Battle Beasts

[Gorn Captain]

Anybody remember those little 2 inch guys?
Animals with body armour and a weapon.

Battle beast polar bear, anteater, horse, hawk, bulldog - eBay (item 300259314585 end time Sep-23-08 14:33:34 PDT)


There were lions, and sharks, ant-eaters and snakes.
I've just unearthed my old ones, and was thinking of getting some more....

[Drain]

Ya, I remember them. They had there own comic book for a while. When they battle, it was the old paper, rock, sissors games but in their case earth, fire, water.

[megoat]

I found about 20 of these at a yard sale this year mixed in with a bunch of other 80's miniature toys for 50 cents. Most had their weapons. I had a few that were sorta rare and ended up getting $100+ for the lot. They are actually pretty cool......

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

They were pretty nifty, especially the playsets/vehicles. I still have a bunch of 'em. They started in Japan as the "BattleFormers" line, and were part of the Transformers series. The wood/water/fire stickers were originally Autobot or Decepticon symbols.

The Transformers were super popular in japan; which I think is weird, considering that the Transformers were a bunch of robots from two different Japanese series squished together with a new backstory. It'd be like doing a comic here featuring Batman, Superman and Popeye; but they're all from an underground city who's inhabitants are the last survivours of Atlantis, and Superman is a bad guy.

Anyhoo.... I don't know the story behind the BattleFormers/Battle Beats, but I have a magazine ad somewhere around here. (I have a LOT of old Japanese tv magazines....)

Don C.

[AcroRay]

Transformer/Takara fans are nuts for these. They're distantly related to one of the Japanese-only incarnations of the Transformers series (Battlestars, I think?).

[ctc]

>They're distantly related to one of the Japanese-only incarnations of the Transformers series (Battlestars, I think?).

Okay, here we go: From the August 1987 issue of "TV Magazine." The series they're attached to is "The Headmasters."







It seems that "White Leo" and "Alligatron" are the leaders of the two forces....

Don C.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Those were some of the last action figures I bought to play with. I don't have much affection for them, but it's nice to know they have an audience.

Chris

[BaronSat]

I still have mine and they still look cool. I noticed that the little black plastic square that showed their power doesn't work anymore?! Is it the same thing for yours?

[toys2cool]

I had a huge collection

[cjefferys]

That's cool, I knew of their Japanese origin but forgot they were related to the Japanese Transformers.

(I have a LOT of old Japanese tv magazines....)

Now that's intriguing. Do you have any from the 70's to mid 80's? I'd love to see some more toy ads, especially Godzilla or Jumbo Machinder ones.

[ctc]

>Do you have any from the 70's to mid 80's?

Mostly mid to late 80's. LOTS of sentai stuff, mostly Kamen Rider Black and Jetman.

Don C.

[pooper_prez]

There are some very serious Battle Beast collectors along with detailed discussion of Battle Beast arcana over at littlerubberguys.com.

[Gorn Captain]

I still have mine and they still look cool. I noticed that the little black plastic square that showed their power doesn't work anymore?! Is it the same thing for yours?

Yep, their secret signs no longer work. After all those years, no big surprise.
I'm going to try and hunt some of these guys down on the net.
I only have eight, so plenty more to choose from....