Dinosaur Biyori

"Dinosaur Biyori" is a gag show, and I'm not going to try to convince anyone that it's the greatest one ever. Not every episode is a belly laugh. Some episodes don't even seem to have any jokes. But it's not just something Fanworks tossed out in the hopes that the characters would catch on. it's way more than you expect.

This show is wild, emotionally. Everything the characters do is shadowed by the fact that they're dinosaurs and, like, dinosaurs are extinct. They're supposed to be dead. And, apparently, they are aware of this while living in a human world (where we don't see humans). With ... that in mind, the individual episodes range from conflicts over one of the main cast making unappealing conversation at mixers to whether or not dinosaurs would be able to eat pizza.

I love all three of the main characters. Tyranno-kun, whose obsession with death (sometimes) drives him to make the most of the time that he has. Tricera-kun, whose sagely attitude contrasts with his evident laziness. Stenonycho-kun the Stenonychosaurus, who is constantly self-conscious about the fact that nobody knows what the fuck that is but supports his more popular friends just the same. Wonderful.

There's a ton of references to previous episodes, foreshadowing, and minuscule details throughout that may not be evident on a first watch. More than that, the amount of consideration that they put into how these dinosaurs would exist in a human-centric world is lovely. It's most obvious with Tyranno, because his stubby arms are the least like our bodies.

I translated this into English for my friends and we all loved it. Seek it out!