Life-Sized Gundam Statues Exist

By Kasaix • 5 years ago

Live Imitating Art Can Be Really Awesome

The Gundam franchise is an epic tale centered around young men and women who pilot giant humanoid robots that fight on land, sea, air, and even space, believing in their ideals as they go to war. It defined the real robot anime genre as it depicted robots as machines of war. Gundam was created by Sunrise and Yoshiyuki Tomino in 1979 and continues to this day with the series Gundam Build Fighters. To put raw numbers on how immensely popular the Gundam franchise is, in 2014, it was reported that Gundam earned ¥80 billion per year, ¥18.4 billion of which was retail sales of toys and hobby items. Additionally, Gunpla, plastic Gundam models, make up 90 percent of the Japanese character plastic-model market. On the educational side of things, Academics in Japan have viewed the series as inspiration, and in 2008, the virtual Gundam Academy was planned as the first academic institution based on an animated TV series. So of course, the land where giant robots were created, life-sized Gundam statues were built. They can't fire weapons for fly. Yet. Maybe someday. If this is just practice for real mobile suits, things are going to get real.

On the 30th anniversary of Gundam's airing, a life-size statue of the mobile suit iconic mobile suit Gundam RX-78-2 was erected in front of the main entrance of Diver City Tokyo. This model was famously piloted by the first Gundam pilot Amuro Ray. It was first was unveiled at Odaiba's Shiokaze Park in 2009, where it stood for 52 days. 4.15 million people visited the statue then. The statue was then relocated to Shizuoka City in 2010, where it stood from July 2010 to March 2011, this time holding a beam saber in its right hand. It stood there between April 2012 to March 2017. The statue is lit up every day from 5:00pm to 11:00pm with steam firing from its chest. At the hours of 7:30pm, 8:30pm and 9:30pm daily, you can watch him test his pilot skills against the 105 x 37 feet backdrop projected on the Diver City Tokyo wall behind the Gundam. The 13-minute video is called Gundam Stand at Jaburo Aware/Tenshi Version.

The "Gundam Global Challenge" press conference had announced plans in July 2014 to make the statue move by the year 2019. The current statue could already move its head and automatically "open" its cockpit to reveal a screen inside.

Currently, a statue of RX-0 Unicorn Gundam from the Mobile Suite Unicorn Gundam OVA series is standing in the front of Diver City Tokyo in Odaiba where the Gundam RX-78-2 once stood, which is now under construction for completion in fall of 2017. Concept art showed the Unicorn Gundam in Destroy Mode, the Gundam in its current form during construction shows it in Unicorn mode with the antennae folded together. Perhaps there will be some minor transformation where the antennae split apart.

This is clearly a case of Gunpla for adults with degrees in architecture. To see these mobile suits in real life, 1-1 with the anime, must truly be a sight to behold for fan of the Gundam franchise. Given that Sunrise has gone from the RX-78-2 Gundam to the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam, there's no telling what they might build next. Perhaps the GF13-017NJ Shining Gundam or even the XXXG-00W0 Wing Gundam Zero. What do you think the future of the life-sized Gundam statue holds? Which Gundam do you think will be built to leave Gundam fans in awe next? Let us know in the comments below!

Recently, a human-sized Gundam was erected in front of a Buddhist temple in Nagoya, Japan. The statue is located in Zuienji Temple and was crafted by 66-year-old Toshio Hattori. It's currently being lent to the head priest as a way to gain younger followers to his temple.