Review – Battle Beasts Killer Carp

Last month I posted reviews of two of Hasbro’s 1987 Battle Beast action figures — Battle Beasts War Weasel review here, Battle Beasts Ferocious Tiger review here — and the toys were so much fun to photograph and review that I thought I’d toss another one onto the site. This time, though, we go to the Takara Battle Beasts-like like of 1987 for a “Beastformer” toy. Wha . . . ?

Beastformers

Yep. In 1987 the US-released Battle Beasts were presented as a unique and new series of small toys. In Japan, though, the toys were introduced as part of the Transformers series . . . see Wikipedia for the details. And rather than try and tell you how all of this works — even I don’t fully understand it — I figure the best thing I can do is also direct you to the Battle Beasts guide at Little Rubber Guys. Trust me, you’ll learn a lot more over there than you ever would listening to me rattle on.

Anyway, about Killer Carp . . .

Pure amazing is the best way for me to describe this little guy. Like all of the other Battle Beasts he only has two points of articulation — the shoulders — but the fish design makes him standout from the shelf almost as much as the screaming colors do. Flippered feet, a finned head, and fins on the forearms all help give him some depth, yes, but someone really should have thought more before adding that finned crotch. That’s just wrong.

Art Card!

Okay, obviously we need a book that collects all of the artwork from Takara’s Beastformers because the art card included in the box is every bit as impressive as the artwork on Hasbro’s 1980s Transformers toy packages. The art’s colors are quite different from what they gave us on the actual toy . . . but who cares if it isn’t an exact match? Both the toy and the art are great so I’m happy.

Sculpt is an A, Paint is a C

The artists working on this line back in the eighties sure knew how to craft some excellent little action figures. Deformed proportions, armored bodies, and animal elements all came together during the design process to create a series of toys that’s so fondly-remembered that we’re getting two different remakes this year. It’s too bad that the paint wasn’t as great as the sculpts, but at least the paint if fairly neat (if simplistic).

Closing Thoughts

Three Battle Beasts reviews in about a month shows just how much of an impact the Diamond Select Toys and Takara announcements had on me. Especially when you consider that the other two toys — Battle Beasts War Weasel review here, Battle Beasts Ferocious Tiger review here — had been in a pocket of my desk for almost three years. And now that I have three of these guys displayed it’s only a matter of time before I track down more of the classic Battle Beasts series for my shelves.

Philip Reed thinks he needs an entire army of toys in these colors. And where’s the Glyos figures in this exact color scheme?