ALBAWABA - There is a rumor on social media that is going viral and it claims that a 26-year-old Japanese millionaire spent ₹220 crore (about $260 million) to get operations to look like a dog. It is fake.
The posts claim a man named “Jaso” went thru several cosmetic surgeries to look and act like a dog forever. But there’s no credible evidence to support the allegation and fact checks confirm the narrative is derived from a distorted account of a real viral event.
Originally, the story was about a Japanese man who goes by the name Toco on the internet, who fulfilled a childhood dream of living as a dog by ordering a hyper-realistic Rough Collie dog costume from the Japanese special-effects company Zeppet, which creates props and costumes for movies, TV shows and commercials.
Zeppet and various publications said that the custom-made outfit, which cost around 2 million Japanese yen (nearly $14,000-16,000, or about ₹11-12 lakh), took around 40 days to finish. This was never the outcome of surgery or other physical alteration of the body.
Toco originally showed off the costume in 2022 on his YouTube channel, “I Want to Be an Animal,” where he said he had dreamed of turning into an animal since he was a kid. Videos of him wandering around parks, talking to people and even meeting real canines have since gone viral around the world with millions of views.
Toco has said several times that the donning of the costume is a personal interest, not a medical makeover, but viral posts are resurfacing that suggest otherwise. He has also hidden his real name, stating he fears that those around him will not comprehend his bizarre devotion.
The current claim seems to have inflated both the cost and the premise, substituting Toco’s well-known costume effort with an unfounded tale of a fake multimillion-dollar surgical makeover.
The facts haven’t changed, but the lifelike costume continues to intrigue internet users: the popular “human turned dog” narrative is disinformation and the metamorphosis is all a costume, not medical.
