Battle Clasher

The second vehicle in the U-Combine Shogun Combatra line is the “Battle Clasher”, or “Crasher” if you prefer. (I suppose both would work in this context.) This toy comes in a larger box than the previous entry, measuring at 6″ x 5.25″ x 3.25″. This makes perfect sense considering that the toy is significantly larger but since I love symmetry and consistency, I sort of wish they were all the same size. I know, I’m never happy, right?

The back and sides from each box in the line is essentially the same so I won’t waste much more time writing about the packaging.

OK, so onto the toy itself. While it’s nice, satisfyingly heavy piece of die-cast, I think it leaves a lot to be desired as a vehicle design. It’s simply, and very obviously, just the upper torso and arms of Combatra with a tail fin added on. You would have to have a pretty active imagination to pretend that anyone seeing this isn’t going to immediately recognize it for what it is; one component of a giant robot. But that’s really okay because this is a child’s toy based on a child’s cartoon and children usually DO have pretty active imaginations!

I do think it would have been cooler though if the vehicle was designed so that you turned the arms around and had them trailing out behind the main body, sort of like a Y-Wing Fighter. At least this way, you would then have been looking at the underside of the arms, but to do that there would then need to be another way to have the landing gear attached to the top of the arms. In the following pictures you can see how the landing gear supports the toy in vehicle mode.

The landing gear is fully die-cast (as is the entire torso and upper arms) and swings into position on a hinge.

The Battle Clasher comes with 2 normal clenched fists, but also includes an extra claw and drill accessories. I imagine that these are meant to be used mostly with the combined Combatra, but they are included here. Using them in vehicle mode only makes it look even more ridiculous though, in my opinion.

When it comes time to form Combatra, you need to make the Battle Clasher ready by removing the plastic tail fin. Much like the Battle Jet, there is a magnet used to secure the pieces together, but it comes out easily enough.

You may notice in this picture that, in an odd design choice, there is a second clear cockpit window on the underside of the vehicle. It’s kind of cool though.

You can probably guess what comes next..

But before we get to that, we’ll next take a look at vehicle #3, the Battle Tank…