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Set Review: 2232 Raw-Jaw
 Sunday, October 30th, 2011 at 7:39pm by Andrew, BZPower News Manager[Source: DeeVee] This Sunday we bring you a break from the endless stream of Toys 'R' Us sales (I'm both happy and sad that Bricktober is over), and bring you another insightful set review. Blog Leader DeeVee took some amazing pictures of Raw-Jaw and wrote some words to go along with it. Read on to treat your eyes to a feast of pixels and prose! Presentation
Raw-Jaw comes in the same size box as Waspix and Fangz. It is a consistent box size for this villain price-point, and I am totes down for that. For the reals bro. These boxes are large in an upwards kind of way, but not in an outwards kind of way, and about normal in a depth kind of way. They fit nicely on the shelves, if they haven't all been sold, of course.
On the front of the box, Raw-Jaw is all like, "look at me inquisitively staring on this branch and stuff. And oh look, behind me is another one of our weird gorillephant species all chilling from a vine." On the back of the box, he's all like, "hey bro, I'm all being controlled and whatnot and I am going to get you, wolfman hero guy. Fo' sho." There's also a quick comic that shows what the current story flow results in. Witch Doctor is scary, so there's a city, and robots, and a broken planet. Silly broken planet, you're not supposed to explode! The legal disclaimers, perhaps scared of the impending catastrophe with this planet exploding thing, have migrated to the right side of the box. But you know what? Even when they're scared and in hiding, I can't help but find them beautiful in their own way. Building
Raw-Jaw, at the very least, is like, a slightly different build than we're all sort of used to. He's got armour in places we're not used to armouring up. Shoulders, torso, fingered hands, tails, man, this stuff is getting straight up ridiculous in here.
Look at our guy, modeling and being all humble and modest and stuff. This guy, I tell you what. Raw-Jaw, like all the Hero Factory and other constraction figures we've had over the decade, is like rice krispies without the crackle, he just snaps and pops into place so quickly you'll be like, "oh man, did he really just go from parts to gorillephant so fast oh man that is like so crazy bro." I get that what we're going for is, "quick action figure for the kids to get all playful and roleplaying with," and I can be down with that, as long as we still have the fun and more complex builds available too. When I was a kid back in the day's day, we still enjoyed the complex stuff too, so I like to pretend that kids nowadays can still get down with some complexitude. Set Design
Oh man, our main bro Raw-Jaw here is all sorts of crazy treasure. He is hoarding all sorts of mad crazy parts up in here.
He's got that gorilla mask with the big fangs, he's got that quaza spike, he's got some Ben 10 small feet in red, he's got some of those big paw pieces in red, he's got those big wrist things in red, he's got those black spike decorations for decoraging things, he's got those mad-awesome-crazy sockets with ball-joint endings, he's got those tusk pieces my mainest bro Bill uses as wings, and he's got his own weird scaly/elephantine rubber skin detailed armour part his head gets all up on. This stuff is crazy man. He's also got a good handful of red cladding shells in sizes we've already had them in, but I'm not going to turn down more of them. I love these things. Way hard. Plus some Exo-force robot arms in the newer silver, and some more cladding in the newer gunmetal. I'm telling you, this gorillephant is just full of stuff and he's just holding it all together to share with you. The gorilla themed helmet is kind of cool. It looks so angry? I love the eye ridges and the tusk/fangs. And the wrinkled snout is so boss it's in charge like Black Six. That's crazy boss.
The set itself is a different approach from what we're used to. All those Bionicle sets that wished they were gorillas don't have anything on this guy, who is actually a gorilla. Oh, and an elephant. Yeah, that's a burn on you, Bionicle sets with lame proportions. This set does gorilla like gorillas are supposed to be done. No wannabes here. No sir.
Raw-Jaw rocks the gorilla thang like he was born a gorillephant. Which I suppose he was. He can do the more traditional mammalian quadriped pose, or he can rock the gorillephant pose. Which is how you should remember to pose him when you take photos, so you don't end up with two sets of photos in two different types of poses in basically the same front and quarter-side show-off poses. But it's cool. You'll just share them all. Raw-Jaw's resilient. The short hind legs coupled with the powerful front arms and huge fists really bring the gorilla half of "gorillephant" to life. This is a guy with a powerful and strong front half. Those fists will maul you like a guy with big fists can maul things. The red is vibrant, and bright, but I can't help but think that a different colour scheme might have been more appropriate for our gorillephant main man. But I guess cool dudes are usually red, like Bill Furno or Innerrayg or Dave. So I guess it kind of fits. And make no mistake, Raw-Jaw is cool. Well, most of him. His empty-eyed stare will haunt your dreams like a scary thing that you can't stop thinking about and so end up dreaming about. The lack of a real head underneath the face mold is a little frustrating, and as neat of an idea as attaching them to armour cladding is, it leaves them with this emptiness that is all like some sort of crazy cavernous opening that is waiting to swallow you and digest you for like one thousand years and stuff. And that jaw, man. It really is raw. Rawer than that forced pun, bro. The elephantine tusks are connected to the head via a Hordika brain part, and I just can't see how this guy gets food into that head. Those tusks would be super in the way, and then he's got those crazy large intense canines. I mean, I feel a little impeded just thinking about it. And I'm not even planning on feeding myself to him. The tusks are fun, but they seem comically large, and the Hordika brain connection allows them to move with his lower jaw, and that just ends up being all sorts of awkward. But I'm mostly won over by the sweet, sweet gorilla action. Raw-Jaw is truly the real heir of our beloved Bionicle sets and their awful proportions. I enjoy that Raw-Jaw is clearly a silverback gorillephant. That's a super neat touch. Playability
Raw-Jaw is an action figure with an incredible range of movement. Unfortunately, both his knees and elbows are connected in the least convenient direction possible, and impede quite a bit of awesome posing action, forcing Raw-Jaw here to be all unable to bend and pose the way it feels he should naturally. That's one of his biggest flaws, and since it impedes his playability more than anything else, we find it here, in the section that regards playability. He can still hit up some wicked sweet moves.
Man, look at him, performing like it's Shakespeare up in here. Like, he's performing as if all the various authors who all pretended to be the one Shakespeare were in attendance and whatnot.
And look at our mainest bro Bill Furno being all creepin. That guy. Can't stand to be out of the spotlight for one moment. Sheesh, the nerve of some guys. Final Thoughts
In the long run, I'd be all like, "hey guys, go buy Raw-Jaw." I don't think he's as fun as Waspix, even though he's pretty fun. I think he's a great parts pack, and he's a great gorillephant. He really is. I'd get some of the Hero sets first, and Waspix, but I'd defs fo sho get Raw-Jaw over Fangz and Scorpio. Those guys, I mean, are they trying to be the lamest of the lame this wave? I mean, if so, way to succeed! Get Raw-Jaw. He's a gorillephant. Seriously. Oh man, it's finished already? Maybe you should look through it again to make sure you didn't miss any details or helpful buying advice. You can also thank DeeVee in the Talkback, because those have returned with the forums. Don't forget to keep checking back for more reviews and LEGO and Bionicle news on the front page of BZPower!
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