A robot rises over Tokyo Gundam

This really brings back memories of watching dubbed Japanese anime in Bahrain. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the creation of the Gundam robots, Bandai constructed this 59-foot replica of the toy in Tokyo’s Odaiba Shiokaze park. The attention to detail is fantastic. This robot moves it’s head, has mist coming out of its vents and… lights up at night.

    

    

How can you not love Japan for justifying a giant robot statue of Gundam in the middle of the city. Imagine driving through downtown Los Angeles and passing a giant transformers statue… why not? Right? It was actually put there to promote the 2016 Olympic’s bid and to promote tourism to Odaiba.

The Gundam statue stands 59 feet tall! So to be eye level with it you’d have to be about six stories up.

Gundam is a Japanese anime series created by Yoshiyuki Tomino which is seen as a symbol for positivity and inspiration.

“In Gundam, you see a young man get on board a giant robot, he reads a tech manual and he says, ‘I can fly this thing and save the world’ – and in fact, he does.

“I think that hopefulness is what the Japanese see in robots.”

It really makes you admire the positive attitude and cultural relationship the Japanese have with robotics and technology.