Captain Shark

Today I will be reviewing the Captain Shark DX re-issue, made by Sonokong/Takara. The sample for review can be purchased rather cheaply from our friends over at Big Bad Toy Store, Please check them out or just click on the eBay links at the bottom of the page for links to help find any live auctions for the item reviewed today.

Captain Shark hails from the anime The Brave of Gold Goldran. Captain Shark is basically a space pirate/battleship in the familiar shape of a shark, hence the name. He has an excitable demeanor with a keen mind and will often play the straight man. His right eye is hidden under an eye-patch until it is used as a targeting scope for the HYPER GALACTIC BURST MODE ATTACK.

Captain Shark is a very formidable adversary, his weapons include:

• Shoulder Cannon
• Captain Sword
• Spiral Launcher
• Spring Shot
• Shark Cannon
• Hook
• Harpoon

To start off with, Captain Shark comes to you in the now familiar, beautifully illustrated, heavy corrugated cardboard box shown below.

I wanted to show you a close up of Captain Shark’s head. Notice the pirate hat and eye-patch. It’s an unusual design to say the least. Even though it is unique, who doesn’t like pirates and giant robots? They go together like chocolate and peanut butter!

Captain Shark stands approximately 11.5 inches tall in robot mode and made of quality heavy plastic. He weighs in at a stout 1 1/4 lbs. Articulation is limited to the elbows and upper shoulders.

Heck, who needs articulation when you have some much firepower? This guy is heavily armed! His giant shoulder-mounted cannon can fire 16 of the 48 included red missiles by a simple twist of the back of the cannon. But wait, the eye poking goodness doesn’t end there! He is also equipped with a wrist-mounted firing harpoon and hook. Also, lets not forget his 4 rotating cannons mounted on both shoulders and his swashbuckling sword.

Here is a feature that I really like about the Brave toy line so far, Every accessory has a place to hide. The sword attaches to a clip located on the Captains backside, hook, harpoon and extra missiles store in shoulder compartments, even the cannon mount can be concealed away neatly. The designers really thought of everything.

If you don’t wish to store the sword on the back of the figure, you can always put it clenched in the Shark’s teeth.

I know this is showing my age, but you older Saturday Night Live fans might get a kick out of my “Land Shark” mode LOL!

OK, enough fooling around and let’s get onto the Space Battleship mode of Captain Shark. In this mode, he actually has two different configurations, Spaceship and what I would call a Shark Tank. In Space Battleship mode, Captain Shark kinda reminds me of something you might see in a Captain Harlock anime. It really looks cool from all angles. I especially like all the guns mounted atop its Shark body.

Moving along to the land-based, Shark tank mode. You can see that the cannon mounts atop the body and it now has caterpillar treads that fold out from underneath.

Here is a close up of the caterpillar treads, unfortunately, they do not move. However, it does have wheels on the bottom. I really wish that they put rolling treads on this toy.

Here is a close up of the bridge area. I think this could have been a lot cooler if they included stickers for the windows. I have been seriously considering doing some custom work to add these.

Finally we have the last few pictures. In these pictures you can see that the shoulder cannon can also be mounted underneath the shark body. You would think that the round shape of the cannon would make this very unstable. Surprisingly, it actually turns out to be very stable due to the fins on the sides of the cannon.

In conclusion, I really enjoy this toy for its design and play value. It is very sturdy and displays really well with my other Brave figures. Furthermore, I think the price of $29.99 at Big Bad Toy Store really makes this toy a steal, so pick one up already!