Beta Midget?

[jessedart]

Anyone out there have any of the Bandai Beta Midget figures? I have a couple of questions about them:

What size are they compare to the latest Takara Microman figures; are they larger or smaller?

From the pics I've seen online, they look kind of fragile. How do the joints hold up?

And last but not least, does anyone know of any online site other than Yahoo Auctions Japan that sells these?

[domu]

I've got almost all of them, just missing the chase versions of series 1.0.

Beta Midgets are slightly larger than the current Microman figures, around 4.5"
The later released Epsilon Midgets are the shortest, but still over 4"

They are a bit fragile (basically being just highly pose-able gashapon figures) especially series 1.0. That's really an understatement. Series 1.0 are pretty much complete junk. The wrong plastic was used or something and all the joints end up cracking. I think the problem affected 100% of the series 1.0 figures. And the plastic cannot be glued. It's like the plastic used for the figures was the same plastic used to make glue bottles. Nothing I have found will work on it. I've managed to somehow get a set of series 1 to stay together for display, but they won't hold up to any play/posing.

By the way, the plastic used on the "jackets" (armor and weapon sets) wasn't bad like with the figures.

Series 1.5 and later were a great improvement. By series 3.0, they are fairly solid figures. The bad guys, called Larvae, from series 3.0 are some of my favorite figures. The later Epsilon Midgets are better yet. Still not as sturdy as a Microman figure, but not bad at all. A nice plus is that the jackets are Microman compatible, especially with the Military Force figures.

They were all released a while ago, so I think your only bet now is YahooJP auctions. There is a nice lot with a low starting bid right now:
tinyurl.com/2v3gey
This auction has already rolled over a couple of times, so I wouldn't expect the price to get too high. The lot includes the box set, which has 2 exclusive figures (around series 3.0 quality) and a nice book with pics of all the Beta Midget releases.

Here is a link to Enari-san's blog:
blog.goo.ne.jp/sword-c-labo02
Enari-san is the creator of Beta Midgets. He still makes kits, and I think figures, to sell at Wonder Festivals.
If you scroll through Mike Harvey's Of Micronauts and Men blog, you can find some nice pics of some of these kits:
microotaku.blogspot.com/
Here's a couple of direct links to pics of the Beta Midget bike kits (but check out the rest of his blog for lots of other cool items):
tinyurl.com/yvj9gn
tinyurl.com/2cgrse

Here is a breakdown of Beta Midget releases (that I know of):
Series 1.0: 3 figures, 3 jackets, and 3 black version, chase figures
Series 1.5: Series 1 in new colors/ better plastic, + 3 chase figures in dark silver.
Series 2.0: 2 figures, 3 jackets, 3 Early Type figures
Series 2.5: Same as 2.0 but in new colors
Series 3.0: 4 new figures (1 male + 3 female), 2 jackets, and 3 Larvae
Box Set: 1 Early Type figure and 1 Larvae
Epsilon Midgets: 4 set sold online in solid red, white, blue, and black
I've seen pictures of other color Epsilon Midgets, but I don't know if they were ever for sale.

There is more info at Microforever.com:
www.microforever.com/betamidget/bmidgetindex.htm

Wow, that's way more info than you asked for, but I really like Beta Midgets and rarely find any one else interested at all in them. Good luck finding some.

[admin1 aka Ed]

Awesome. Thanks for the info!

[Daltanias68]

I got a whole slew of the first Beta Midgets when they first came out...they disintegrated, quite literally. The joints just turned into a thousand pieces and fell apart. UGH what a ripoff, to spend money on something that rare and cool and then have it turn to worthless garbage. Some of the ones I got were even broken to pieces in the mail, before I even got them. >:0( GRRRRRRR!!!!!

yes they mixed the plastic wrong and messed up. There was an article about it somewhere. They are SUCH cool figure designs, too...such a shame! I was so disgruntled though, I never bought the later ones; I didn't trust that their plastic mix was "corrected." So I wouldn't know.

[jessedart]

Jul 2, 2008 23:18:37 GMT -5 Daltanias68 said:

I got a whole slew of the first Beta Midgets when they first came out...they disintegrated, quite literally. The joints just turned into a thousand pieces and fell apart. UGH what a ripoff, to spend money on something that rare and cool and then have it turn to worthless garbage. Some of the ones I got were even broken to pieces in the mail, before I even got them. >:0( GRRRRRRR!!!!!

yes they mixed the plastic wrong and messed up. There was an article about it somewhere. They are SUCH cool figure designs, too...such a shame! I was so disgruntled though, I never bought the later ones; I didn't trust that their plastic mix was "corrected." So I wouldn't know.

Thanks for the heads-up. I've been watching these on Yahoo! Japan, and have been considering putting in a bid. I guess I'm gonna pass now, though.

And who knows; maybe Bandai will revisit the idea sometime in the future...

[pactard2112]

The disintegrating joints were only an issue for the series 1.0 figures, if I recall correctly. Anything that came after should be fine, so don't pass them up if you really want to give them a shot.

[DaveZav]

excellent post guys

I have some of the 1.0 and they all have broken joints too.

The heads can be used with the current Microman bodies.
I didn't even think about using their armor with Microman
but thanks for the great idea!

[Daltanias68]

yeah I took the heads & armor and used them with my other Micromen. I made a cool "angel" figure using the wings off one beta midget; I should post it in the custom forum. I would've picked up more Beta Midgets when the next versions came out, but I was so burned from the first time around that I was afraid to throw more money away just to find out.

Now....where do you get them? They're hardly EVER on ebay. Is there some place you can still buy them? I've been looking like crazy.

[morpheus001]

These are great for customizing Microman, but if you are looking to keep any intact, the best bet would be the Epsilon figures. They seem to have the bugs worked out for the most part. Whatever you do, don't buy the first series because the plastic will break at the joints.