Beast Saga: Kingdom of Land Gloria BS-01

I've already talked about a few single packaged Beast Saga figures, but now I'm going back to the beginning. Over the next week or so I'll be starting w/ BS-01 and going in numerical order, taking a look at the different Beast Saga releases.

Beast Saga is basically the spiritual successor to Beastformers, or Battle Beasts as most people remember them.  Gone are the fire, water & wood rub symbols and paper/rock/scissors "game play".   In their place are three different kingdoms, land, sea & sky.  The sub symbols are now dice that can be launched from the chest of the figure.  There is a whole game associated with the figures, but with Beast Saga being a Japanese toy line I'm unable to read the game play directions.

The BS-01 set is called Kingdom of Land Gloria.  It features 3 characters from the land subgroup, one of which is the leader of the Kingdom, Raioga.  Initially there were three different 3 packs, one for each Kingdom.  These retailed for around $20-25 at various online retailers.  While they still can be found, the prices I've noticed have creeped up a little.

The packaging of these 3 packs is beautiful.  The Kingdom of Land Gloria's primary color is red and you'll notice that red is integrated into the packaging.  Here on the back of the box you can see a play mat and what appears to be stats for the different characters.

From left to right:  Raioga, Big Serow and Jidamu

  

One end of the box shows the box's contents, while the other end of the box showcases the abilities along with the strength and weaknesses of each character.

Inside the box you'll find two items.  The colored one on the left folds out to be a play mat if you want to play the game that is associated with the figures.  The black and white paper is a set of instructions.

If Raioga looks familiar to you, he should.  1) I've already reviewed the single packaged version of this figure and 2) he is loosely based off of White Leo / Pirate Line from the original Beastformers / Battle Beasts line.  I should also mention that Raioga is the only character in any of the multi-packs that also received a single release.  While the figure is the same, his accessories in the 3 pack are different.  The single packaged version comes with a generic sword and shield, while the 3 pack version comes with a set of unique weapons.

Raioga early on was one of my favorite sculpts, but as the line progressed and the selection of characters was more diversified he sorta just blended in with the masses.  That's not to say though that this isn't a nice figure.  From the sculpted brown fur to the red bits of armor and the great head/face sculpt...he's pretty fierce looking.  His arch nemesis would end up being Killer Shark from the BS-02 Kingdom of Death Sea set.

Big Serow I believe is a fairly high ranking officer in the Land Gloria's army.  He is based off the character of the same name in the original line.  I love his look - regal, yet someone I wouldn't want to tangle with.  The dark green armor meshes well with the brown skin and the gold accents on the armor are the icing on the cake.  I'm not sure I ever noticed this feature initially, but on his back he has a set of what appears to be exhaust pipes.  I'll have to tune into the anime and see if he uses these in combat.  His weapon is a nice spear that again homages his original weapon.  If I have anything negative to say about this figure is his antlers are cast in a very soft plastic.  This causes them to easily be warped...as you can see on my figure.  Outside of that small bit, this is a great figure and one of the larger Kingdom of Land figures released (at the time).

Jidamu is one of the smallest Beast Saga figures in the whole line.  If you didn't guess correctly, Jidamu is a hamster all armored up and ready for battle.  The dice gimmick in the chest is fairly large and most of the figure's mass hides this well, but on a small figure like this one it's painfully obvious as Jidamu looks like a box with a hamster head stuck on top.  His arms and legs are relatively tiny.  I don't know if this issue is confined to my figure or if it's a widespread issue, but his right leg is slightly bent out making it harder to stand him up without added support.  Jidamu's weapons include a gun and small shield.  Most of the Beast Saga characters feature swords or other melee type weapons.  This makes him stand out a bit since he gets to wield a gun.

This is a great starter set for the Kingdom of Land Gloria as you get the leader, a high ranking officer and a adorable hamster wearing a suit of armor.  I really wish I had bought this set earlier, but I knew I wanted all the figures in the series so it was just a matter of time before this set would be mine.

Beast Saga: Raioga BS-04 & Eredoramu BS-05

I can't believe Battle Beasts were released 25 years ago!  After a very long hiatus the brand has return to the Land of the Rising Sun sporting a new upgrade - Beast Saga.  Even though these toys are the spiritual successor of Battle Beasts I find them to be just different enough that they don't have to heavily lean on the past to succeed.

In my curiosity I grabbed 3 single pack figures and today we'll look at two of them - Raioga BS-04 and Eredoramu BS-05.

Raioga is the leader of the Land Kingdom.  He was made available in two ways - part of the Land Kingdom Gloria starter kit and packaged individually.  Since I was just trying these out I opted for the single figure, but now wished I had bought the starter kit.  Right out of the pack you get the figure, two dice, weapon and shield.  There is also a very cool trading card packaged with the figure.

   

The cards are no doubt used in the game aspect of the figures, but since I don't know a lick of Japanese I'll just have to take what I've already read about these online.  I know the chart on the right hand side of the card's back features the characters strengths and weaknesses...a la a Transformers' Tech Spec.  For me I'll just appreciate the awesome art on the front of the card.  Being a trading card collector as well the cards are a very nice bonus and will surely drive me to buy more of these figures.

As you can see these guys no longer sport the heat sensitive rub signs on their chests.  The rub signs have been replaced with dice launchers.  I thought I'd hate this feature, but now that I have a figure in hand it's not that bad.  Sure the large square in the chest looks odd, but I don't think it'll take long for someone to step in (Reprolabels?) and make some sort of sticker to dress it up.  The above picture shows the figure minus one of the dice inserted.  The center is just a square block of translucent plastic.

On the back of the figure is a black square.  This is the plunger if you will.  Pull it back to make the chest cavity hollow - allowing one of the dice to be inserted.  Going in I didn't know this plunger could be collapsed (i.e. pushed in). I thought that it always stuck out so imagine my surprise and pleasure when I realized that wasn't the case.  Once a dice is loaded into the chest you can push the plunger in effectively launching the dice.

The red dice has lion face printed on one side and the more traditional dice markings on the other sides.  Raioga looks good w/ the dice inserted, but then you have the plunger sticking out the back.  I plan on displaying my figures sans the dice.

The included weapons are cast from a very soft plastic.  You can see the sword came out of the package slightly warped.  While the sword is kind of generic looking I can live with it.  The thing that disappointed me was the shield.  First of all the peg on the back of the shield is not angled...it's just a straight peg so your characters look odd holding the shield.  Why the peg doesn't have a 90 degree angle is beyond me.  This peg is also very soft flexible making it hard (at least for me) to get the shield into the fist's hole.  Small complaint, but needed to be said.

Detailing on the figure is quite nice.  From the detail fur to the battle armor you can tell these were sculpted with some passion.  There are some obvious throwback details to original Battle Beasts characters as well.

Here we have White Leo (or Pirate Lion) from the original Beastformers / Battle Beasts series.  You can see the new Beast Saga figures are a bit bigger and beefier.  This is in large part to the new dice launching game aspect...but I'm OK w/ the new scale.  This larger build also allows articulation in not just the arms but the legs as well.

 

The get a better idea of the scale here he is with a LEGO mini figure and one of the new Arms Micron capsule Microns.

Beast Saga appears to be off to a great start with the first handful of figures released.  While I can see some people not embracing these as much as they might have the original Battle Beasts, these are fun little figures with just enough influence from it's predecessor.  Raioga may not be the best figure of the bunch, but none the less is a solid figure.

By the way.  Raioga comes with a much nicer sword and shield in the starter kit so if you can afford the kit buy it.

Eredoramu and the rest of the figures come packaged on small blister cards.  I was really surprised to see that the plastic clamshell doesn't slide on and off the card like a lot of Japanese blister card packaging.  In a way I'm kind of glad because now I don't mind destroying the packaging and just storing the backing card in my file cabinet.

The back of the packaging shows you the contents and what appears to be an example of how the game is played with the dice.

Eredoramu is huge!  This is one beefy and very cool figure.  Probably my favorite of the first wave.  Like with Raioga he comes with two dice, weapon and shield.

  

All I can say is awesome.

In particular I love Eredoramu's armor.  It appears he has twin guns mounted on the front of his shoulders.  If he didn't already look tough enough now he looks even meaner.  I also like his spear weapon as it's a throwback to the Battle Beast Sledgehammer Elephant.

Speaking of Sledgehammer Elephant...

The other feature if you will of this line I wanted to point out is that the limbs are removable.  Seeing how easy they come I think it was done purposefully. 

I'm not sure if the heads pop off or not, but the limbs are just attached via a peg and hole system.  Don't worry though, the pieces pop back on very easily and I didn't notice any looseness to the limbs after doing so.

The power of combination!  Eriedoga & Rairamu

I'm so glad I decided to check these out.  As I said earlier the Beast Saga figures feel different enough from their predecessors that they can stand up on their own.  There are already numerous pre-orders available for the next wave (or two), but beyond that I don't know what Takara Tomy has planned.  From the handful of reviews I've read it seems that most people are happy w/ these figures so I hope that translates to good sales as I wouldn't mind the line sticking around for awhile.  I don't see Hasbro bringing these over to the U.S. so if you're on the fence you better act now.