Animagic...al

Sometimes I go to toy stores and I find something for $5 that I know absolutely nothing about and still have to buy immediately. This is how I acquired a pack of Animagic Rescue Pets. The website for the brand is here. Animagic comes to us from the UK's Vivid Toys and Games.

The pack gives you 5 plastic animals, all of which feature an "injury" spot that disappears with the application of heat (AKA your finger).  I was drawn to these toys mostly for the rabbit, and I sorted through the sets to find which other pets besides that particular rabbit I liked the best.  This particular cat and dog sold me on this package.  The sets are assorted, rather than being figures #1-5 in package A, #6-10 in package B etc.  The reverse side of the packaging lists all the possible pets.

This earns an A in packaging from me! Always tell the customers what the options are!!

It looks like I've gotten Flopsy, Daisy, Millie, and Biscuit.  You can probably count, so you may notice that this is only 4 pets rather than 5.  That's because the 5th one is the real reason I had to buy this set: it's hiding in this box:

This little cardboard carrier has a lot of detail printed on it and surely would provide a lot of play value after it has stopped serving its purpose as a blind box.  Fun fact: I can very nearly get all 5 of the animals in this box, though not while it's closed! Let's find out what's in the mystery box...

Yep, it's a pink, metallic rabbit!  I was a bit surprised to find this waiting for me inside the box, but I'm pleased with it.  It also makes me wonder if all of the mystery pets are metallic and/or pink.  I quite like this set, though I think the scale of the horse/pony is a bit strange, and I do wonder about the wisdom of the color changing injuries (i.e. if the discoloration were activated by cold and removed with heat, the animals could appear healthy during normal play, rather than injured UNLESS heat is applied).  The commercial for them is here.

Tiny, Squishy Squinkies

I resisted Squinkies for a long time. No, really, I did.  They are small and there are lots of characters and licenses in the line, which is normally like a siren song for me, but I held out for a while.  Until I stumbled on the Pixar animal pack.  Oddly, the piece that made me HAVE TO BUY this is the one piece OF COURSE I couldn't find for photos: the balloon basket from Up!

Kevin and Dug!  Plus Nemo, Squirt, Flick, and Atta

And once I had these in my hands, I spotted another pack of Disney creatures, so they came with me, too.  I am not the most hardcore Disney fanatic, but a lot of the animal-centric movies were my childhood favorites, as well as all the toys made to go with them.  You should see my 101 Dalmatians collection...

Squinkies come in tiny spheres that are easy to open and close. They are vaguely reminiscent of the clear plastic bubbles that vending machine toys tend to come in; a similarity which Blip Toys hasn't ignored, producing a number of bubblegum machine type storage toys for these figures.  The major difference is that vending machine bubbles are never easy to open and close. (So many childhood finger injuries...)

The bubbles are sometimes solid colors, allowing for surprises. It's easy to see why kids like these.  They are small and bright, with a squishy-soft feel and vaguely tacky surface. They are just the kind of toy that's easy to lose and difficult to keep free of pet hair, and I love them.

My Marvel Squinkies

MY favorite thing about them is the many licenses and characters, which are all produced at vaguely the same scale.  Now, LEGO is the reigning champion of that prized quality, in my book, but I enjoy it in other toys as well.  It lets me do things like this...

The details tend to be a little imperfect, but that's okay. I like them as they are, and part of the main draw for me is that I don't think I owned a lot of these character in other forms, so I'm quite happy with these!