I'm relieved that the craze has finally died down, but I was utterly overwhelmed by the relentless onslaught of dinosaur candy toys that began with Choco Egg Dinosaurs in 2001. There were secrets, color variations, and so on... While high-quality items like Choco Egg Dinosaurs were acceptable, there were also many "What is this!?" items. Still, as a collector, I couldn't help but try to complete the sets, which is a sad fact of life for collectors. The only saving grace was being able to buy complete sets on Yahoo Auctions, and some items are still left unopened in their packaging after they arrived. The number of dinosaur candy toys released since the turn of the century easily exceeds 300. Here, I'd like to look back over several installments at the history of dinosaur candy toys, from the time before this candy toy "big bang" when they were called "omake" (freebies) up to the appearance of Choco Egg Dinosaurs.

When it comes to the origin of candy toys, there's "Glico's Omake."
With 80 years of history and 5,000 different items, I expected there to be many dinosaur-related items. So, I looked through "Glico's Omake Catalog: An 80-Year History of Omake," a catalog book compiling all omake up to 2003, at the library (because it's an expensive book). Surprisingly, there were only a few dinosaurs: a plastic Dimetrodon from around 1958, a gold-plated metal Stegosaurus, Protoceratops, and Dimetrodon (Photo 1 — from "Glico no Omake" published by Chikuma Shobo) and Tyrannosaurus from 1967, a sponge-made sauropod in '87, a Godzilla-like item in '90, a three-dimensional puzzle resembling Triceratops and Apatosaurus in '91, and 8 types of Karikarisaurus in '98 (Photo 2)... That's all. Especially after the 1980s, most items were hardly even recognizable as dinosaurs, which was quite disappointing.

Photo 3 shows badges from Kobito Seika. Unfortunately, I don't know the year or the type of candy, but Kobito made many badges as prizes for gum (won on the spot), so this is likely one of those. It appears to be quite old.

I have fond memories of "Meiji Dinosaur Country Chocolate" (Photo 4). In the late 70s, I was already well into dinosaur collecting, and a bandmate who knew this found three 8cm skeletal models for me somewhere. They were a Triceratops, a Corythosaurus, and a Plesiosaurus, and for their time, their quality was astonishing. It turned out they were freebies from Meiji Seika's "Dinosaur Country Chocolate," but sales had already ended. Filled with self-reproach, wondering "Why didn't I notice sooner!?", I frantically searched candy wholesalers around Ameyoko, but it was too late. I was truly disappointed.

Much later, all 10 figures became available on a sprue (plastic frame) at museum shops and the like (Photo 5), revealing the full scope of the series. More recently, I acquired several original pieces on Yahoo Auctions. And just recently, I finally got a packaged version (Photo 6), so I suppose my long-held wish has finally been granted. According to the package, Dinosaur Country Chocolate also contained "finger puppets" and "dinosaur stickers."
Meiji Seika also had "Dinosaur Fact Cards," but the year and candy type are unknown (Photo 7).