To start with, I’ll resist the temptation to make a crack about Hunchrats of Notre Dame. This guy is pretty imposing, when you stick him next to a MATORAN. Well, until you realize that KUMA-NUI can’t really attack anything but TARAKAVA NUI or flying creatures. While he does have the same attack-style as MUAKA and KANE-RA, the construction of the back and neck causes the head to shoot up at about a 30 degree angle. The head looks almost identical to the MUAKA head, with the exception of coloring on six parts. Also, the stems for the KANOHI-mounts are the same as on MUAKA, though the arms are pinned in place by a seperate piece, and have no rubber-band-powered ejection system, so pulling out the stems doesn’t do anything to them.

Significant differences include the paired treads, which fully support this beasty without any help from the forelegs. Those same forelegs are spread very wide, and have viscious-looking non-articulated grabby-claws. Oh yeah, and it has a huge tail that’s more than half of the body-length.

All in all, it looks very impressive, but it seems to be as ineffectual as the TARAKAVA NUI when it comes to fighting the TOA.