I admit, for the second part of my manga experiment (in which I read a variety of manga that I would normally never, ever, ever touch- and report back to our readers)  that I cheated a bit. I was determined to make myself read something from the new Viz Kids line, which is aimed at children ages 6-9. My choices were a series based on The Legend of Zelda games, Happy Happy Clover, a disgustingly adorable tale of forest animals, or Dinosaur Hour!, a volume of short gag stories set in the Jurassic era. Since I love love love dinosaurs, I picked up Dinosaur Hour!.

The cover art shows a crudely drawn Tyrannosaur. Inside, the art is better but not by much; the dinosaurs are all accurate (at least when matched up to one of my reference books) but not detailed. They lack any kind of texture or expression. They look like a little kid’s drawings, to be honest. This may be appealing to 6-9 year-olds, but I prefer James Gurney, myself.

Upon opening the volumes, the first splash page shows a Tyrannosaur tearing into a Stegosaurus. This is the shape of things to come, as most of the stories and the jokes revolve around various dinosaurs killing and eating each other. I was glad to see that mangaka Hitoshi Shioya didn’t sugarcoat things for the kiddies; there’s a lot of natural selection going on in this manga.

For instance, two protoceratops test the theory that a tyrannosaur’s vision is motion-based (meaning, if you’re standing still it can’t see you well), and discover to their sorrow that it’s not quite true. In another story, two triceratops and a carnivore strike a deal to food other dinosaurs and take their food. Two stegosaurs discover a new ‘restaurant’ and find themselves on the menu. Fish-hunting dinosaurs land at the mercy of a series of larger and larger bullies. More protoceratops explore a haunted grove, with disastrous results. And other dinosaurs progressively try to imagine a velociraptor with feathers, and end up with a rather adorable, Pokemon-like image.

There are numerous other short stories in volume one, none longer than a few pages and all in the same jokey vein. They’re all amusing, and if I were a kid I would probably find some of them laugh-out-loud funny. The dinosaurs have no names, so there are no recurring characters (though it’s hard to tell, since dinosaurs of the same species all look identical). The minimal length of each story is perfect for a kid’s short attention span, and despite the fantasy elements, Shioya includes lots of solid information on different dinosaurs and their habitats. Each new species is introduced with a size chart and list of stats, and the beginning of the volume offers a chronology of the saurian reign. The mangaka is obviously a dinosaur fanboy. His self-portrait even features a man with a dinosaur head, though I’m guessing it predates Raptor Jesus.

Dinosaur Hour! would be great fun for any dinosaur-loving kid, probably appealing more to boys than girls. It combines entertainment and education. It’s a bit crude and simplistic for adults, but the right kind of kid will love it.