Who's The Japanese Man In A Dog Costume? The Guy Who Transformed Himself Into A Collie Explained

Over the weekend, the internet discovered the objectively strange hobby of a Japanese man who wears a super realistic dog costume because, well, he wants to be a dog. The costume (which resembles the rough collie dog breed) cost the man roughly $15,000.

He's been posting online since at least 2022, but he's only gone mega-viral in the last few days for a video where he meets other dogs in real life. The uncanny nature of his hobby has led to reactions and memes en masse.

So, who is the guy beneath the costume and why does he want to be a rough collie named Toco? Let's explain.

Who Is The Japanese Man In A Collie Dog Costume?

For those who want to meet the man, unfortunately, he's decided to keep his real name and identity a secret. He's never revealed his face and probably never will.

One thing we know about him though is that he's Japanese, mostly due to his Twitter, TikTok and YouTube channels prominently featuring Japanese titles and captions.

We also know that he originally bought his collie costume in March 2022. It was made by the costume design studio Zeppet. About a month later, Zeppet's Twitter account tweeted photos of the costume, leading to a viral quote retweet from the costume's owner which included a video of him walking around inside it for the first time.

Soon after his virality on Twitter, the costume's owner launched a YouTube channel called I want to be an animal where he continued to post videos as his dog alter-ego, Toco. A few months later, in August 2022, Toco started a TikTok page which has since amassed over 156,000 followers. That's way more than any of his other social channels.

How Much Money Did The Collie Dog Costume Cost?

According to the modeling studio Zeppet's webpage for the costume, it cost approximately 2 million Yen which is about $15,000 USD. On top of that, the costume took about 40 days to make.

Why Is The Japanese Man In A Collie Dog Costume Going Viral Right Now?

Despite starting his online presence over a year ago, Toco the human rough collie has become a central meme topic this past week. This is because of a viral video Toco posted to both YouTube and TikTok over the weekend in which he met real dogs and real people in real life. The video gained millions of views on both platforms as well as viral reposts on Twitter.

In the video, everyone seems to be friendly towards him. Maybe the people didn't realize that he was a human. That's what he paid $15,000 for. The real question is if the dogs noticed the difference when sniffing his behind.

As the video spread across social media, meme creators compared Toco the human rough collie to Animorphs and furries. Some people who own a collie as a pet even started to question if their dog was secretly a human.

At the end of the day, the man's money is the man's money. He can do whatever he wants with it. It's definitely a strange hobby but so is most cosplaying. At least a dog is a real thing unlike the anime characters that cosplayers pretend to be.

Just kidding. We don't want any fandoms catching any strays. Overall, it just puts Toco's passion into context.

For the full history of the Japanese man in a collie dog costume, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry here for even more information.