Kai vs Toa Tahu Review

Death Battle has used nearly every kind of animation style. Sprites, 3D in a bunch of different methods, hand drawn, they’ve run the gambit when it comes to the various forms of animation. The one form they haven’t used however is stop motion. For fairly understandable reasons.

Stop motion is the hardest, most time-consuming method of animation out there. It’s why there’s so few stop motion feature films out there. Comparatively speaking. It’s not something one can just do on a whiwhim; requires a shit load of work to pull off. Honestly, I didn’t expect them to do an episode in this style. It just seemed too demanding.

And yet here we are with Death Battle’s first stop-motion animated fight. Which is also a Lego themed fight. Which makes perfect sense considering the popularity of Lego in stop motion animation circles. Just google it, there’s tons of Lego animations out there. Even the Lego Movie based its animation on how stop motion Lego animation looks. So it was a perfect fit.

It also makes sense considering Lego has some very popular IP’s that are perfect for VS matches. Thus we have this episode featuring Kai from Ninjago, and Toa Tahu from Bionicle. Two of the most popular Lego sets in the company’s history, and the one’s most fitting for this kind of show.

To be honest, I was just excited to see Bionicle in a Death Battle. That’s a name that hasn’t been around for a long time. I remember when that first came out and what a huge deal it was, but as time went by Lego started to move away from it, and they tried a reboot didn’t pan out, and then they just abandoned it. Despite it saving the fucking company, it feels like they’ve forgotten it even existed.

So seeing it here was a bit of a nostalgia kick. I wasn’t huge into Bionicle, I never collected much of it or engaged with much of the secondary media, but I always had a passing interest in it due to how cool it looked. I was ecstatic to see it in a Death Battle, until I found out that Tahu loses. Badly.

Yeah, this is another pretty huge stomp, and the Ninjago fans have not been shy about rubbing it in. Granted I kind of knew this would be a thing considering Ninjago is an ongoing thing and because power creep is a never-ending plague that ruins action-based media it wasn’t surprising that Ninjago gets kind of nutty.

So not exactly enthused about that. Just feels like it’s my childhood losing to someone else’s childhood. Ninjago was well after my time, so this whole matchup is making me feel a bit like a grumpy old man yelling at kids with the fancy new toys screaming “toy lines were much cooler in my day”.

Eh, it is what it is. I’ll get my runback on you young’uns one of these days. I just hope the episode is fun. Because that’s what Lego is all about right. Fun, and frustrating when you can’t get the build right or step on one of the little fuckers, but mainly fun.

And the episode is fun. It’s a lot of fun actually. The analyses are really good. I don’t know the deeper lore behind these two so I have no clue how accurate it is, but it made both series seem really cool. Mostly Bionicle though. They seemed to treat that with a bit more seriousness, which could be seen as a negative, but I think it was just to match the tone of each series.

Ninjago is not as serious as Bionicle. Tone wise it’s a bit goofier and more aimed at younger kids, while Bionicle was aimed at older kids. Bit of a generalisation there, but you get the idea. It makes sense to have a more serious tone for the latter. Not that they treat Ninjago as a joke, but it felt lighter with a few more jokes on the whole it being a toy line thing. Which they do several times across both segments.

I don’t mind because, well they are series designed to sell toys. Commercialism is baked into their DNA. You can ignore that, but that would make it feel like you were taking things too seriously. But you also don’t want to do it too much because that makes it feel mean spirited. I think the balance here is perfectly fine though. It feels like they’re in on the bit and not just making fun to be a dick.

I will say I find it odd that this analysis is directly using statements from toys, but it also is completely unavoidable giving what this fight is. You need to use the toys and the guidebooks since that’s where most of the information from these come from. This isn’t like Transformers where they had a smorgasbord of media to pull from outside the toys. These are much more limited; it makes sense to use some more of the toys and books.

Even if they are clearly written for little kids with no thought put into them. Ok, that’s a little harsh I admit but some of this shit is a little too ridiculous. Having light speed LIGHTNING dragon is a very clear case of bad writing. That is not how lightning works and I’m honestly surprised they used that. I just find it very strained, but it’s also the only thing I had a problem with regarding the results. So, I’ll let it slide.

But it is a fun analysis. It was edited well, it was fast paced but also surprisingly well paced. No joke, this is the first episode in a long while where I didn’t have any major issues with the pacing. Which is a big plus. I also admit that it was nostalgic seeing the old Bionicle media I saw as a kid. Yeah, I definitely got more out of Tahu’s segment than Kai’s. I can’t help that; I have no connection to Ninjago. Ninjago seems cool and all, it’s just not for me.

The highlight though, by a county fucking mile, is that fight animation. Holy jumping Jesus is this a great fight. Honestly it might be the best fight of the season so far next to Cell vs Metal Sonic. For the first stop motion fight they fucking nailed it, and the team over at Apartment D really exceeded my expectations. I’m definitely checking out their stuff in the future.

Now to get this out of the way, no these are clearly not real Lego figures. They don’t really animate like Lego figures do, so they’re obviously custom-made models. That sucks but it was also something they needed to do because of the size differences between them. Kai is a standard Mini Figure while Tahu is sized like an action figure. If they didn’t make customs the fight would look ridiculous.

It doesn’t matter though because the models look nice and allow for more fluid and dynamic fight animations that would be hard to pull of using standard Lego figures. There are some very cool shots like the transformation sequences, Kai turning into his Rising Dragon and dragging Tahu across the island, Tahu lava surfing up a volcanic eruption which was easily the highlight for me.

That’s one thing I have to give this episode. I was worried going in that was going to be the Kai episode featuring Tahu. It seemed in the preview like Kai was going to have all the personality while Tahu would be more stoic and serious. After two episodes where one combatant felt like an afterthought, I was afraid this would do the same.

Thank God I was wrong on that one. While Kai is more expressive, they do still give Tahu plenty of personality. He is more serious, but it’s done in a fun way that helps create a contrast between the more fun-loving Kai. If anything, I felt like Tahu had more cool moments and was given slightly more attention, but that could just be me. The point is that both combatants were treated equally and neither one felt like they overtook the other. It felt like a Kai AND Tahu episode, which is what I wanted.

Now because stop motion is a time-consuming mother fucker, the animation implores a lot of tricks to help keep the fight dynamic and interesting. I am not critiquing the episode for this, but it can be a little obvious when they use quick edits or after-effects. Again, not critiquing them for this because that’s kind of what you need to do if you want to have this kind of big explosive fight, it’s just an observation.

What I will critique them for are those digital effects. Not that they’re bad, it’s just that I feel like they visually clash with the stop motion style. I think stop motion effects work best when they use actual props for the effects. Using digital effects can often clash with the physical models and lead to some visual clashes if they aren’t stylised the right way. At least for smaller scale animations with a limited budget.

Honestly though, using digital effects is needed when you have a lot of energy-based attacks like these two have, and the effects themselves aren’t that bad for what they are. Plus, there are still some great practical effects work, so I think it all balances out. It’s just very obvious what’s a digital effect and what isn’t which in this kind of animation style can be a little distracting. Even if it does lead to some pretty hype moments.

One big praise to give is the island model. That is a very detailed and cool looking island, and the fact they use multiple parts of the island during the fight and didn’t skimp out on any of them is absolutely insane. I cannot stress enough how hard stop motion is, and the fact that Apartment D went this above and beyond… Just give these guys a medal already. They clearly love the craft.

If you haven’t gathered, I really like this animation. It’s just so impressive the amount of work that went into it. There are nits to pick for a fact, but with how much impressive things there are in this they feel unwarranted.

The writing is also pretty solid with some good dialogue and banter. They managed to integrate some of their more recognisable lines in a way that didn’t feel forced, and the voice acting is great. I do wish Tahu had a more robotic sounding voice since that fits him more, but he still sounded fine. It’s not like Tahu has a specific voice or anything. There isn’t much to compare him too.

Now Kai does have a more distinct voice, and from what little I have seen of Ninjago, the voice actor in this sounded a lot like the show. Again though, I have not seen much of it, so how close it is I have no idea. But he brought a fun energy to the role, and he did the “FIYAAAH” line well. That’s the most important part right? That’s his catchphrase? I don’t know I’m old.

The fight track “Built to Burn” (perfect name by the way) is really good too. It’s an orchestral track that has an epic but still very fun tone that manages to mix the musical styles of both series quite well. I can’t say much more on it until I hear it a few more times, but I like it in the fight.

I can’t really find much fault with the episode. Yeah, I’m gutted Tahu lost, but they still made him look cool and they at least didn’t portray it as a complete shit stomp either. I know there can be and likely already are accusations of downplaying, but honestly, I don’t care. Death Battle very rarely go for the higher end feats anyway because this show isn’t exclusively made for power scalers. It’s made for general audiences who may not buy a lot of the nonsense power scaling creates.

Seriously, did you know Kai is multiversal. If you were a power scaler you might read that and think nothing of it, if you aren’t you probably are looking at the screen with a confused Pikachu face. Some things are just hard for people to buy into. You have to portray things in a way that actually makes sense for most people, hence why Death Battle relies mostly on on-screen feats.

This was a fun episode. It was honestly a lot better than I thought it would be. After the utter nothing burger that was Aang vs Traveler this was a much needed breathe of fresh frigging air. Next time though is not a breath of fresh air, but another redo with Mewtwo vs Shadow. A rematch that was needed considering how bad the first attempt was, so this should be interesting.