10 Best Battle Beasts Figures
Remember Battle Beasts? I sure do, which means you’ve gotta hear about it.
The toy line started in Japan by a company called Takara in 1986. A total of 76 figures were released in the first three series (there was later a spin-off version and then some attempts at revivals in the past decade or so), originally tying in to a Japanese Transformers series. That connection didn’t make it over to the U.S., but American customers did get a pretty sweet addition in a heat-reactive sticker on the chest plate of each toy. This would reveal if the character belonged to either Water, Fire, or Wood (earth, I guess?) group. That never really played a part in anything, but if you wanted to split up your toys into fighting factions it was just as good as Autobots v. Decepticons.
The figures were tiny anthropomorphic animals outfitted with cybernetic accoutrements and a weapon. They had silly names, odd facial expressions, and they were awesome. The manimal cyborg trope is apparently a thing as it has also appeared in comic books like Grant Morrison’s (amazing) We3 and the (rightfully) forgotten 1990s Marvel comic Brute Force.
After combing through the catalogues of these original releases, I’ve determined the ten best figures of the bunch. Sometimes it’s based on color schemes, other times how goofy the name is, but over all it’s about just how cool they look.
