Takara Beast Saga (Battle Beasts) Kingdom of the Sea action figure review

You remember Battle Beasts, those miniature, brightly colored, animals in tech armor produced in 1987? They were a hit with kids and now collectors alike. Finding the vintage ones has been tough (and expensive) but Takara has brought them back with "Beast Saga". This is not to be confused with Diamond Select's "Battle Beasts" which only uses the name and has no ties to the originals, using humans in its storyline. Beast Saga is Battle Beasts redux and available through import only right now.

The factions remain the same, Land, Sea, and Air. This set contains three sea-faring creatures in the form of a shark, piranha, and coelacanth (a living armored fossil fish). Each stands a diminutive two and a half inches tall and resembles the animal in an anthropomorphic design. The sculpts for these are beautiful, every scale, tooth, and knight-like armor bit done in soft pvc but very sharply cut. The Coelacanth's armor looks like it was built from a submarine with little torpedo ports on it.

Paint work is not what you'd expect at first glance, the different colored arms/feet of the characters are actually plastic color and glued on to the armor. That which is painted however is very cleaning done like the facial details and airbrushed faded fin colors. How they were able to do that in such a small scale baffles me.

Articulation is only four points, the shoulders and hips. But considering the old Battle Beasts only had moving arms I suppose this is an upgrade. The main feature of these is the shooting dice in the chest that has replaced the rubsigns of old. The square design will strike a familair chord with collectors and the back plunger has an angled 'light piping' allowing the main symbol to glow, a nice touch. Different battling dice are included but everything is in Japanese so I was at a loss as to how the game is actually played.

The dice-shooting feature works well and once the back plunger is depressed it's not as obtrusive, just a blackish/blank square as if its rubsign wasn't active. Each Battle Beast comes with two signature accessories, a weapon and shield that can be held in either hand. They're sharply detailed but very soft plastic, softer than the figure itself and bend easy.

So what's the verdict on these little guys? Battle Beasts enthusiasts rejoice! These are great recreations of the originals and feature excellent designs. They're small enough to work with in scale other mini-figs (Such as Glyos or Minimates) and are pocketable fun. At eight bucks each they are a little expensive but you have to figure they're imported from Japan and you always pay more for that. Out sponsor Big Bad Toy Store has a whole slew of them and blind bagged figures that are cheaper with the chance of secret characters. So if you love Battle Beasts these are the closest thing we have to the originals in a new format, snag some and learn to read Japanese...so you can play the game!

Transformers Terrorcon Cliffjumper AM-08 Micron Arms figure review

Takara is known for its Japanese line of Transformers and exclusives. They usually have chromed parts or metallic/extra paint applications. Here we have something radically different in the "Micron Arms" Transformers line. Terrorcon Cliffjumper AM-08 is being reviewed here, a clear purple 'zombie cliffjumper' we saw in red back at Botcon. These come boxed and include a minicon of sorts that you assemble yourself and sticker sheet for the figures.

Terrorcon Cliffjumper is the First Edition Cliff we missed out on. He has the transforming gun-hands and missing back kibble. But he is also molded in CLEAR PURPLE PLASTIC. While not show-accurate it's still incredibly cool. He sports a damaged zombie-head this time around and it's really nicely sculpted. This upper body of this mold looks a lot more like the Cliff in the show, especially the arms.

Articulation is great but differs from the regular release Cliffjumper I reviewed in two major ways. He has no waist movement and the knee/ankle range is less. If only they had combined the two designs. Otherwise Cliffjumper has great range of motion and superior arm design allowing him to aim anywhere. The lack of back kibble also aids in his overall look. The Japanese instructions make

Time to hunt the elephant in the room. The Micron Arms series come with only one color of paint and stickers for the rest. They're also paper foil stickers, the cheapest kind out there. You'll notice I've left off the stickers for most of Cliff's pictures. That's because they look pretty awful once applied. The majority of his stickers are the black windows which end up semigloss and speckled. There's a silver middle bumper piece but no silver stickers for either sides. Unless you want to paint the windows gloss black he just looks better clear purple.

The addition of the Micron Arms is a little Ravage-like character you build yourself. He comes on a plastic sprue and it's incredibly easy to remove the parts. They just sort of snap off with barely any flash. I only needed to rub my nail against the section, no knife-work needed at all. This is probably because the plastic is ABS and not styrene like most model kits. The cat/dog minicon flattens out into an axe or mounts as a chainsaw-claw attachment. These apparently can combine together and this particular one really reminds me of my Crash Test Dummy animals the way it collapses.

Alt mode for Terrorcon Cliffjumper is a nice muscle car similar to the regular release but with the addition of 5mm mech-tech ports on the hood and back of the car. This gives him a souped-up appearance and makes him a bit different looking from the First Edition version, especially at the shoulders where the ports bulk him up. Ravage-saw can be attached to the front port but looks kind of odd on the back ones. Other than that the mold appears unchanged and ald mode is quite nice.

What's the verdict? It's a First Edition-ish Cliffjumper with sub-standard paint apps and a build-it-yourself Minicon at a premium price. In his case the clear purple makes it worth it but only if you ignore the sticker factor and like the clear purple. I've seen the stickers applied to other figures and they're far less appealing than the usual Takara products. However these will make great custom fodder seeing as they're virtually cast in color and their minicons have to be assembled. Our sponsor Big Bad Toy Store has Cliffjumper here along with many others. You can also order the Microns/minicons separately.