Man spends $15,000 to become a dog

Toko is living his lifelong dream of being an animal with this hyper-realistic, high-tech costume

Hero image in post
photo: 動物になりたい on Youtube
Hero image in post
photo: 動物になりたい on Youtube

Toko is living his lifelong dream of being an animal with this hyper-realistic, high-tech costume

By Eve Walker27 May 2022
2 mins read time
2 mins read time

What price would you put on totally achieving your lifelong dream? A Japanese man, named in the media as Toko, paid over two-million Yen (around £12,500) for a dog costume, fulfilling his ambition to become an animal.

Toko hired agency Zeppet, to create the bespoke rough collie suit for him. The team spent a staggering 40 days making the high-tech, super realistic costume.

An employee at Zeppet spoke about how the team managed to figure out how to make the suit as realistic as possible. “The point is that the skeleton of a dog can be reproduced on the skeleton of a human. Since the structure of the skeleton is very different, we spent a lot of time studying how to make it look like a dog,” they told Japanese news outlet Mynavi.

“In addition, we collect photographs taken from various angles so that the beautiful coat of the collie can be reproduced and devised so that the coat will flow naturally.”

The elated collie-loving Toko explained matter-of-factly to press: “I thought that a big animal close to my size would be good - considering that it would be a realistic model, so I decided to make it a dog.” Naturally.

He also posted a video of himself crawling around on the floor in the costume, and as to be expected, it’s absolutely bizarre.

He now has multiple videos uploaded on his YouTube channel, where he practices the usual dog-like activities – sitting, rolling, playing fetch. Woof.