With a vicious-looking steel beak, I’m pretty stunned that LEGO didn’t think the include a jaw joint as part of CHI Razar’s articulation scheme. My wife said she thinks CHI Razar would be “one of the best figures ever” if he had an opening mouth, and I agree that that articulation really should have been included.

The other point of articulation that I think really would have helped that isn’t here is some sort of ball-jointed waist. Chima 70205 CHI Razar can take on a ton of poses and stances as it is, but he falls just a hair (or a feather?) short of being able to do everything I want him to because of the lack of a waist joint.

Finally, I don’t like that 70205 Legends of Chima CHI Razar’s back is left totally exposed. While it’s interesting to look at Razar’s wings from the rear, having no covering at all on Razar’s back looks clunky and wrong. One more piece to cover the back would have gone a long way to making this figure look a whole lot better from behind.

“Where Can I Buy It?!”

The LEGO Legends of Chima Buildable Figure sets are part of the Summer 2013 LEGO sets wave and are not yet widely available. For the moment, the only source for obtaining LEGO Chima CHI Razar and the other large buildable figures is getting lucky and finding an early shipment or purchasing from a reseller. These Legends of Chima figures ought to be available to most stores by mid-summer however.

Overall: CHI Razar 70205 is way different from the usual LEGO sets that I review, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The articulation on this 70205 LEGO Chima CHI Razar is in a whole other universe from what the LEGO Legends of Chima minifigures have, and it makes for an outrageously fun toy. With copious amounts of moving parts, neat weapons, and an overall cool aesthetic, this is a really great toy (if not your usual LEGO set). I would have loved an opening mouth, some waist articulation, and a covering for CHI Razar’s back, but otherwise this Chima large figure is just great (to my surprise). Technically LEGO CHI Razar is my wife’s toy and she wants to assign it an ‘A’, but I’m not quite as impressed, so I’ll compromise with a ‘B+’. If you’re at all on the fence about the LEGO Legends of Chima CHI figures, give one a try: you very well may be glad you did. I know I am.

GRADE: B+