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Life-Size Evangelion Bust Built Near Foot of Mt. Fuji

Not-So-Daily Link of the Day: Japan's Fuji-Q Highland amusement park has announced on Wednesday that it will open a new pavilion called "Evangelion: World - Life-Size EVA-01 Construction Project" on July 23. The pavilion will house the world's first life-size recreation of the scene where the Evangelion anime's main character Shinji Ikari encounters the Eva-01 unit for the first time. The recreation will have a mockup of the Evangelion unit from the bust up.

The pavilion will also have a life-size cockpit of an Evangelion unit (from where visitors can pay to have their photos taken), a life-size figure of the character Kaworu Nagisa, a video corner, a museum, a studio gallery for taking photographs, and a shop. Fuji-Q Highland's website will present the first interim report of the pavilion's 150-million-yen (about US$1.6 million) construction on May 26.

Fuji-Q Highland is located near the foot of Mt. Fuji, and it has already hosted two amusement park attractions based on the Gundam anime franchise in the past, including a life-size Gundam figure (lying down on the ground). Last month, the Yahoo! Japan website surveyed fans on whether they wanted a life-size Evangelion unit constructed — and if so, which Evangelion unit.

A life-size Gundam figure stood on Tokyo's artificial Odaiba island last summer, and it will stand again in Shizuoka, the home of Bandai's main Gundam plastic model kit factory. The city of Kobe unveiled a life-size figure of Tetsujin 28-go (IronMan 28 or Gigantor), the manga/anime robot created by Kobe native Mitsuteru Yokoyama.

Image © 2010 Fujikyuko, Co., Ltd. & Fujikyu Highland
Khara

Update: More background information added.