Transformers: Beast Wars II Deluxe Mantis (Manterror)

Back in the glory days of Beast Wars, after the initial series in Japan, Takara decided to start making new beast molds on their own.  We got the fantastic Lio Convoy and Galvatron toys, repaints of a number of G1 and G2 toys, including two that had never been previously released.  We also got a lot of straight repaints of American Beast Wars toys.  I picked up all the new, G1, and G2 molds, but not the Beast Wars repaints.  I was looking at stuff on ebay and found 4 deluxe and 2 mega molds that I didn’t get back then, really cheap, so I picked them up.  All are repaints, slight to total accept one.  I thought I’d review them since when I got them out of the box I got a little nostalgic for toys that I hadn’t thought much of back in the day, but seem so much better with the passage of time.

I really didn’t like Manterror, the American version of this toy, and I still don’t.  Those crazy arm longs look fine in insect mode, but in robot mode they are awful.  Mantis is a preying Mantis.  His main difference from the American version is his wings, legs, and antennae, which are translucent gray on the American version.  He really looks better in these colors.  His claws contain disks that shoot.

Overall: Certainly not the best toy from the Beast Era, but not the worst either.

Thanks for reading!