No half measures for this mutt method actor.
The Japanese man who spent over $14,000 “transforming” himself into a collie — and recently ventured out in public for the first time — is going viral yet again after revealing that he apparently has a doggie diet to go with his Lassie look.
A video depicting the Lass-querader’s method snack-ting currently boasts over 526,000 views on YouTube.
“Now that I’m a dog, I’m going to try to eat dog food!” gushed the canine cosplayer, named Toco — who conceals his identity from colleagues and friends to avoid shame — in the caption to the species-defying clip.
The footage starts off with the human Collie rolling over and pawing at an empty food bowl in anticipation of receiving goodies.
That’s when an unidentified hand pokes into the frame clutching a bowl of dog treats, whereupon the caption reads: “Looks like she’s going to give me treats!”
Toco then appears to polish off his canine noshes both from the bowl and his food provider’s hand.
However, things weren’t all they seemed: After some investigation, The Post has discovered that the so-called mongrel meal was actually play food made by a company called Erzi.
Toco even admits the whole thing was a foodgazi in the caption, writing: “As I’m sure you’ve noticed the dog food we used this time is a wooden toy! If it were a real one, it would get dirty.”
We assume he doesn’t really go to the bathroom on fire hydrants either.
Fortunately, it appears that aspiring Lassie can consume human food, with a recent video showing him slurping a bottle of Coca-Cola through the costume’s movable mouth.
Perhaps this is not too shocking given that Toco spent on fortune to realize his lifelong dream of becoming man’s best friend.
He reportedly paid Zeppet — a company that makes costumes for TV commercials and films — a cool 2 million yen ($14,161) to design a super realistic collie costume, which reportedly took 40 days and multiple revisions to make.
“My favorite is quadrupedal animals — especially cute ones,” said the animal lover while describing his inspiration for the unorthodox life choice. “Among them, I thought that a big animal close to me would be good, considering that it would be a realistic model, so I decided to make it a dog.”
Toco said he decided on a collie costume because its long hair can “mislead the human figure” — not to mention that these herding pooches happen to be his favorite breed of dog.
Following his canine coming out party, Toco decided to embrace his new identity by doing everything from playing fetch to prancing about in a fake kennel and shaking with his faux paws, activities that he films and uploads for his nearly 50,000 subscribers on YouTube.
Needless to say, many gawkers didn’t take too kindly to Toco’s lifestyle choice with some haters suggesting he go to “therapy” while others thought he was trying to fulfill some bizarre fetish.
But the human hound doesn’t roll over for trolls.
“I’m just sad that people can think that,” Toco lamented. “I love animals and enjoy play-acting like a collie.”
He added, “This is my hobby, so I will carry on. It makes me happy and other people happy, too.”
