Japanese man spends £12,480 so he can look like a dog

A Japanese man's love for the border collie dog breed made him spend 2 million yen (£12,480) just so he can get a hyper-realistic dog costume and fulfil his lifelong dream of looking like one.

The man identified as Toko, approached an agency called Zeppet, which makes sculptures for movies, advertisements, and amusement parks. It took 40 days for the company to make the costume after multiple changes and alterations.

A clip of the man masquerading as the dog has racked up thousands of views on video-sharing platform YouTube since it was posted in April. He has even posted photos of himself wearing the costume on Twitter.

Speaking about his love for dogs, he said: "My favourite is quadrupedal animals — especially cute ones. Among them, I thought that a big animal close to my size would be good, considering that it would be a realistic model, so I decided to make it a dog."

"I made it a Collie because it looks real when I put it on," he added.

A video of Toko dressed in the costume shows him rolling on the floor and waving his legs and paws in the air. Some of the videos show him playing fetch and snuggling with stuffed animals.

Zeppet in a statement later said that it was very difficult to make an animal costume that can suit a human body and that they had to do multiple revisions before Toko finalised a version of it, per a report in The Independent.

"The point is that the skeleton of a dog can be reproduced on the skeleton of a human. Since the structure of the skeleton is very different, we spent a lot of time studying how to make it look like a dog," a Zeppet employee told local Japanese news outlet Mynavi.

"In addition, we collect photographs taken from various angles so that the beautiful coat of the collie can be reproduced and devised so that the coat will flow naturally."

Even though social media users have been mostly amazed by what Toko has done, some have called his hobby frivolous. "Silliest thing that one can ever commit to," commented one user, while another wrote: "This is like a car accident, disturbing but you can't stop looking."