Pop-up! Pop-up! What a delightful sound that is. Dinosaurs springing to life as you open the page. Even at my age, I still find myself excited. It's truly a balm for the soul. Incidentally, my latest heartache is that the "boy" I introduced two posts ago, which cost 18,000 yen, was just recently sold for 2,411 yen on Yahoo! Auctions.

This time, it's a story about such magical books. First, take a look at these.

"Pop-up Books"

"History of Pop-up Books"

Until a while ago, pop-up dinosaur books meant actual pop-up books. However, recently, 3D dinosaur books have been released one after another, where you can hold up your smartphone to make AR dinosaurs appear and manipulate them freely on your phone. This is quite frustrating for someone like me who doesn't use a smartphone much. Of course, I didn't even know what AR was, so I immediately searched for it, but being told it's "augmented reality" doesn't quite clear things up for me...
However, pop-up books are fighting back with elaborate 3D skeletons created using laser cutting technology, such as "JURASSIC BOOK" (Konishi Seisakusho, 2017). Similar techniques are used in greeting cards, where you can get a magnificent pop-up skeleton for less than a thousand yen. For some reason, it's always T-Rexes.

(Image 1) shows three laser-cut T-Rexes. From the left: "JURASSIC BOOK" (please be understanding of its three fingers), a birthday card I sadly bought for myself, and an unidentified, possibly personal work I got on Yahoo! Auctions.

Indeed, these latest pop-up dinosaurs make you gasp at their intricacy when opened, but ultimately, they are creations of computers and laser beams. They cannot compare to the masterful craftsmanship of pop-up book artists. The next works I'll introduce are the pinnacle of dinosaur pop-up books, master Robert Sabuda's "Encyclopedia Prehistoric World" trilogy, which are like treasure chests filled with artistic flair, playfulness, and paleontological information.

*Speaking of laser beams (perhaps an archaic term now), when I was a child, they were feared as futuristic killing machines...

The Prehistoric World trilogy, all by Robert Sabuda & Matthew Reinhart and translated by Waku Hajime, are published by Dainippon Kaiga. Each page opens up to sub-pages (and sometimes sub-sub-pages), with over 30 large and small prehistoric creatures waiting within.

(Image 2) "Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs" (2005)
Happily, it recreates a party inside the Crystal Palace Iguanodon. The Coelophysis contains the fossil of a juvenile within its stomach. (At the time, this was considered evidence of cannibalism, but it seems to have recently been concluded to be a crocodile fossil.)

(Image 3) "SHARKS and Other Sea Monsters" (2006)
Ancient sharks only appear on one page, but a life-sized Megalodon tooth pops out. There's also a Kronosaurus skeleton, Sarcosuchus attacking a dinosaur, Hesperornis, Mary Anning, and even Cope, flustered over mistaking an Elasmosaurus' neck for its tail. Though not shown, there are also pages dedicated to whales like Basilosaurus and Ambulocetus.

(Image 4) "MEGA BEASTS: The Extinct" (2007)
The Cynognathus skeleton, a Megazostrodon that fits in your palm, and the bats and condors beside the Quetzalcoatlus are also extinct species. A moa hunt scene also pops out.

Of course, Sabuda's work is an exception; generally, these books are simpler, but they still have a profound charm. Let me introduce some older ones from my collection.

(Image 5) "Dinosaurs Appeared" (Jyo Yokouchi, Iwasaki Shoten, 1970)
This is the only rare treasure I have this time. Most pop-up books published in Japan are translations, but this one is an exceptional domestic product. It is credited to Toshio Ozone (production) and Jyo Yokouchi (illustrations). As you can see, the craftsmanship is splendid. Actually, this time, I searched eBay auctions hoping to find a pre-war American pop-up dinosaur book, but I couldn't find any. However, I did come across an American book from the 60s that said "printed in Japan." They must have sought cheap labor in Japan back then. It's the same as "made in China" for dinosaur figures today. Despite having sufficient technology, it's a mystery why there are almost no works by Japanese artists even now.

(Image 6) Translated books from the 70s
"Dinosaurs" (Asuka Corporation, probably 70s) / "The World of Dinosaurs" (Bandai, 1978)
The skeleton assembly scene is great! The original versions of these two books are quite common on eBay. Perhaps they are classics.

(Image 7) The era of the Dinosaur Renaissance
"Dinosaurs: A Lost World" (Keith Moseley, Asuka Corporation, 1985) / "Dinosaurs" (Dainippon Kaiga, 1989) / "Dinosaur Skeletons" (Bob Cremins, Dainippon Kaiga, 1993)
All are translated books. The horizontally posed Allosaurus skeleton, the Dromaeosaurus attacking in a pack, next to it a Dromiceiomimus, and the incredibly cool galloping Deinonychus—these all reflect the times.

(Image 8) Other books from the 90s
"Dinosaur Continent" (Fusosha, 1991) / "Dinosaurs and Their Relatives" (Turner Whitley Guy, Dainippon Kaiga, 1993) / "Dinotopia Pop-up Book" (James Gurney, Froebel-kan, 1994)
"Dinosaur Continent" is a domestic book produced by Tominaga Design Office. As its subtitle "Pop-up Diorama Picture Book" suggests, it uses diorama photographs of models instead of illustrations. The sculpting is unsophisticated and the reconstructions are old, but only the Iguanodon retains its "then" appearance. The other two are translated works, with "Dinotopia" being based on James Gurney's masterpiece picture book, which was later adapted into a live-action film. It's very well done.

(Image 9) Western books published from '86 to '88. I don't usually collect foreign books (wisely!), but in the period just before the dinosaur boom of '90, there were few Japanese books with the latest dinosaur information, so I used to buy them up at places like the now-defunct "Iena" foreign book store in Ginza.
The books featured here are ones for which no Japanese translation was published. The Pterosaur book, published by the Smithsonian in '86, has a subdued color palette and is very stylish. The Pterosaur reconstruction is so "renaissance" that, covered in feathers and standing on two legs, it's indistinguishable from a bird. The Pterodactyl illustration on the right is not the main subject, but rather features a unique mechanism where the plants in the foreground pop out. The other books were relatively inexpensive, so I ended up buying them. The upright sauropod at the bottom is the then-latest Saltasaurus.

(Image 10) Books from the late 2000s
"Tyrannosaurus Rex" (John Sibbick, Bunkado, 2007) / "Dinosaur Babies" (Nikkei National Geographic, 2008) / "Great Dinosaur Pop-up Sound BOOK" (Keiji Terakoshi, Nagaoka Shoten, 2009)
The large-format book focusing solely on T-Rex features a T-Rex that, when popped up, reaches a length of 50cm. The original version of "Dinosaur Babies" was released in America in 1991. As a book from the height of the renaissance, it features then-current trends like Maiasaura childcare and Deinonychus. "Great Dinosaur" is a Japanese original with illustrations by Keiji Terakoshi, who has worked on many dinosaur-related projects using CG. It only has three pop-up scenes, but it comes with sound effects.

(Image 11) Books from around 2010
"Dinosaur Museum" (Jen Green, Dainippon Kaiga, 2009) / "Dinosaur Explorer" (Luis V. Rey, Dainippon Kaiga, 2011) / "Survival Guide Dinosaurs" (Bob Nicholls, Dainippon Kaiga, 2012)
All are translated books. The illustrations are CG. "Dinosaur Museum" is fun with its layout, as if you're actually visiting a museum. "Survival Guide Dinosaurs" finally features feathered dinosaurs. And even a feathered Pachycephalosaurus!

Dainippon Kaiga has published many other dinosaur pop-up books, but pop-up books, like other novelty books, are generally more expensive than regular books (many cost around 3,000 yen), so unless you find them used, you can't just casually buy them.

(Image 12) Finally, I'll introduce the newest pop-up books in my collection, two books from KEEP published in 2013: "Pop-up! Dinosaurs", specifically Saurischia (Theropods and Sauropodomorphs) and Ornithischia (Thyreophorans, Ornithopods, and Marginocephalians). As you can tell from the subtitles, despite having quite in-depth explanations, the illustrations by Munenori Misugi are cartoonish, and the skeletal diagrams, in the same posture, are frighteningly colored, making it hard to grasp the production policy. However, at a low price of 1,200 yen, it's definitely worth it.

By the way, the "Chronicle of Earth's Extinct Dinosaurs" that was previously chosen as the number one "regrettable dinosaur book" sadly ended up as a short-lived champion. The new champion is this book:

"Stories of Fossils" (by Shinkichi Kato, published by Konoha Kaseki-en in 1958)
*Konoha Kaseki-en

Actually, I've been itching to talk about this book. It's a small booklet of about 27 pages and 18cm, quickly explaining the history of Earth and life. In the section introducing animals from the Mesozoic Jurassic period, there's this passage:
"...enormous beasts like the nine-meter-tall peculiar Stegosaurus (this must be a typo) and saber-toothed elephants..." What on earth is a saber-toothed elephant???
Furthermore, it says, "Fossils of what was named Archaeopteryx were unearthed from strata of this period in Germany and England," which is a straightforward misunderstanding of the origins of the names Berlin specimen and London specimen.
And then the Cretaceous period. While mistaking Brontosaurus for a Cretaceous dinosaur is common in old books, so that's acceptable, the next passage is not:
"...Iguanodon, or the ferocious-looking Megalosaurus, eight-meter-tall Ornithischians..."
Leaving aside the use of Japanese names, Ornithischian refers to Iguanodon. And the ultimate is the illustration of Megalosaurus. It is exactly the Megalosaurus from the Crystal Palace. In a book published past the mid-20th century, we find the image of a 19th-century dinosaur! It's not tracing the history of dinosaur research; it's presented with complete seriousness. This settles the "Regrettable Dinosaur Book Award." The author seems to be a local fossil researcher, but he is far too ignorant about dinosaurs. Incidentally, among the references listed at the end of the book, the only dinosaur-related book is "The World of Fossils" (by Ichiro Hayasaka, Seibundo Shinkosha), but it was published in 1940, before the war. If it's a children's book that the author treasured since childhood, that would be heartwarming in its own way...

(Image 13) "Stories of Fossils" and the astonishing Megalosaurus illustration.