Insect Battler

Review by JoshB

There have been many iterations of the Insect Battler (インセクトバトラー) toy. There's a DX version, a bunch of bootleg versions, and then this mini version. It's unclear which version came first, but the DX version has arm connection joints that are compatible with modern Super Sentai.

This version was made by Onda, a company that has been active in Japan for nearly a hundred years.

Insect Battler is comprised of 5 insects that combine to make the robot:

1. Silent Spear

2. Stealth Stinger

3. Core Sonic

4. King Horn

5. Stag Lasher

The packaging is great. Nice crisp graphics, nice big window with a metallic backing card, and a cool feature that allows this to be sold on a shelf or on a peg.

Lets look at each bug, then we will look at the combined form.

Silent Spear looks to be a dragonfly, with 4 moveable wings, rolling wheels and a metallic spear at its tail.

Stealth Stinger Is some kind of bee or hornet. It's also got 4 wings, moveable wheels and a large rear section with a gold stinger that slides out.

Core Sonic is possibly a cicaida? It has free floating wheels and two moveable wings but that's it. Interestingly it looks like he has cockpit windows on his back.

Stag Lasher is a Japanese Stag beetle. It has moveable wheels and a gold chrome horn. It's the opposite color beetle to the one depicted on the box. On the back of the box, the Stag Beetle is red.

King Horn is a Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle. It's also got rolling wheels and gold horn. This one is red-colored, but on the box it's blue.

Interestingly - the photos of the combined form have the correct colors, it's only on the individual listing that they are wrong.

To combine unfold the two beetles to reveal the upper leg segments, then snap those two together. The instructions make sure to point out that you do this first. The horns snap into the wheel sections, creating feet.

Attach the sonic to the leg sections, and pull up the head, then fold out the arm connectors.

Finally, attach the last two to the arm connectors. Make sure to push them in until you hear a click. Then pull down the lower sections to reveal the elbows.

It's actually a great robot, despite only being about 5 inches tall.

This feels like a Super Sentai robot that never was. A full size version of this would have fit right in. I'll have to track one down.

There is articulation at the shoulders, elbows hips, knees and ankles. If you un-lock the horns fronm the feet, there are swivel ankles.

I can't say enough great things about this. Great styling, gold chrome detail, great engineering - the only thing I wish is that it was bigger.