SoraNews24 —Japan News—

Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.

TOP

» Japan
» We visited Fukui Station to see the dinosaurs! No Chris Pratt, but the Dino Doctor was in!

Featured

Weird
Studio Ghibli
Jobs

We visited Fukui Station to see the dinosaurs! No Chris Pratt, but the Dino Doctor was in!

Preston Phro Jul 2, 2015
Tweet

fukui1

We’ve talked about Fukui Station, located in Fukui Prefecture, and its Jurassic Park of animatronic dinosaurs before, but today we have a ton more photos and a video of them in motion as the station draws closer to completion. Check out our photos of the rampaging dinosaurs at Fukui Station and call Chris Pratt, because we might need backup!

Last week Usagi, a writer for our Japanese-language sister-site Pouch, headed to Fukui Prefecture to grab some of the prefecture’s famous food, specifically some sauce katsudon. She also happened to stop by the now-legendary Fukui Station and snapped a ton of photos so those of us who stuck elsewhere could enjoy the excitement!

Exiting the station in search of a famous 100-year-old sauce katsudon restaurant, our writer was greeted with the terrifying sight of blue skies and roaring dinosaurs! “What the hell is going on?!” she cried out upon seeing the animatronic dinos moving around in front of the station.

“It was just like Jurassic Park!” she told us, and it looks like all the dinosaurs are part of a Fukui Prefecture PR campaign that is timed to coincide with the opening of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line. Usagi seemed particularly taken with the “trick art,” like in the photos below.

But what was even more enthralling was the moving dinosaurs, which she captured a video of! The exhibit features a Fukuiraptor, a Fukuisaurus, and a Fukuititan, which, as you’ve probably guessed, were all found in Fukui prefecture. The models move and roar every 30 minutes from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day, and from sunset (around 6 p.m.) to 10 p.m. they are lit up.

Usagi also mentioned that these are the first “academically accurate” moving models in front of a train station in the world. To be fair, we’re not sure how many train stations even have moving statues in the first place.

But our favorite part was the this little green dinosaur sitting on a bench, which isn’t as terrifying as it might sound…

▼ Unless you mean terrifyingly adorable…

▼ There’s a photo spot inside the station too!

Our writer also decided to see what the locals thought about all the dinosaur attractions taking over their station. “It’s cute, isn’t it?” one woman told her with a laugh. “After all, when you think Fukui Prefecture, you think dinosaurs, right?” She decided that most people in the area were perfectly happy with it.

And it’s not just Fukui Station with the dinosaurs! Other stations around the prefecture have some dinosaur-themed PR attractions set up, like this Dr. Dinosaur sitting on a bench!

▼ “Let me examine your meat more closely. Don’t worry! It won’t hurt. For long.”

“It was always a surprise, because you’d be thinking, ‘Oh, someone’s sitting over there,’ but then you’d take a closer look and it was a dinosaur!” We can only imagine that this has caused more than one confused, drunk worker going home at night to just about pee themselves!

▼ “Alas, poor Yorick, I ate him well.”

▼ The safest way to see dinosaurs: From a train pulling away fast!

If you’re eager to go, it turns out there’s no time to waste. These attractions will soon be extinct! If you’d like to see the moving models or the cute dinosaur bench for yourself, you’ll have until December this year. The trick art and station art will be up until 2019.