Considering some of the cute critters we’ve seen recently, you might have come away with the impression that Japan is all generous birds and adorable yet spatially confused dogs. But you still shouldn’t let your guard down, because as this video shows, you never know when you’re going to run into a robot dinosaur that breaks away from its handlers and rampages through a crowd.
Japan is relatively free of such potentially dangerous predators as wolves and mountain lions, and while there are bears in certain regions, in most parts of the country the scariest wildlife you’ll ever encounter are the jumbo-sized crows that hungrily eye the bags of curbside garbage on trash pickup day. So we imagine whoever shot this video was surprised to show up at the train station and see what looked to be a full-sized Allosaurus in front of the turnstiles.
The Jurassic period carnivore was accompanied by a trio of handlers, but as that hard-hitting four-part documentary series about the dinosaur-cloning theme parks taught us, life finds a way.
It finds a way to terrify.
After easily slipping away from its entourage, the Allosaurus began running towards the crowd. Then it began running through the crowd, and the crowd began running wherever it could.
Thankfully, the handlers managed to get the beast back under control before it ate anyone, but just what happened here? Apparently the whole thing was a promotional event for Dino-A-Live, an animatronics exhibition that lets visitors feel like they’ve met a real, living dinosaur. Dino-A-Live shows are most commonly held in Fukui Prefecture, the center of the Japanese dinosaur community, but the expo has also travelled to Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, and Akita.
Dino-A-Live describes its goal as creating dinosaurs that can walk freely, swing their tails, roar, and bite. That last one seems like it might have been slipped in there by a disgruntled employee seeking to defame the company, but rest assured, Dino-A-Live’s creations have no qualms about straight up putting a dude’s head between their teeth, as demonstrated by this video of a show in Fukui’s Katsuyama.
As a matter of fact the company seems absolutely blasé about the possibility of audience members being devoured. The FAQ section of the organization’s website includes the following:
Q: Someone watching the show got bit by the Allosaurus, but does that hurt?
A: It seems like the guy was OK.
Now we realize that on the one hand, the idea of robot dinosaurs is terrifyingly awesome. On the other, though, it’s awesomely terrifying. After all, what if a glitch in their AI caused them to become self-aware and turn against their human creators, like some sort of Terminator/Jurassic Park crossover?
Don’t worry, Dino-A-Live’s dinosaurs aren’t completely automated. They’re controlled by a “pilot” operting a mechanized suit, with their movement being a combination of human inputs and animatronics. In other words, rather than dinosaur robots, they’re closer to dinosaur cyborgs.
We can’t imagine any more compelling attraction than that, and if you agree, information on Dino-A-Live’s upcoming shows can be found here.
Related: Dino-A-Live
Sources: Lakatan, Facebook/Hilarious Crazy Vines
Top image: YouTube/DAL info
Insert images: Facebook/Hilarious Crazy Vines, YouTube/DAL info