Giant Robot | Generation Mech

Tag Archive | "giant robot"

Tags: Bandai, giant robot, Japan, Mobile Suit Gundam

Gundam Statue in Japan – Ready for Round 2?

Posted on 30 June 2010 by admin

Hang on a sec. Had they not already done this in Odaiba back in September last year?

It sure wasn’t that long ago when it was constructed as part of the Namco Bandai’s 30th commemoration of the Gundam franchise. And they had to take it off after a couple months of display.

And now they’re doing it again for the second time? Well. I’ve no problem with that if you ask me being a mecha fan…

But I just wish they should make things transparent with these. I mean I don’t see how taking it apart and then putting on it again would make any sense when comes to making a strong attraction for overseas tourists to see what Japan’s pop culture lifestyle is got to offer. Especially when it’s already that good to appeal with IN THE FIRST PLACE!

I mean it just doesn’tt seem to add up! >.< And now we have one here constructed in the Shizuoka city, home of 710,000 Japanese citizens, 5th largest city in Japan.

Here’s the conceptual art of the proposed statue design over in Shizuoka city.

Proposed Conceptual Art Design of RX 78 Gundam Statue

As compared to this one at the Namco Bandai’s actual model at their headquarters, with the up-close shot of the light-saber burning through the blue brick.

RX Gundam 78 statue model in Namco Bandai's headquarters on display

I supposed no human casualty is part of the plan too?

Image sourced from Ngee Khiong

Since the project’s completed few weeks back at beginning of this month. Said to have more lighting and special effects during its opening. So this is all part of the hopes of translating more visitors coming into the city, both local and abroad (last year 4 million people came to visit before it got dismantled back in October 2009). And the only the key thing missing from the statue is the completion of the light saber upgrade.

Thanks for Ngee Khiong’s sources, it said to be opened to the public from 24th July 2010 till 10th January 2011, located at East Shizuoka Square.

Source: Ngee Kiong, Escapist.com, Geek.com, Bionicbong.com, Endgadget.com, All images are copyrighted and belong to the rightful sources.

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Tags: giant robot, mecha, music, super robot, toys, video

One guy’s world domination: Using giant robots?

Posted on 23 January 2010 by admin

After reading this post in twitter, I started to think myself how can the guy in the video really want to take over with the world with this so-called giant robots. If you’re really planning to take over whole world with giant robots, then start working ahead towards being an actual scientist, rather than be a make-believe giant robot scientist wannabe! :-/

Source: Tonydyson.com, Youtube.com

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Tags: giant robot, Gundam, mecha, science fiction, Super Robot Wars, video, video games

In other SRW news….

Posted on 21 September 2009 by admin

Checked this news link from SRW News blog.

Tokyo Game Show 2009 Logo

It would seem that there’s going to be a huge line of Namco Bandai’s games at the game expo many avid game fans would love to get their hands on, including this one for the Gundam lovers called Gundam vs Gundam Next Plus.

Image copyrighted by SRW News Blog.

Looks mighty impressive. And if you look at its main page, you’ll see it’s just a huge advert page mentioning about its PSP game release by 3rd December 2009, currently retailing at 6279 Yen (USD $69).

Source: SRW News, Gundam-VS.jp

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Tags: giant robot, mad scientist, mecha, Pop Culture

Eeek!!! – there’s a world’s largest rhinoceros bettle in my backyard! – and it’s on wheels?

Posted on 06 June 2009 by admin

Well… Not really…. It doesn’t do everything like what most Asian rhinoceros bettles do like eating, biting, fighting etc. And there’s no way you can find a 4-foot household cage to feed them either, which is insane thing to ask at a local Japanese pet store.

Whilst I was happily browsing the internet, I found this really cool comment link from Japanator.com, that tells us an actual story about an elderly scientist who put together this massive mecha bettle that runs on wheels and can take up the entire warehouse store, and provide rides for passengers up to 6 people in one go in its abdomen! The 60-year-old scientist took about 11 years to construct such a monstrosity out in his garage and he never broke a sweat while putting all the parts together. This guy’s just simply amazing! How on earth did he do that? And how the heck he could find the time to do that, considering his age? (no age discrimation is intended here).

Giant Bettle Robot

Regardless, he’s accomplished where no mecha enthusiasts had ever thought possible, other than in their little dream world. Sources indicated he’s given this bettle a name. ”Kabutom RX-03” is the name. The dimensions of the mecha are

Length: 11 metres; Wide: 9.5 metres; Weight: 15 tonnes

The 60-year-old scientist, Takahashi-san, demonstrated that the unit can be controlled using a remote control. Check the Youtube clip below and see the great action takes place!

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Tags: giant robot, mecha, Mitsuteru Yokoyama, Tetsujin 28, world war ii

Tetsujin 28 (Gigantor)

Posted on 19 May 2009 by admin

Tetsujin 28 battling with Mechanical crows

The show that started it all (well sort of. The show was not possible if it wasn’t for the great Osamu Tezuka’s Astro boy). This is the show that drew a lot of attention which inspired a large number of Japanese animators wanting to produce great mecha shows. It’s obvious to us who that person be ie (Go Nagai if you don’t know this already).

It was this show that gave Go Nagai the core reason and strong desire to spend countless nights and days wondering about designing his own concept of robot anime (and succeeded). And soon, more and more Japanese animators were able to follow Nagai’s footsteps to produce many great mecha anime shows they would be proud to claim. One generation after other.

Tetsujin 28, in its early days when it was converted from a manga publishbed by Shonen Magazine to a TV anime series. It ran for about 2 years in the early 60s

It was truly amazing how all the shows I used to love watching whilst growing up were made possible because of this 9-foot iron-clad giant that got Go Nagai so hooked and enabled him to make “mecha” as a mainstream genre for future artists to follow. So I decided to be inquisitive on this subject, wanting to find out more about it. I researched and googled everything about it, hoping there’s plenty of substantial information that could explain more about this mysterious iron clad giant (and how the mainstream public get to know it very personally), back in the 1960’s (since that’s the theme of this specific post). However, to my disasppointment, I could not find anyone reliable source of information that tells me how this show has been a positive impact in the community and how much do they really aware this program was the reason that propelled the drive for success of having so mecha shows for many generations (and more to come). No forums, no blogs, nothing. The best one I encountered is with this Youtube link that has opening of original show. ie 60’s.

I was left completedly stupefied that this video still looks pretty fresh as it’s been more than 35 years since this program was last screened on TV (or in today’s terms, Youtube), and we have dedicated fans out there who knews how incredibly important this “manga” series was to the mecha fan community. A community that would never exist without Mitsuteru’s contribution.

What would life be like without him? But still, I wasn’t contented enough in finding that there’s lack of “recognition” this series truly deserve. All I’m getting from my search results from Google.com, Microsoft.com, Yahoo.com were lots of Tetsujin merchandise, figurines, video games, DVDs sold on Amazon or Ebay and boundless of sites where people can give rave reviews on Tetsujin’s goods for incredibly low price when trading. Looking at it from a perspective, I say Tetsujin 28 was produced out from cries of help by the ordinary people to end all wars. Elements of famine, destruction, rivalry and conquest were the strong forces that “push” Mitsuteru to develop a story that involved building a robot that holds the characteristics of a hero. A people’s hero, more or less. When the author grew up in the horrific days of WWII, he witnessed significant events of B29 bombings in the Japan that brought a devastating end to the war and there was nothing Japan could do to prevent that. It was because USA had the secret plans of implement strategic long-range bombings over the land of the rising sun. Mitsuteru thought (in his fictional point of view) if Japan could have a “secret” plan to thwart American’s offense, Tetsujin 28 would be the answer. Tetsujin would be equipped with many of long-range weapons. And he can fly with a propulsion packs and it takes a remote controlled device to give specific commands that will help in accomplish the war-winning objectives. Tetsujin is also given with a Frankenstein-like complex ie meaning like Frankenstein, he’s neither good or evil. But he’s the protector of people from criminals and enemy robots. So making comparisons of these with other 70’s, 80’s and 90’s mecha I used to watch since little, there’s this sense of good old-fashioned story of “good guys vs bad guys” and Tetsujin 28 is nothing short of being an exceptions to that. In addition, robot character design isn’t hugely tied into the aesthetics of its sharp edges and incredible details of mechanical structure as compared to today’s mecha anime standards.

Tetsujin 28 and Frankenstein: See any resemblence between these two?

As he submitted this Tetsujin artworks to one of the teen publishing firms “Shonen”, the company were impressed with his works, started to make TV shows. Later, its series became a number one hit instantly and gained the reputation as the greatest sci-fi genre anime in the post era war in Japan. The series ran for about a decade spanning in mid 1950’s – 1960’s. With such incredible reponses, given the fact that books and magazines were hard to purchase as everybody have much money only for rice, it’s little wonder how he’s done well in exceeding his expectations of getting this much reception from the public. The show really turned itself out to be one of the great pioneers of Japanese animation genre in the history. Which begs the question – if Mitsuteru Yokoyama was truly the ‘godfather’ of giant robot anime (other than Go Nagai), why is that he’s not getting that same amount of recognition and respect as Go Nagai does? It was his works after all that gave Go Nagai all the great inspiration to make his own lineage of unique robot shows in the first place. So surely Mitsuteru Yokoyama deserves that much credit, if not more. Despite this, history behind these developments show that past, present and future mecha shows attributed to Go Nagai’s contribution to this subgenre. Like a blueprint for success, as old as that cliche personal development coach would love to use, Go Nagai is hailed the ‘mentor’ for many mecha communitis out there internationally. (Well, you could argue that Mitsuteru Yokoyama left Go Nagai “his” blueprint of success, otherwise it wouldn’t happen if it weren’t for him, wasn’t it?)

Nevertheless, Tetsujin did win several manga awards over the years (and some posthumous ones too) and so Tetsujin 28 was put into the spotlight for some time. We remember him well for bringing us the iron-clad giant whose impregnable body represents the model of any mecha that wants to be: strong, heroic, mysterious, unstoppable and powerful. And a symbol of peace and admiration (not to mention those ridiculous shapes of long-range missles that seem to come out of nowhere). That’s the beginning of a milestone Mitsuteru’s work set aside which ‘breeds’ many talented artists such as Go Nagai, Shoji Kawamori and Tomino Yoshiyuki to bring their wonderful mecha art creations to life. Ahh. If only they have the original series on DVD releases, that would certainly make my personal journal on mecha very ‘complete’.

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