Giant Robots in Japan

The Comicsvine website recently posted this article about Japan's unique way of celebrating the 30th annivarsary of one of it's most popular Anime Mecha series Mobile Suit Gundam by constructing a 60ft model of the first Gundam mecha (the RX-78 Gundam) it was recently completed and is now standing over Odaiba's Shiokaze Park where it will live for the next few months. It looks amazing and at first I thought it was made of some kind of metal, however while it does have a steel frame its actually covered with a hard plastic.

Its an interesting way to celebrate a franchise's 30th annivarsary, the original Mobile Suit Gundam series may have finished years ago but the stories are still a part of the anime genre with a dozen other Gundam series being made over the years. Most of these series are similar to the story told in Mobile Suit Gundam (a colony citizen is forced into piloting a new type of Mobile Suit in order to protect his friends or colony but soon becomes involved in the escalating war between the two sides who are fighting) while others like G Gundam (which was created for Mobile Suit Gundam's 15th annivarsary) take a different route (in that series the Mobile Suits are used as fighters to battle one another to determine who will rule the Earth).

While the original Mobile Suit Gundam series isn't available for viewing in the UK the episodes were edited into three compilation movies which are available on DVD. The 2002 series Gundam SEED and it's sequel Gundam SEED Destiny was seen as an adaptation of sorts of the original series for a modern audience.

Despite being around for 30 years the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise has yet to have a feature length animated movie (there is a live action film called G-Saviour, however Gundam co-creator Yoshiyuki Tomino voiced his disapproval of the project) originally Gundam SEED was going to have a movie made set after it's second series Gundam SEED Destiny however the project has been put on hiatus. The latest Gundam series (Gundam 00) is set to be the first Gundam series to have a movie released in 2010.