Beast Saga Blind-Boxed Action Figures
Item No.: BS-03 Manufacturer:Takara-Tomy Includes:Sword, shield, 2 dice, trading card Action Feature:Dice launch out of stomach Retail:525 yen (or about $7) Availability: September 2012 Other: Also translated as "Maurice" and "Moriku" early on, happy Batober
If you loved Moreek, you'll like Moreek Burst. I say that a lot about the clear guys. The Bat Beast Saga toy was redecorated and blind-packed, and odds are you didn't buy one. I mean, I started taking pictures of this toy in September of 2012, and just finished shooting it a couple of weeks ago for this review finally. I need to build a better Beast Saga display.
When this figure came out (gosh) 10 years ago, US $7 was probably a pretty fair price for a small figure with dice, a couple of accessories, and a trading card. Hasbro had very few figures around the same price at the time, and today you can still find some action figures for $7 - but they tend to lack accessories, have even less articulation, and certainly don't have trading cards. His sword and shield are a little rubbery, and are identical to painted Moreek [FOTD #856]. Both figures were molded in purple and brown plastics, but this one has clear purple armor and clear brown - almost orange - fur and skin. The only paint is on the dice and the goggles - otherwise, it's molded in color. This is nice because if you ever find a loose one for sale, it will assuredly not have paint scraping.
Sporting four points of articulation, this figure is jointed at the shoulders and hips. Each fist fits roughly 3mm accessories, and a smaller-scale die fits in a chest cavity that has a prism plunger that beams light through the clear six-sided game piece. What I find particularly interesting about this figure is the choice of plastic and how it plays with the light. It's largely transparent, allowing you to see wrinkles in the leathery wings and the various ribbings in the ears and feet. It's like holding a piece of clear skin in front of the light - it's kind of creepy. The downside is you don't get as much of a feel for the textured fur, but rarely does clear plastic evoke some sort of stretched-out skin as much as this one.
The figure is built around the same basic form factor as the entire line, which has dozens of clear and painted figures and dozens of unreleased figures that were shown off at various Japanese toy shows. It's a real shame just how many of them got shelved - to be honest, I was kind of hoping they would get released and at that point I was planning to review the previously unreviewed beasts, but it's still a treat to have the ones that got made. I enjoy being able to go back to the well with the ones I have and say "hey, let's pull out this classic again." The articulation is simple, you can pop the limbs off, but mostly he just looks cool and is a thing you can put on your desk. As far as I know this line was never seriously considered for US release, which is a pity because either Tomy or Hasbro could probably have further exploited the designs with glow-in-the-dark plastic or some other sort of launcher. The black and clear plastic plunger mechanism is completely removable from the rubbery chest cavity.
These guys don't come up for sale much because not many fans bought extras, nor did the series of toys - or the micro line, the sofubi guys, or the anime - do much to ramp up interest in a new game-based armored animal collection. If anything, they reminded people how much they liked Battle Beasts and Beastformers, which meant some old ones got expensive. Diamond Select Toys' Battle Beasts Minimates came and went, and for whatever reason the old-style beastly figures never made a return. These guys were nice successors, though, and I wish the line ran long enough for dinosaurs. I am, however, very pleased with how Moreek Burst turned out and it's the kind of figure that makes me want to get a lighted backdrop for some of these guys. Excellent stuff, but probably not worth the $30-$60 asking price I seem to be seeing for "burst" clear figures these days.
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