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From the Game: Dragon Quest slime trading figure keychains

Slimes are the most famous "characters" of the Dragon Quest series. They're the series mascots, burbling, smiling lumps of goo that has been a part of the series since the very first game, gotten their own surprisingly good action-adventure spin-off on the DS, and seen their likeness emblazoned across countless pieces of merchandise. That includes keychains.

These Dragon Quest slime keychains are Japanese toys I picked up at E3 2006 from Square-Enix's booth. They're just three out of over a dozen potential keychains, running the full gamut of Dragon Quest slimes. Besides their well-known blue goopy slime versions, there are metal slimes, king slimes, bubble slimes, heal slimes, slime knights, and others. These three are the Sea Slime (blue slime with white shell), Medislime (green jellyfish-like slime), and Platinum King Jewel (clear, jewel-shaped slime).

The Platinum King Jewel isn't called a slime, but it's still part of the slime family and stands as the most elusive and experience-rich of the Metal Slime sub-family of slimes. The Sea Slime and Medislime are clearly slimes with strange mutations/coverings. The whole evolutionary process of slimes are pretty unclear, except the well-known fact that three regular slimes can combine into a Slime Stack and eight regular slimes can combine into a Slime King.

Unfortunately, these particular keychains are very hard to find, even on eBay. Fortunately, there's no lack of new slime-themed merchandise to sate your thirst for goo, like this plush slime keychain, this slime-shaped DS speaker stand, or this slime-shaped PS2 controller. There's just something endearing about those smiling monsters.