This summer is shaping up to be a hot dinosaur summer after a long time. There's the dinosaur exhibition at Makuhari Messe and Pacifico Yokohama, and the renewal of the dinosaur exhibit at the National Museum of Nature and Science, as well as the "Great Journey of Life" exhibition. Our Dinosaur Club will also be participating in "Hakubutsu Festival!" held at the Science Museum on August 8th and 9th. For now, there's a mountain of events that I absolutely have to attend. And the main event is the release of "Jurassic World" (hereafter JW), the fourth installment in the Jurassic Park (hereafter JP) series, after a full 14-year hiatus. What a joyous occasion! Over these 14 years, production had been announced only to be shelved numerous times... so after being teased for so long and almost giving up hope, the release is doubly joyous. From what I've seen in the trailers, the dinosaurs appearing are exactly as they were in 1993. Even the raptors, which had awkward crests in JP III, have returned to their original, fierce appearance, which I appreciate. (Although I am concerned about how they will reconcile this with the now-common knowledge of feathered dinosaurs.) I also expect to see nostalgic landscapes of Isla Nublar in many places, and old fans like me might even shed tears of joy recalling 22 years ago. With the JW premiere just two months away, let's take a moment to reflect on that summer of 1993, when we were caught up in dinosaur fever, ignited by the release of the original JP.

Every year since 1990, large-scale "Great Dinosaur Exhibitions" (such as the National Museum of Nature and Science's Maiasaura Exhibition, the Makuhari Royal Tyrrell Museum Exhibition, and the stylish Dinosaur Exhibition at Shinagawa Prince Hotel) were held, igniting a dinosaur boom in Japan. In the summer of 1993, this boom reached its peak.
It is said that there were over 20 events and dinosaur exhibitions across Japan, but among them, the "The Dinosaur DINO-PARK" and "DINO ALIVE" events, held in Tokyo and Osaka in response to JP with the concept of "showing dinosaurs as if they were alive" using large-scale robot dinosaurs, garnered significant attention. I went not only to Tokyo but also to Osaka. Both were on a scale and level of perfection far beyond any previous "moving dinosaur" exhibitions, and the excitement (and abundant merchandise) made the trip well worth it. In addition, I went at least twice to the Chinese Dinosaur Exhibition at the Isogo Prince Hotel in my hometown of Yokohama, and I conquered all nearby locations such as the Shinagawa Prince Hotel (two years in a row!) and Sanrio Puroland. Furthermore, I even traveled to the special exhibition at the Toyohashi Museum of Natural History to see the full skeleton of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science's T-Rex (MOR 555), which was making its first appearance in Japan. It was a busy summer.

As the JP release approached, various media outlets further fueled the dinosaur boom.

＜Video Related＞
Between June and August, there were at least 30 dinosaur TV programs (the number I managed to record), including news and variety shows. Among them were programs like "Chikyu Shiritai Kibun: Kyoryu-kun Daishugo" where I, as a suspicious dinosaur enthusiast, carried a dinosaur backpack and showed off my frozen fossil sweets (photo available in Secret Collection Vol. 47), making a spectacle of myself (and enjoying it thoroughly). There was also "News Call: Ohayo Fujita desu" (broadcast on July 21st, right after the JP premiere), where I was introduced as a dinosaur collector with sparkling eyes of anticipation in the cinema lobby on the JP premiere day, leading to a display of my personal collection. In terms of dramas, the masterpiece "Seishun Botan Doro" starring Rie Miyazawa was broadcast in August. (New Secret Collection Vol. 9)
JP bandwagon films included "Carnosaur," a bloody movie with astonishingly crude dinosaurs perpetrating massacres, which is surprisingly well-regarded among B-movie enthusiasts, if not dinosaur fans. Then there was the Kadokawa film "REX: A Dinosaur Story," which dinosaur fans prefer not to talk about (it's painful to watch big-name actors seriously performing opposite mascot-like stuffed animals…).

＜Publishing Related＞
Dinosaur-related publications this year numbered nearly 130 between June and August alone, but what truly highlighted the dinosaur boom was the sheer volume of dinosaur articles in general magazines. As early as February, the photo weekly "Flash" featured an article titled "All About! Dinosaur Encyclopedia - This Year's Boom Reaches Its Peak." This was followed in April by a men's magazine, "DIME," with "Men Who Can't Talk About Dinosaurs Won't Be Popular!?" Below are some that I managed to check:
"Dinosaur Mayhem" (Esquire, May) / "Now Revived: A Grand Romantic Journey of Dinosaurs!" (Weekly Playboy, June-July, 5-part series) / "Sakyo Komatsu's Dinosaur Revolution" (Bart, June) / "Visiting the World of Dinosaurs" (Weekly Pia, June) / "Jurassic Park Shocking Scenes Revealed for the First Time" (Young Magazine, June) / "Three Commercial TV Stations Collaborate on the Dinosaur Boom Business" (Weekly Shincho, June) / "Chasing the Last Mystery of Dinosaur Extinction" (Bart, July) / "Jurassic Park's Authenticity - Bio-Dinosaurs Appear!" (Newsweek, July) / "Jurassic Park to the Fullest 20p" (Weekly Shonen Magazine, July) / "Grand Research: SF Dinosaur Survival Theory" (Be-Club, July) / "The Dinosaur & Jurassic Park" (Asahi Graph, July) / "Dinosaur Museum" (Weekly Stella, July) / "The Dinosaur Age of 1993" (Weekly Bunshun, August). In June, "Weekly Dinosaur Saurus!" also launched. Science magazines, film magazines, and model magazines naturally featured dinosaur specials. The August special issue of SF Magazine was entirely dedicated to dinosaurs under the title "Dinosaur Kingdom." A unique find was a feature article in the rather obscure local monthly magazine "Goshuro" titled "Gunma Dinosaur Village - Jurassic Park." And in September, the legendary girls' magazine "Olive" featured "Dinosaur Lover's Book! The More You Know, the Cuter They Get."

Among them, I collected magazines with dinosaurs on their covers. (Photo 1)

Here are JP-related books. (Photo 2)

And here are the numerous JP figures I impulsively bought during the boom. I previously showed them in Secret Collection Vol. 9, but I'll introduce them in more detail now.

A panoramic view of the JP goods shelf (Photo 3) and a close-up (Photo 4). We have a wide variety, from watches to Cup Noodles, centered around Kenner figures. The realism of the T-Rex and Triceratops figures is unparalleled in the series. I think the concept of the movie "Jurassic Park" was to amaze with realistic dinosaurs rather than just thrills and suspense. I'm not sure if that was reflected in the figures, but as the number of dinosaurs and action scenes increased in the second and third movies, the toy-like quality of the figures also increased.
In the first movie, only six types of dinosaurs appear, excluding the Parasaurolophus in the distant view. The Stegosaurus, Pteranodon, Coelophysis, Utahraptor, and Dimetrodon on this shelf are unrelated to the movie. This product development, where "anything with the JP logo becomes a JP dinosaur," escalates even further, but that's for next time. Kenner also released a series of small metal dinosaurs (14 types in total) (Photo 5). Anything goes with these too.

Compared to Kenner's anything-goes approach, our Tsukuda Hobby was faithfully limited to just six types.



Moreover, the colors are almost faithful to the movie, and the lineup includes large (Photo 6, only 3 types), medium (Photo 7), and small (gashapon size, with two in each egg) (Photo 8) figures. To be honest, collecting them all meant having a lot of similar items, which was a bit tiresome. The large Brachiosaurus seems to have used the movie prop as a prototype, and it's wonderfully made. The T-Rex and Triceratops have original designs and are a bit off-balance, but I like their careful craftsmanship and realistic coloring. The T-Rex is about 90cm long, and the Brachiosaurus is 75cm tall. I cried at the price, which was 20,000 to 25,000 yen for a soft vinyl toy. As an aside, I noticed that the Triceratops in this series is labeled as "Turiceratops," and when I looked it up online, it turns out to be the classical Latin pronunciation. I doubt the person in charge knew that when they used it. (Apparently, Tyrannosaurus would be "Tyrannosaurus" in that pronunciation.)

The two hatching figures in (Photo 9) were also made by Tsukuda. The remaining six less-similar figures are from an American manufacturer called Dakin.

(Photo 10) shows an 80cm raptor plush toy that I bought, breaking my rule of "no plush toys" because of its realism. This is also made by Dakin.

For other model kits, please refer to Secret Collection Vol. 65.

With all these JP goods, plus general dinosaur goods, and then travel expenses for various dinosaur events and purchases of local souvenirs, how much did I spend in one summer...? Just thinking about it makes me dizzy. Compared to that, surviving this summer's dinosaur boom will be a piece of cake!

Currently, there are a few questions about JW. Besides the feathered dinosaur issue, how did they recreate the marine Mosasaurus? Is there something new instead of amber with insects? Why do some raptor figures lack that claw on their feet? And the biggest mystery right now is the Stegoceratops, for which figures have already been released. There's no information about it on the JW website or in the trailers. Is it the result of genetic engineering? Or is it a chimera dinosaur existing only as a figure, following the tradition of JP figures? (Photo 11)

However, I felt like I had seen this form somewhere before, so I searched my house and found this.

It's an imported laser disc (!) of the 1983 movie "Yor, The Hunter From The Future." This is what it looks like (Photo 12).

The story of this movie is rather incoherent: the blonde caveman protagonist fights dinosaurs and ferocious cavemen, only to end up blowing up an enemy base similar to the Star Wars Imperial Army and escaping in a spaceship. However, there are scenes that dinosaur movie fans will appreciate, such as the protagonist subduing a miniature Ankylosaurus with his bare hands, and a Dimetrodon living in a coastal cave. The former is likely an homage to the miniature Triceratops hunt in "One Million B.C." (1940) (which became real wild boars in the remake "One Million Years B.C."), and the latter to "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (1959).

And here's another one (Photo 13). Relying on the mark engraved on the sole of its foot, I searched for it on an online list of "Domestic Toy Manufacturer Brand Marks" and found out it was made by Nakajima Seisakusho. I searched further but gave up halfway, so I don't know the product name. It's a Showa-era soft vinyl toy, so it might be a treasure. The head can be swapped with magnets, becoming a Stegoceratops and a Stegotyranus (?). It's not clear if there were other heads. There probably was a Stegosaurus head.