While Jura Tripper is primarily based on the 1888 novel Two Year's Vacation by Jules Verne, it is also partly inspired by the 1912 novel The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle.
The plot goes as follows: a group of school kids are out on a boat trip one day when they're suddenly summoned to another world. What was meant to be an ordinary vacation ends up being an ardous journey as the children have to fend for themselves in a world that's unrecognizable to them and get caught in the war between humans and dinosaurs. With the help of a talking pterodactyl named Zans, the kids band together to find their way home and unite the people under the same cause along the way.
It originally ran from April 2, 1995 to December 24, 1995, ending at 39 episodes.
Not to be confused with Dinosaur Great War Izenborg, which is also about a war between dinosaurs and humans.
Also not to be confused with Infinite Ryvius, Mujin Wakusei Survive and Astra Lost in Space, which are based on the same Jules Verne novel. Ginga Hyouryuu Vifam was also inspired by the book, to a lesser extent.
Jura Tripper provides examples of:
- Adaptational Diversity: Zig-zagged. The cast of Two Year's Vacation was comprised of white schoolboys and a black boy. The anime adds some female characters to the cast and the cast is more or less monochrome save for a few Ambiguously Brown characters.
- Adaptation Expansion: The schoolboys' home lives and interpersonal relationships are given more focus here.
- Alternate Universe: Planet Noah is a parallel dimension to Earth co-populated by both humans and dinosaurs alike. In the end, the dinosaurs are nearly wiped out by a meteor, but Kashira, Mosar and their friends are able to destroy it before it reaches the planet.
- Adaptation Amalgamation: The anime combines Two Year's Vacation by Jules Verne and The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle into one story.
- Animated Adaptation: An odd example where it adapts two completely different novels into one animated series.
- Canon Foreigner: In the original book, all the school kids were young boys. The anime adaptation adds a couple of female characters to the cast, including an Action Girl, Tiger.
- Compressed Adaptation: Because the anime is only 39 episodes long, a chunk of the book's content is left out. Not to mention the focus given to the anime's own original characters.
- Crapsack World: Planet Noah is ruled by a fascist empire that's apathetic to the suffering of the citizenry and treat dinosaurs like a Slave Race. It also turns out that they've been secretly brainwashed to hate technology by the High Priest, because their Abusive Precursors nearly annihilated the whole race with it, leading the society to be reminiscent of prehistoric Earthern one.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Both humans and dinosaurs put their differences aside and join hands to fight the High Priest, who's secretly been preserving them all in a Crapsack World by lying that the advancement of technology would bring upon a second apocalypse. After Planet Noah is freed, the kids are able to use the dimension machine to go back home.
- Love Triangle: Kashira and Goddo both have feelings for Hime. She's engaged to Goddo but it is with Kashira who she has her first kiss. Nevertheless, there is no Official Couple at the end.
- Only One Name: None of the character's surnames are revealed. It's also questionable if the names we're told are their actual names, as they're more akin to nicknames (the nerd is called "Otaku", the rich girl is called "Hime", the doctor is called "Hakase", and so on).
- The Reveal: The High Priest is a robot. He opposes technology and the progression of scientific research because in the past, this led to the Ancient Ones committing heinous crimes. He was programmed to prevent such a thing from happening ever again, so he manipulates Planet Noah into being luddites, and when that doesn't work, straight up hypnotizes them.
- Setting Update: The anime takes place in the late 1990s, as opposed to the novel that took place around the 1890s. In other words, a hundred years ahead.
- Talking Animal: Zans and a few dinosaurs can talk. It's apparently a rare genetically inheritable trait.
- Trapped in Another World: The main cast are transported to Planet Noah, a stone-age-esque society ruled by Blood Knights on Schizo Tech filled with dinosaurs.