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Did you ever wish to star in your very own Gundam cartoon? For under $300, you can become the hero in a copyright-naysaying mecha epic! More »
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Japan's 1:1 scale Gundam statue was built, disassembled, and subsequently reconstructed. Now, Gundam statue aficionado DarwinFish105 has recorded the statue's return to its former home in Odaiba. Here it is looking appropriately epic, surrounded by cloud cover. More »
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In this fantastically deranged sequence from the 1990s anime Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, the villainous Katejina attempts to hypnotize the heroic Üso with a totally unarmored cavalry. How unarmored are they? Well, let's just say it brings to mind a certain passage from Rendezvous With Rama. Thanks to Cesario for the heads up! More »
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Dutch design firm MVRDV recently won a competition to build the China Comic and Animation Museum in the city of Hangzhou. The firm shaped this trippy building like a collection of intermingling speech bubbles. The designers estimate that this project will cost €92 million (approximately $125.6 million), begin construction in 2012, and will attract visitors with its "gigantic 3D zoetrope." Should it ever be completed, I imagine visiting this museum will be an experience on par with freebasing a copy of Detective Comics #27. More »
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Remember that 1:1 scale Gundam sculpture in Shizuoka, Japan? Videographer Darwinfish105 (who previously did a time-lapse video of the statue) has now made a similar montage of the statue, now broken into pieces and surrounded by police tape. I'd hate to see the authorities' list of culprits. More »
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Sushi chef Okistugu Kado carves vegetable garnishes into Star Wars characters, Pokemon, and superheroes. They're the perfect accompaniment for sushi rolls from both the Light and Dark sides of the Force. More »
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You've got to hand it to this Singaporean cosplayer for strapping himself into this giant Gundam costume, and it's just plum heartbreaking when he wipes out. What's a mecha's deadliest nemesis? An uneven floor. More »
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Looking for the right mecha to spruce up your parlor? Bandai is offering a 1/12th scale model of a Gundam mech for a discount 380 sawbucks. It's five feet tall, 77 pounds, and will require some assembly. Burglars beware! More »
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How would we cope with giant robots in space? Adam Elkus, an analyst specializing in foreign policy and strategic studies, looks at the anime classic Mobile Suit Gundam for some answers. More »
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Darwinfish105's time-lapse video of this 59-foot Gundam RX-78 statue in Shizuoka, Japan is quite stunning. Screw public parks, I want my municipal money going towards a 1:1 ratio Gold Lightan on every corner. [Spotted on Major Spoilers] More »
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When the inevitable robot apocalypse comes, how will you let our new overlords know that you're sympathetic to their cause? A t-shirt like this from Chop Shop on your chest (or a similar print on your wall). [ComicsAlliance] More »
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Known to geeks the planet over as ground zero of swank fan culture, Tokyo's Akihabara district has a new power stone in its helmet: The Gundam Cafe, which even has Gundam-themed toilets. Check out this gallery of awesome nerd design. More »
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In the alternate history of Project Arbeiter, it's 1943 and the Nazis have invented the ultimate weapon: Mobile armor suits. But the allies have stolen the tech. And now it's a mobile suit mano a mano to win the war. More »
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This year marks the 30th anniversary of Mobile Suit Gundam, the television series about space war and mecha suits that launched a phenomenon in Japan. Headbanging rocker Andrew W.K. plans to celebrate with a tribute album to Gundam's music. More »
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Japan thinks the real world should be more like Gundam. Next year, a team of experts from all walks of life will join together to form the Gundam Academy, an academic institution dedicated to bringing humanity into the age of mecha suits, helper robots, and space colonization. It’s time for the Universal Century. More »
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The wildly popular anime TV sensation Mobile Suit Gundam 00 is coming to the States at last. The latest installment in the cyber-suit franchise that started in the 1970s, Gundam 00 takes place in the year 2307 AD. Genetic engineering and solar power has divided Earth and its colonies into a massive civil war. Now it's up to a group called the Celestial Beings to use the Gundam mechas to stop the horrific slaughter. More »
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It started as a mighty wave, but the Cartoon Network's action-anime programming block Toonami dwindled to nothing and then splashed harmlessly into the gutter. The Network finally put the Toonami block, which had played host to such classics as Gundam and Cowboy Bebop, out of its misery as of last Saturday. This coming Saturday will see the live-action Spider-Man movie instead, and the following week will be the broadcast premiere of the direct-to-DVD animated anthology Batman: Gotham Knight. [Anime News Network, thanks M. Hernandez] More »
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Japanese architect Kazushi Takahashi used to build ships, then jumped into building design. Now he's made another conceptual leap. He's created a movie theater in Tokyo that looks like the carapace of a Gundam robot. [via PingMag] More »
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Welcome back to MangoBot, a biweekly column about Asian futurism by TokyoMango blogger Lisa Katayama. My childhood hero was a purple-haired robot who spends all her free time poking poop with a stick. Like all good Japanese children, my formative years were influenced by manga robot heroes-two-dimensional, two-legged machines that first existed in simple black-and-white on newsprint. These robots quickly evolved from inanimate drawings on paper into animated TV stars, and later spawned franchised products, movies, video games, and major museum exhibits. One even transcended man-machine boundaries to become the first robot, feline, and two-dimensional figure to become an officially recognized global ambassador. Amazing. Here's a quick list of four anime robots that played a huge role in making me into the human I am today. More »
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With everybody freaking out about this year's Olympic Games, the only thing a future-thinking person can possibly do is focus on the 2012 games — and this "Apocolympics 2012" tee from Terratag is the perfect thing (modeled by a guy from London dance troupe Renegade Dance). UK company Terratag makes a ton of amazing, future-minded designs with a trippy manga sensibility. They've got an entire line of mecha and gundam shirts, including ones with laser eyes. See more cute dancers in more cute robo-future tees, below. More »
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Since late last year, the Japanese military has been working on projects aimed at "realizing" Gundam, the mobile armor suit that is both combat exoskeleton and A.I. in several popular anime and manga series. Just yesterday, the Defense Ministry of Techinical Research and Development Institute in Japan rolled out these new tanks, whose high-tech specs don't make it sentient armor exactly but certainly fit the bill of "smart tank." Want to see a strangely incongruous image of one of these tanks crunching its way out of a festive-looking tent in the suburbs? More »
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In Tokyo's district for otaku, or mega-fans, two bars will soon be recreating the Gundam anime universe. Featured in countless animated series, Gundam is a world where people wear sentient body armor, or "mobile suits," for fighting. Also, sometimes, for loving. Patrons of the Gundam bars will be served by waitresses in full body armor. And maybe they'll get to see some war action. More »
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