Bantor is one of the regular Beast Wars Transformers 1998 Fuzors toys. His organic parts are a mix of a baboon and a tiger. To a large degree, this fusion works and the tech specs are written up to reflect the action feature of the the toy and the beast modes and integrate them into the personality of the character.
Beast Mode:
From a distance, it is almost difficult to see the fusion of two animals in this toy, mostly because the colors overall are dark brown and orange. Upon closer inspection, one can see that amongst all the brown and orange "fur" around the beast mode's face is a face that reflects aspects of the baboon and tiger. The nose is a prominent red. The area around it is blue-silver.
The upper forelegs are brown and the lower legs are orange. Even the legs appear to be a combination of both animals. The body towards the front has tiger stripes, but is shaped much more like a baboon's. It is interesting to note that one rear leg is a baboon's while the other is a tiger's. Overall the beast mode looks very fierce, if not oddly proportioned. This mode integrates both animals well.
His action feature is a head ramming action activated by pressing a button on his back.
Transformation to Robot Mode:
Bantor's rear legs and rump (with tail) detach. Underneath, one will find one of his robot arms. The forearms split off from the sides and form his lower waist and legs. The lower body then twists around to form his entire lower body. The beast mode head and neck folds to the side and pushing up a small lever pushes up the robot head. The rear end then re-attaches to the left arm from the top to form a type of "slashing" weapon.
Robot Mode:
Bantor's robot mode is rather exotic looking. Primarily organic, the most "mechanical" aspects appear in his lower body and the right side of his upper chest (which merges right into organic fur and flesh). His color scheme remains brown, orange and black. The only deviation from this is on his fac which has green eyes and blue silver accents.
Pressing a button at the end of the beast mode head launches his right arm for a nasty right hook! In this mode, he has twelve points of articulation. Overall, a neat toy. A
Updated Thoughts (January 14, 2022):
Decades later and my opinion of this figure has not changed. It is a wild design and from the punny name to its brilliant colors there is a lot to love about this figure. It was a crazy imaginative design and I can only hope that in the future we get something like it again.
