Review and photographs by Brontozaurus, edited by Suspsy
I recently visited the Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum (FPDM) while on a trip in Japan. The museum is located near the Kitadani Formation, where many of Japan’s dinosaur species have been found and described. It was well worth it, but even before I got to the FPDM, I was encountering Japanese dinosaurs in toy stores. It was very cool to see the likes of Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus rubbing shoulders with local dinosaur species!
Speaking of Japan’s local dinosaurs, here is TakaraTomy’s reconstruction of Fukuiraptor, made for their ANIA line of small animal toys. In life, this was a 4 metre (14 ft) long carnivorous theropod dinosaur belonging to the Megaraptora clade, a group known for their vicious hand claws. In plastic, TakaraTomy’s Fukuiraptor measures 13 cm (5 inches) from snout to tail tip, giving it a scale of about 1:30. It’s posed in a neutral standing stance, but its articulated joints mean this won’t last long. There are two ball joints in the tail, rotating joints in the hind legs, and an opening jaw. The tail sections also rotate at the base, so they can be posed while still looking natural. I find it odd that the arms can’t move at all, given their likely use for hunting. The visible joints may be a turn-off for some, particularly the obvious ones in the tail, but it makes this toy very pleasing to fiddle with.
The articulated joints are also the only real concessions to this being a toy, as otherwise it’s a good depiction of Fukuiraptor as a living animal. Unlike many toy theropods, the feet aren’t oversized for balance, but this does make it difficult to stand on its own. The sculpt is quite detailed for such a small toy, and it overall looks like a living animal. My one disappointment is that it appears to have fairly standard-sized hand claws instead of the larger claws that the megaraptorans are known for. While this may have been difficult to capture at this scale, it does mean that this Fukuiraptor looks fairly generic for a theropod. I actually thought this was Allosaurus at first until I saw its box!
TakaraTomy has painted their Fukuiraptor a brick-red colour with a beige underside and white stripes running down the back, including the articulated tail sections. The teeth are white with a pink tongue inside the mouth. I feel like I’ve seen this before on multiple occasions, but it’s well executed and I like it. The same colour scheme is also found on the various Fukuiraptor sculptures that you can find around the Fukui train station and in the FPDM, which is a neat bit of synergy.
There is also another version of this toy exclusive to the gift shop of the FPDM, based on a model in the museum, that replaces the brick-red and white stripes with crimson and dark red stripes. It’s otherwise identical to the standard version. Personally, I prefer the standard version as the stripes on the exclusive version look a bit crude in comparison.
I think this is a great little toy. Though definitely good for kids with the articulation, it’s also suitable for fiddling with as a desk toy. If you’re after a display piece, you may want to consider something like CollectA’s Fukuiraptor instead. This alternative may be easier and cheaper to find outside of Japan. Within Japan, though, the ANIA figures are widely available (I found mine in the toy section of BIC Camera) and generally cost around 700-800 yen, while the museum exclusive version was around 1300 yen.
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