These cannisters are a bit smaller this time around, just a smidge shorter than the Glatorian cannisters in height and not quite as big around. They are a bit bigger than the agori packaging with the cardboard between two plastic caps. The front and backs are flat, with rounded sides, and flat lids which make them convenient for both store shelves and your own room without wasting more space on odd dimensions when your trying to store them out of he way. The only thing that could make them more perfect is if the lids could be built onto, and the cannisters were clear with easily removed stickers to use them in your creations.

The front of this cannister shows our little rakish in a menacing pose, and the specific gold part contained inside to complete the golden BIONICLE®. The sticker on the back of each Star cannister depicts the same thing, the Tahu Star set armored up with the gold parts, making him the Golden BIONICLE. Unfortunately, the gold parts are the only spare parts from each set, meaning you do not get a part of Tahu from each set along with the gold colored part, you have to buy Tahu and then replace each piece of his armor with the single gold part from each of the other cannisters, and slap on the little golden shield in his empty hand. Rakish actually has the one gold part that does not replace an existing part on the Tahu Star set, but pops into Tahu’s empty hand as a shield.

Theres only one new part in this model, unless you count recolors. The yellow rahkshi head/spine is a single rubbery mixed color part. I like the tethered head, but I think I would have preferred that they gave us a separate head and found another way to bolt the spine to the body, or for that matter used the older parts from the original rakish in the new colors. The shell seems to have been born of a shortcut, making a prefabricated part to replace using a slew of smaller parts that would not be very compatible with these newer less complex pieces.

The construction, like all of these smaller sets is simple and not very challenging. I will give them credit for coming up with this interesting way of using an arm to create a neck. The Rahkshi, perhaps next to the Piraka Star set, is probably the most complex of them to build. In the next batch of pictures, you will see where the tail end of the rakish spine bends down and folds onto the clip to secure it in over the back.

This is the final product here, the yellow on dark gray looks good, but maybe a little more yellow on the limbs or torso could have helped. I would have made the middle bar of the staff light gray to match the silver weapon parts and clash with the dark gray body to make the staff stand out.

The tether from the head to the spine limits the head to looking left or right, while the arms are a bit stiff in range of motion. The original six rahkshi villains were the first official BIONICLE set to have bending knees, and while the arms were stiff on the originals as well, the arms were controlled by a couple gears that made them swing the staff back and forth. The Originals also had the Kraata “pilots” that fit underneath their spiny shells. It is a little disappointing to have them revamped into this downgraded, un-mechanized form, lacking much of what originally defined them. However, I do like this incarnation of the Rakish despite these issues, and perhaps other collectors who had the originals may appreciate this set more than newcomers who have never even seen the originals. Ill end this first look for now, and try to dig a rakish or two out of storage for comparison in a later article, until then we invite our forum members to give us their thoughts.