Bandai Diversity of Life animal figures

EnigmaticClarity

EnigmaticClarity

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I was looking at Isaac Wong's Facebook feed today and noticed the post below of a crocodile action figure from Bandai that he describes as a masterpiece. BBTS has a pre-order up for it:


It appears to be from a series of animal figures named "Diversity of Life" that Bandai started at some point over the past decade. I found an announcement for this crocodile from 2021/2022 on Bandai's web site so I'm guessing this new release is a re-issue. BBTS has a bunch of animal figures from this series on their web site, but I couldn't find ANY of these figures on any Japanese retailer web site. BBTS has bugs, shellfish, reptiles, fish, and amphibians listed from this line so I'm guessing it ran for years without me noticing.

Does anyone know much about this line or own any figures from it? I'm almost always interested in animal action figures, but I'm puzzled that I can only find figures from the line at BBTS and nowhere else. Not sure why the Japanese retailers wouldn't be carrying this line, but I'd love to find a source over there to buy these.

https://www.facebook.com/IsaacWongToys/posts/pfbid0wz57qVygPixVqv4mQPknaii1WnyZZBQvsA2zUwGLJ3A7QyZJgJZS2WB6ScjufRj3l
 
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That is one nice croc. I considered upgrading my Fiona from Classified until I saw the price. I would be all over these if they were a bit cheaper. As a kid I enjoyed playing with cheap toy animals and making little zoos and such as much as I enjoyed my action figures.
 
Justice said:
That is one nice croc. I considered upgrading my Fiona from Classified until I saw the price.
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BBTS price is $240. I saw it on Bandai's web site for $200 converted to USD, so yea, it's expensive. It's also pretty big at 16 inches long, so I somewhat get why it's expensive. Most of the other smaller figures in this line are nowhere near this price.

Is that price point comparable with other import figures of this size? Not sure. Bandai makes some really big figures priced around $200, so the question is how this compares to those. They've got some One Piece and Dragon Ball Z figures that are quite large, but those are also really thick and use more plastic than this does. On the other hand the articulation on those is usually quite limited, whereas this guy looks like he might be just as articulated as a real croc.

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Kaiyodo also makes a line similar to this one called RevoGeo with bugs, arachnids, and amphibians. That line is about 5 years old, so perhaps Bandai was inspired by that line to start their own a few years later. I had trouble finding those Kaiyodo figures on the Japanese sites as well, but I eventually did find them on one but forget which site it was. I don't think any of them are to any specific scale, and every one I've seen were significantly larger than their real-life size.

I own some of the Japanese carpenter ants from that line that I use in Marvel Ant-Man displays. The real ones are about 2/3 of an inch max, but the figures are about 5 inches long not including however you have the legs posed. Kaiyodo makes a murder hornet, but my kids urged me not to get it because it freaked them out. Ant-Man looks great with some big ants next to him. In the pic below the RevoGeo ants are on either side of Ant-Man; both ants came together in a 2-pack.

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Bandai has all kinds of animal and bug gashapons. They're inexpensive. I think less than $10 overseas. If you get a few of them from at a time, importing them isn't too bad. Numerous beetles. Wasps, including a murder hornet. Jumping spiders. Lizards. Ants. They're one of my favorite things to buy. They have some kind of articulation, ones like the ants are suprisingly so. I'm sure the Kaiyodo ones and Bandai Diversity line are higher end but also reflect so in the pricing.
 
Ashtalon said:
Bandai has all kinds of animal and bug gashapons. They're inexpensive. I think less than $10 overseas. If you get a few of them from at a time, importing them isn't too bad. Numerous beetles. Wasps, including a murder hornet. Jumping spiders. Lizards. Ants. They're one of my favorite things to buy. They have some kind of articulation, ones like the ants are suprisingly so. I'm sure the Kaiyodo ones and Bandai Diversity line are higher end but also reflect so in the pricing.
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In searching for info about the Bandai line I heard several references to these gashapons. One description I heard is that in Japan they're sold in coin-dispensing machines kind of like little toys used to be sold in gumball machines in America, but the gashapons are much more detailed and articulated than their American equivalents.
 
I saw a really awesome looking panther chameleon figure made by one of those companies, probably Bandai. I was really tempted on that one.
 
I've seen these on bbts over the years and always thought they were rad, but the price always kept me away.
 
It doesn't help that I'm a total reptile guy too. The only reason I haven't gone crazy owning snakes is because I can't afford to do that and action figures so I just have one.
 
Justice said:
I saw a really awesome looking panther chameleon figure made by one of those companies, probably Bandai. I was really tempted on that one.
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Yep it's another in this Diversity of Life line.

They also have a bearded dragon since you're a reptile guy. The dragon is getting re-released, but BBTS is already pre-sold out of it. Both of these look just as amazingly realistic as the croc.

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That's the one. Those are so amazing. The chameleon seems to be sold out everywhere. I also love the red variant.
 
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