They appeared, the Insect Warriors! Let’s dive in with a detailed look at the Shokugan Modelling Project Blue & Black Beet!
Bandai have revealed a closer look at the upcoming Shokugan Modelling Project (SMP) Juukou B-Fighter kits, coming soon. Juukou B-Fighter is part of Toei’s Metal Heroes series; to western audiences, it’s more recognisable as the Big Bad Beetleborgs, another show produced by Saban after the success of Power Rangers. Lately, B-Fighter has seen a semi resurgence with the release of the B-Commander and the Input Magnum; it’s now time for a new figure release and Bandai have seen to it, giving us two characters to look forward to: Blue Beet and Black Beet AKA Blue Stinger and Shadowborg.
As stated earlier, these will be coming out as part of Bandai’s SMP (Shokugan Modeling Project) range, the line that releases Sentai Minipla. They’re expected to stand at 150mm tall which brings them to just under six inches, which will scale well with Kamen Rider Figure-Rise kits or Hasbro’s Power Rangers Lightning Collection. Black Beet is currently in a prototype phase of it’s production and as such, isn’t coloured yet as part of this first look but, rest easy, these kits will be coloured upon release!
Similarly to most Bandai Candy Toy releases, expect the inclusion of stickers! While many I’m sure find stickers in their candy toys to be a pain, the SMP team have tried to minimise the amount of stickers with these figures. As you can see above, the sticker sheet for Black Beet will only feature a handful; Blue Beet is expected to follow suit.
Speaking of Black Beet, he will be coming with his main weapon: The Stinger Byoot! It will come with a variety of forms.
With the included replacement parts, will allow Black Beet to put his Stinger Byoot into ‘Saber Mode’ to fight up close with his foes & victims!
That’s not all, as the set will include the pieces to put the Stinger Byoot into ‘Wire Mode’, allowing Black Beet to destroy his foes from a medium range. The wire included is fully poseable, which is a really cool feature and will allow for many awesome poses and display options.
On top of Black Beet’s options for his Stinger Byoot, he will come with a plethora of optional pieces that when combined with the Blue Beet SMP, will allow him to take the fight to the next level as Super Blue Beet!
Perhaps, you want to give the evil side the edge with the (unofficial) Super Black Beet Mode! A huge benefit of Blue Beet and Black Beet having the same moulds is allowing them to interchange these optional pieces as you can see here. Some recolouring may be required on the user’s part if they want this to look more thematically colour coded for Black Beet.
Keep in mind, the Beet Ingram that comes with Black Beet does fold out. This will allow you to add Blue Beet’s Pulsaber on top, combining their weapons to create Beat Ingram Final Mode. Now you can put a stop to Black Beet for good…or give it to Black Beet to crush all that stand before him! Blue Beet releases in January, with Black Beet following in March.
That’s all the news we have on the B-Fighter SMP line for now. Will Bandai produce the rest of the team? Will this expand into more Metal Heroes? Stay tuned, here at The Toku Source!
