Anime: Completed Life Size Gundam Takes Its First Steps For The Press
The Yokohama Pier Gundam has taken its first steps for the media as a completed mobile suit and is almost ready for visitors.
Over the weekend, the life-size Gundam in Yokohama took its first steps as a fully operational mobile suit for the media.
A life-size figure of a robot from a popular Japanese animation, “Mobile Suit Gundam,” has been shown to the media at a pier in Yokohama, near Tokyo. pic.twitter.com/Tz8EXJ5FST
— NHK WORLD News (@NHKWORLD_News) November 30, 2020
The Yokohama Gundam stands eighteen meters tall, which is just about sixty feet or between three and four stories tall, and looks like it stepped right out of the television screen and into real life. This mech has thirty-four articulated parts, which allow it to move its hands, feet, arms, and legs and simulate walking.
The RX-78-2 is part of the Gundam Factory Yokohama, the Gundam will be open to the public starting December 19th and available to visit until March 31, 2022, but the trip would be worth it with visitors having the opportunity to “pilot” the Gundam while viewing footage from the mech’s cockpit. The Gundam Factory and mech were both created to celebrate Mobile Suit Gundam’s 40th anniversary.
In reality, the Gundam isn’t quite operational the way you may have imagined after watching the anime. While it looks impressive, if not amazing, the entire mech is a complex statue and tethered safely to its scaffolding. The entire piece weighs upwards of twenty-five tons, which is massive but still much lighter than you may think for a large structure. The inside is effectively stripped to nothing but essentials making it possible for the scaffolding to support it and for the RX-78-2 to move. Suffice to say that while this is a marvel of fandom and engineering, this particular mobile suite won’t be seeing battle or space flight any time soon.
The Gundam Factory will include the Gundam Dock Tower, where fans can visit with the mobile suite up close, look at all of the detail and moving parts, and the Gundam Lab, which is more of an exhibition facility and interactive museum. This is where visitors will be able to get the 5f piloting experience, get real-time operation information, learn about its structure, design, and mechanisms, and, of course, visit the gift shop to bring home a miniature version of the RX-78-2 for your very own. You can find more information on the Gundam Factory on their official site.
The RX-78-2 is one of the most iconic mechs of the Gundam series. It first premiered in 1979 in Mobile Suit Gundam as a weapon for the Earth Federation, and its iconic design helped inspire almost countless new Gundam suits in the forty years since.
Between the full-sized Gundams in December and Super Nintendo World in February, there has never may have been a better time to visit Japan, and I look forward to traveling to being safe enough to live out my Gundam piloting dreams before it blasts off again in March 2022.
Are you planning on visiting the Gundam Factory Yokohama and RX-78-2 for yourself? Which Gundam series was your favorite? Which mech would you want to pilot? Let us know in the comments!
Ja Ne, Adventurers!
