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Business Insider

A man in Japan has spent US$14,000 to fulfil his dream of transforming into a four-legged animal.
The man, known only by his Twitter username Toco, spent 2 million Japanese yen (about US$14,000) to create a lifelike rough-collie costume that he could inhabit.
Toco shared a video on Twitter in April last year that showed himself rolling around on the ground in his rough-collie suit, and gesturing at the camera with his “paw”.
Toco also has a YouTube channel through which he documents snippets of his life in the fur costume. In the channel’s description, he wrote: “I wanted to be an animal, so I became a collie!”


Videos on the channel include Toco’s “self-introduction”.
There are also videos of Toco, clad in his costume, attempting to play table tennis.
And on July 21 – over a year after his dog debut – Toco uploaded a video of himself outside, interacting with parkgoers and their pooches. Toco said in the video caption that the footage was recorded last year, when he was interviewed by RTL, a German television station.
A few dogs could be seen scurrying away after taking a closer look at Toco.
Wanna be my dog? Meet the fabulous furries of Hong Kong
“Of course the dogs weren’t fooled, they trust their scent,” one person commented on the video.
“This is the most bizarre and insane thing I’ve ever seen,” said another person on YouTube.
The company behind the furry outfit, Zeppet, posted the details of the costume on its website. Zeppet is known for creating models and movie sculptures, primarily for television and film.
“At the request of a customer, we made a model of a dog suit. Modelled after a collie, it reproduces the realistic appearance of a real, quadrupedal dog,” the company wrote.

着ぐるみをオーダーしてました！　おかげさまで動物になってみたいという夢を叶えることができました！ https://t.co/jUFxSWW6cl pic.twitter.com/zJIX8VcWfm
— トコ（toco） (@toco_eevee) April 11, 2022

Zeppet’s Twitter account also documented what the final dog suit looked like from multiple angles.
According to the company, the suit took 40 days to make.
In an interview with the Japanese media outlet MyNavi, Toco said he chose a rough-collie costume because the dog’s long fur would obscure the humanlike aspects of his figure.
“I made it a collie because it looks real when I put it on. My favourite animals are quadrupedal ones, especially cute ones,” Toco said. “So I made a suit of the collie, my favourite breed of dog.”
Dogs lead the way in over-the-top costumes for Halloween
A representative for Zeppet told MyNavi that the structure of a dog’s skeleton differed significantly from that of a human being, which made it time-consuming for the company’s designers to figure out how to make the costume as doglike as possible.
“We collect photographs taken from various angles so that the beautiful coat of a collie can be reproduced, and devise ways to let the coat of fur flow naturally,” the Zeppet representative said.
Toco didn’t immediately respond to additional requests for comment.
This article was first published by Insider


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Toco shared pictures of his dog suit on social media with the caption “Thanks to you, I was able to fulfill my dream of becoming an animal!’ Photo: Twitter/@toco_eevee

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The man, known only by his Twitter username Toco, spent 2 million Japanese yen to create a lifelike rough-collie costume that he could inhabit
He now makes videos for social media while wearing the custom-made lifelike fur suit and frolicking around on all fours


‘Toco’ enlisted a company that makes costumes for television to make him a fur suit resembling a rough collie. He now creates YouTube videos wearing it and frolicking around on all fours.


Animals

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Social media

Offbeat

Man in Japan pays US$14,000 to turn himself into a lifelike dog

The man, known only by his Twitter username Toco, spent 2 million Japanese yen to create a lifelike rough-collie costume that he could inhabit He now makes videos for social media while wearing the custom-made lifelike fur suit and frolicking around on all fours

The man, known only by his Twitter username Toco, spent 2 million Japanese yen to create a lifelike rough-collie costume that he could inhabit

He now makes videos for social media while wearing the custom-made lifelike fur suit and frolicking around on all fours