The "Unfortunate ~" books have been all the rage lately. I believe it all started with the massive success of the children's book "Unfortunate Creatures Encyclopedia" (Takahashi Shoten), published in 2016 (now with subsequent volumes and over 2.7 million copies sold!). Following its lead, various "unfortunate" books have spread to general literature, covering not only biology but also "Unfortunate Great Figures," "Unfortunate Car Encyclopedia," "Unfortunate Quotation Collection," and even "Unfortunate Matchmaking." If you include similar books like "Disappointing ~," "Don't Mind ~," and "Heartbreaking ~," there are so many that searching on Amazon becomes tiresome.
Of course, there are also a few books on ancient creatures, among which "We Went Extinct for a Reason" (Diamond Inc.) was first published last July but is still prominently displayed in bookstores, achieving an unusual sales record for an ancient creature book with over 400,000 copies sold. The style of extinct animals wryly narrating the reasons for their extinction is amusing, but some of the remarks are a bit over-the-top in an attempt to be funny. Although the explanations follow up on these, and the afterword states, "Actually, other than those caused by humans, the exact reasons are unknown," what sticks in the mind is probably the humorous "monologues." This means that in the near future, up to 400,000 adults might confidently declare things like, "Mamenchisaurus went extinct because its neck was too long," or "Spinosaurus couldn't get out of the river." This thought keeps me up at night.
Other "unfortunate" books related to ancient creatures include "Overkill Dinosaur Encyclopedia - Why Did They Evolve So Much!?" (supervised by Kyoho Kobayashi, Takarajima-sha) and "Oh, What a Shame! I Missed You So Much!!! - Ah, My Beloved Ancient Creatures" (by Ken Tsuchiya, Sasakura Publishing). While there's an intention to make the headings and content amusing, given that these books involve leading figures in Japanese dinosaur studies, the content inevitably becomes orthodox and specialized. Unfortunately, this makes them not-so-unfortunate books after all.

So, the "New Secret Museum" is also jumping on the "unfortunate" bandwagon, and this time the theme is "Unfortunate Dinosaur Books." This is a parade of books that I bought and found unfortunate, and read and found unfortunate, purely my personal opinion. I will introduce them by genre.

● Unfortunate use of "Dinosaur"
These are common books that use the old, stereotypical image of "dinosaurs = symbols of stupidity, things that grew too large and became extinct" to discuss various topics like society and people. I don't consider these books about dinosaurs and haven't collected them, but this time, just for the sake of it, I wanted to see how "dinosaurs" are treated, so I bought a few used books for 1 yen on Amazon. Even at 1 yen, shipping cost about 300 yen. (Image 1, top row)

*It might be a coincidence, but most of the books I found this time were published between the 1990s and 2000s. Recently, I haven't seen many books that treat dinosaurs this way, at least in their titles. I would be happy if this is because a new image of dinosaurs has permeated society.

"Goodbye Dinosaur Men" (by Yoko Minakami, Kodansha Bunko 1996)
In a nutshell, this book mercilessly attacks Japanese men. I skimmed through it, not horizontally but rather diagonally, searching for the word "dinosaur," and I kept wondering why "dinosaur men" weren't appearing, though "boss monkey men" and "broiler men" did. Then I realized that the final chapter was titled "Goodbye, Dying Dinosaur Men." I should have checked the table of contents first... but thanks to that, I found a description that might give men an opening to retort, such as "Dolphins returned to the sea about 6,000 years ago." So, what was the content of the final chapter? It further twisted the NHK program "Dinosaurs Chased by Flowers" (New Secret Museum Vol.14) http://blog.livedoor.jp/semiwide38/archives/9039204.html, which had drawn criticism. It stated that gymnosperms, which were unilaterally eaten by dinosaurs, at some point thought, "We're tired of just being eaten," transformed into angiosperms, befriended insects, and drove the dinosaurs, which couldn't eat flowers, to extinction. Finally, it concludes, "Surely the flowers must have whispered softly to the dinosaurs, 'Goodbye soon, dinosaurs...'," equating this with the fate of modern dinosaur men. This is beyond mere opportunity for retort, but there was an unexpected bonus. The beginning of the chapter introduces the dinosaur boom of the time and even mentions dinosaur enthusiast groups. This means they knew about our Dinosaur Club, which is a little pleasing! However, the "unfortunate" thing is that back then, neither the dinosaur men nor the dinosaur women of the club knew about this book. If they had, our drinking parties would have been so much more lively.

"Self-Diagnosis: Dinosaur-ness Check" (by Marc Brown / translated by Akira Tago, TBS Britannica 1990)
In the foreword to this book, the translator begins by introducing the post-dinosaur renaissance image of dinosaurs, such as "dinosaurs were superior species that dominated the Earth for over 100 million years" and "the warm-blooded dinosaur theory." He then states that his intellectual curiosity was piqued by this new image of dinosaurs. However, he goes on to say that many people still perceive dinosaurs as "stupid," and the English word "Dinosaur" itself can mean "something too large to be useful" or "an outdated person." He presents this book as a self-help guide to avoid becoming such a "Dinosaur" person. Just reading this much is enough. The translator, who enjoyed the dinosaur renaissance in real-time in 1990, has a love for dinosaurs (perhaps)? And the magnificent sauropod illustration on the cover (a clever rip-off of Mark Hallett's Mamenchisaurus with two merged together) reduces the "unfortunate" factor by 70%. I vaguely remembered the name of this likable translator and was surprised to find that he was the author of the昭和-era best-selling "Mind Exercises" series. (There's also a companion book, "Corporate Diagnosis: Dinosaur-ness Check," with the same design but different colors.)

"Labor Unions Following the Path of Dinosaurs" (by Choji Hayafusa, Ryokufu Shuppan 2004)
This was 120% unfortunate. The word "dinosaur" appears only once in the foreword: "Labor unions are highly likely to follow the path of dinosaurs!" Even though it only refers to extinction once, there's no need to emblazon "Dinosaur" so prominently in the title!

"Italians' Beloved Dinosaurs" (by Hiroyuki Itsuki, collected in the essay collection "The Owl's Walk," Gentosha 1994)
This is a book I bought on Amazon late last year. I looked at the table of contents online and wondered if Hiroyuki Itsuki, of all people, would talk about dinosaurs. But the result was unfortunate... It was about a trip to Milan to see an opera, and the dinosaur was mentioned only once: "Opera is, so to speak, a modern-day dinosaur."

I don't know the content of other books, but here are some titles I found online that must be unfortunate:
"Japanese Health: Can't Stand, Can't Walk - Are Japanese Following the Dinosaurs' Fate?" (1999) *Surely it doesn't say dinosaurs can't stand or walk... / "Nuclear Power Plants Are Dying Dinosaurs" (2014) / "The Old Way of Doing Business Is Over - 95 Rules to Keep Your Company from Becoming an Extinct Dinosaur" (2001) / "Legend of the Hoodlums - They Vanished Like Dinosaurs!" (1999)

●BL Dinosaurs
(Image 1, bottom row)
This is honestly a difficult genre for me. I vaguely knew that there was a genre in shojo manga that depicted same-sex love between beautiful boys (New Secret Museum Vol.33 "Planet Where Dragons Sleep," "The Jade Labyrinth and the Dragon Lake Murder"), but I learned that such manga and novels were called BL (Boys' Love) probably from "The Investigator Sleeps with a Dinosaur" (by Kou, Tokuma Shoten Charabunko 2011), which I bought without realizing it was BL. Aside from it being a BL novel about a paleontologist and an FBI agent, I remember being indignant that despite the setting being a dinosaur excavation site, dinosaurs were ignored and not a single genus name appeared. Even "The Paleontologist's Love" by Harlequin, which I embarrassingly bought before, at least featured the Evantherias skull fossil (which was thrown out a window and shattered by a jealous idiot!).
But there was no time to be disappointed about that! The next book I bought, "Dinosaur and Mouse" (by Nanao Chijou, Taiseisha Riri Bunko 2012), had no dinosaurs except on the cover. It was about two boys, a T-Rex character and a mouse character! Then, on Yahoo Auctions, I was drawn in by the dinosaur on the cover and ended up buying "Pink Dinosaur" (by Takamura Nyanko, doujinshi 2011), and I finally learned that "dinosaur" in this world is a code word, and basically, biological dinosaurs do not appear. However, there are exceptions. Although I don't own it, the "Tame the Tyrant Dragon" series is said to be a BL novel set in an academy where dinosaur-human hybrids who inherited dinosaur genes gather. If it's a work in the same vein as the "Dinosaur Detective Vincent Rubio" series or the "Jabberwocky" series, then as a dinosaur book collector, I'm torn about whether I should collect it.
And another 1-yen used book I bought this time in this genre was "P・B・Labyrinth" (by Aiko Koenji, Futami Shobo 2000). There's a dinosaur-like creature in an egg on the cover, and the protagonist goes to a dinosaur exhibition (with an illustration of a truly unfortunate ornithopod-like skeleton *page 195) and wants a fossilized dinosaur egg she found at a雑貨屋 (general store). But the caption for that egg reads "Jurassic Third Period Pretiosaurus" (and it has a price tag of 2500 yen including tax)... it's too unfortunate. In this case, it might have been better if there were no dinosaurs at all... I wouldn't complain no matter how vulgar it was, but if you're going to feature dinosaurs, I earnestly ask BL authors to at least do some basic research.

*Although unrelated to dinosaurs, there are some very detailed dinosaur fan magazines created by dinosaur enthusiasts that I plan to cover someday. On the other hand, there are also an overwhelming number of BL and similar fan magazines. This time, when I tried to gather information on BL fan magazines by searching online for "dinosaur + fan magazine," I was taken aback by the sheer volume. At that moment, the name Eromangasaurus suddenly came to mind, and I even chuckled to myself a little, which was also a bit "unfortunate."

● Dinosaurs only on the cover
As mentioned in the BL section, there are many books and magazines with dinosaur designs on their covers that are unrelated to the content. It feels unfortunate to pay money just for the cover, but some books are appreciated even for their covers alone. (Image 2) For example, the April 17 issues of "Shukan Bunshun" in 2008 and 2014, coincidentally, coincided with "Dinosaur Day," so dinosaurs were featured on the cover drawn by Makoto Wada, which was a pleasant surprise. The cover of "konoha" (Bunichi Sogo Shuppan 2009), distributed as a free paper, features a T-Rex's body as an artistic representation, like the Tree of Life on the Tower of the Sun. The cover of the scout information magazine "Tao" (1991) strangely features a model of a Pachyrhinosaurus, which was unusual for its time. The museum = dinosaur skeleton on the cover of the short mystery anthology "Kiso Hakubutsukan" (Kobunsha 2013) is easy to understand, but the cover of "Vampire Ephemera" (by Mariko Ohara, Hayakawa Shobo 1996) is inexplicable. The naked vampire lady is holding a Nanossaurs, which is half the actual size of the one I own. It's one of the first replicas I bought and I'm very fond of it. When I bought it, it was called Nanossaurs (the species name was impertinently "rex"), but it was later called Othnielia, and is now Othnielosaurus.
The photo on the right of the Wikipedia page is the same as mine, but the actual fossil at Brigham Young University has no head.
The adult comic magazine "Action" is from 1988 and 1990, "TV-STATION" from 1989, and NHK text "Prekiso Eigo" is from 2012. And the "Fukushi Koho" with the Katsuyama dinosaurs in the background is from this year.

The computer magazine "Interface" featured CG dinosaurs on its cover every month in 2011, and the bimonthly "Japanese Children's Literature" had dinosaur illustrations by Mitsuhiro Kurokawa on its cover in 2016. However, I couldn't collect them all just for the covers, so they ended up in the "unfortunate books" category for a different reason. (Image 3)

● I bought it with high hopes, but...
The top book that left me stunned when I opened it was "The Green Uninhabited Island," with a Komodo dragon on the cover that looked exactly like a dinosaur, which I grumbled about in New Secret Museum Vol.29. But I recently bought another book that came close: "Detective Vance: Dinosaur Murder Case" (by Van Dine, Poplar Publishing 1973). I had been curious about it online for a while, and found it on Yahoo Auctions, winning the bid for about 3000 yen. Eagerly, I started reading it, only to find this at the end of the foreword: "Note that the 'dinosaur' in the title refers to a terrifying mythical creature (dragon), not the giant monsters that lived on Earth long ago." At that moment, I lost all desire to read on. What's more, the afterword thoughtfully "confessed" that "...the original title was 'Dragon Murder Case.'" Isn't this title fraud, and therefore a crime? (Image 4, left)

● This is the #1 "unfortunate dinosaur book"!
The most unfortunate dinosaur book I have chosen in Japan is "Chikyu Zetsumetsu Kyoryuki" (Earth Extinction Dinosaur Record) (Takeshobo, 1988). The artist, Katsu Shimizu, was a pioneer and leading figure in dinosaur art from the 1960s to 1970s, but his style was an imitation of Burian. Many of his works were complete plagiarisms. This book, a luxurious volume measuring 31cm, 255 pages, and costing 8800 yen, allowed readers to appreciate his art in 1988, at the height of the dinosaur renaissance. Moreover, even the cover was plagiarized from Bakker's "Dinosaur Heresies" before the Japanese edition (Heibonsha, 1989) was released, increasing its "unfortunate" factor by 200%. And what a coincidence: the author of this book, Tadaaki Imaizumi, is the very same supervisor of the "Unfortunate Creatures Encyclopedia" series and "We Went Extinct for a Reason." (Image 4, right)

Finally, to cleanse the palate, a story that was "not unfortunate."
The June 1912 issue of "Shonen," which I declared last time I would agonize over, well, I couldn't resist and ended up buying it. And it was a great decision. First, take a look at this.


The cover and the author, the venerable Dr. Matajiro Yokoyama, the founder. (Image 5) Compared to the photo I introduced in New Secret Museum Vol.6, he looks much younger and has a full head of hair. This alone is valuable, but unlike the academic books I've obtained so far, the text, which speaks to children in simple language, feels human and charming.

The article title is "Great Monsters of the Prehistoric World: Ryōryū (Diplodocus), Sankiryū (Triceratops), Kenryū (Stegosaurus), and Saigakuryū (Compsognathus)." These are Diplodocus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, and Compsognathus, but here, for some reason, only the Japanese names are used. Since these Japanese names were already used in the 1894 "Textbook of Paleontology," Dr. Yokoyama probably coined them. Incidentally, Dr. Yokoyama is said to have devised many other Japanese names, including those for radiolarians, fusulinids, placoderms, Archaeopteryx, ammonites, calamites, and lepidodendrons.

At the beginning of the text, Dr. Yokoyama introduces the Carnegie Museum and the Diplodocus, which he visited the previous year, confessing that he was "almost dizzy with surprise" at the museum's scale. He then laments, "How pitiful it is" that Japan lacks such a museum. He goes on to express his true feelings: "I earnestly hope that some great wealthy man in Japan will exert himself and build a magnificent natural history museum (Natural History Museum?) that can rival foreign museums, for the sake of society, academia, and world civilization." After this, he meticulously describes the Triceratops, Stegosaurus, and Compsognathus. For example, he describes the Compsognathus as having "a long tail, hind legs resembling a frog's and very long, very short forelegs, and a head that looked like a dog's, a truly comical creature." He seems to have been quite an interesting person. (Image 6)

Come to think of it, if Dr. Yokoyama hadn't invented the term "dinosaur," there would be no dinosaur museums, dinosaur exhibitions, dinosaur clubs, "Dinosaur and Mouse," or even the Dinosaur Secret Museum. His contributions are immense. Despite this, his name is absent from pages explaining Japanese scientific history online (for example, the natural science section of "Japanese History: People Who Excelled in Culture and Technology in the Meiji and Taisho Eras"), and it must be said that he is unfairly undervalued. I earnestly hope that the day will come when Dr. Matajiro Yokoyama will stand alongside Meiji-era greats like Shibasaburo Kitasato and Hideyo Noguchi, and "The Biography of Matajiro Yokoyama" will line bookstore shelves.

*Though unrelated to dinosaurs, something caught my attention. The year Meiji 45 (1912) was the year of the Stockholm Olympics, which is currently a historical drama. I would have expected boys' magazines like "Shonen" to feature extensive coverage and be very excited, but neither the April nor the June issue (right in the middle of the Olympics) mentions it at all. What could this mean? Was it possible that most of the public didn't even know about the Olympics?

Bonus: Aftermath of the "Jurassic World" figures

New figure releases show no signs of stopping. There's no longer even a "Fallen Kingdom" title on the packaging. The photo shows a selection of recent items. Concavenator and Dracorex are acceptable since their models briefly appear in the Lockwood Museum scene, but Albertosaurus and Rhamphorhynchus haven't appeared in the JP series yet. Several other new figures have been released, but I simply can't buy them all. If they keep releasing figures at this pace until the next movie comes out... it's going to be a real mess! (Image 7)