Bionicle Origins

"My name is Em Yoshimura, and it’s the honor for me to tell you gathered friends, to listen to the legend of the Bionicle. In the time before time, the Great Spirit have decended from the heavens, carrying us and bless us with the three virtues. However, his brother Makuta betrayed the Mata Nui and casted the spell on him, putting him into deep slumber. There are questions. How did Mata Nui came from? How did the Makuta get so jealous of Mata Nui? And who were the first Toa? Join me as I answer all of these questions."

- Intro speech

 is a Vlokozuian kadsresatsu television series directed by Pasi Peure, written by Sung Gim and produced by El TV Kadsre Television. It originally aired on El TV Kadsre 1 from August 6, 1988 to January 28, 1989. The prequel to the Bionicle film series, it covers the events of the Bionicle franchise from the creation of the Great Beings in 1783 to the prologue of Bionicle IV: Legends of Metru Nui in 1963.

Production
While the majority of the Bionicle cast reprised their roles in Bionicle Origins, including Alfred Tobias, Lorne Fear, Hideki Takahashi, Jon Pertwee and Yoko Mizushima, Several roles were recasted. Role replacements include Liam Roberts as Icarax (replacing David Gale), Alger Black as Reidak (replacing William Benter), Toshiaki Yoshimuta as the young Em Yoshimura (replacing Tarou Nishiyama), Yuu Koroka as Akiyuki Misushima (replacing Hiroshi Watari) and Richard Franklin as Harry Carlisle (replacing John Cleese).

Kouki Yamashita and Ryuu Shinoda, who portrayed Kouji Yamaguchi and Hiroshi Kayos in the 1984 biography film New Japan’s Last President respectively, reprised their roles in the series.

The shooting of the film took place between April 1987 and February 1988. The show was mostly filmed all around El Kadsre City, including the suburbs of Toutari, Axelham and Nacora. Other scenes including the Dark Hunters’ base, the Makuta’s lair and Shori’s underwater bunker, were all filmed in the El TV Kadsre Television Centre. The New Japanese President’s Palace, which was located near the El Kadsre International Sports & Expo Complex, was used as both the residence of the New Japanese president and the Sentanese emperor in series, as the Shori Palace, the real-life residence of the House of Asuka, was demolished by the El Kadsreian government following El Kadsre’s proclamation in 1950.

Scenes that were set in Sydney, Australia were shot in the Pioneer Settlement in Swan Hill while the scenes set in Villamonte were filmed in Princetown. Scenes that were shot in Schaalberg and Hiroshima were filmed in the Axelham Ranges and Edoa in the Ikeda Islands respectively.

Television
Main article: List of Bionicle Origins episodes

The show was first aired in the Vlokozu Union on El TV Kadsre 1 on the 6:30pm timeslot. The show was aired on NBC in the United States while it was aired on Seven Network in Australia, TV Asahi in Japan, KTV in Raland and ITV in the United Kingdom.

Home media
The show was first released in VHS and Betamax by El TV Kadsre Home Video. The show was released in nine volumes, each volume has three episodes while the final volume had two. These volumes were released between November 1988 and April 1989. The show was later released on TVD in 1990, VCD in 1992, DVD in 1998 and Blu-ray in 2008.