Thursday, March 12, 2009

Bouncing Red Ball » 18-meter Gundam to be built in Tokyo, will defend metropolis from giant lizard attacks

This is a sight worth seeing. A “life-sized” Gundam will be constructed at Odaiba’s Shiokaze Park in July to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Gundam Moblie Suit robot franchise, the official website has announced. The statue will be free for viewing, but it will only stay up for two months. It will be built with fiberglass-reinforced plastic over a steel frame so it can be disassembled later. The head unit will move and the body will have 50 points that will emit light. Mist can shoot forth from 14 locations on the body. The park is just four trains stops from Tokyo Big Sight, the home of the Comic Market dōjinshi convention and the Gundam Big Expo convention that will be held from August 21 to August 23. Bandai Namco Group is still determining what to do with the statue after its allotted two months in the park are over. Considering that Godzilla is at least three times as tall (about 50 to 80 meters), Gundam would have to rely on a full set of arsenal to combat this perennial Tokyo pestilence. Of course, the Ushiku Daibutsu, which stands at 120 meters, would beat them both up, but he abhors violence and rarely goes to Tokyo, if at all.