Toys R Us Exclusive "Animal Planet" Deep Sea Encounter Dunkleosteus Set Review:
As per usual, Toys R Us refreshes their various "Animal Planet" offerings every 2 years or so. This third version of this particular set replaces the Liopleurodon (which itself replaced the previous giant Barracuda) with a Dunkleosteus (a prehistoric armored fish making its debut in this line) and recolors the formerly red sea sled yellow. The included figure, net and accessories are all recycled from previous versions of this set (the figure is in new colors at least). As all of the accessories, figure and the vehicle have been covered in my previous reviews, I will focus this review of the Dunkleosteus itself.
As far as I am aware, this particular sea creature has only had 2 previous mass market models available, both of them made of heavy solid vinyl, one by Schleich which had an articulated jaw and an earlier unarticulated version from Safari Ltd. This newly designed version of the sea monster is manufactured by Chap Mei and is far larger than either of the previous models released. It also features a rather cool chomping jaw feature when the dorsal fin is pressed down slightly (the sides of its head behind the jaws also extend outwards at the same time which was an unexpected feature). The sculpting is rather nicely done, not as detailed as the Schleich offering, but far better than most other articulated fish. The paint apps are pretty nice with some metallic silver drybrushing to highlight the sculpt. The actual figure's deco differs greatly from the one on the back of the package (the one on the box has a striking solid silver head) so there was a change made somewhere between the prototype photographed and the actual production specs.
As you can see from the photographs, the Dunkleosteus is a nicely sized monster for terrorizing 3.75" action figures or for diorama use. The set's $16.99 price is a value considering everything you get in the box!
