Interest

Life-Size Gundam's Virtual Pilot Auction Ends at US$9,800

The Yahoo! Japan auction for the winner to have his or her image projected from the cockpit section of the rebuilt life-size Gundam at the Gundam Front Tokyo at Diver City Tokyo ended on May 16 with a winning bid of 779,000 yen (about US$9,800). The auction, which ran for one week, opened with a starting bid of 1 yen (about US$0.01).

A digitally-rendered image of the winner will be created from photos and projected from the statue. The winning amount will be donated to charity to aid the victims of last year's earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan.

The opening ceremony for the unveiling of the completed Gundam statue last month had revealed a new feature of the Gundam statue. Unlike when the statue first appeared on Odaiba and later down south in Shizuoka, the statue now has an "opening" cockpit. No one can enter the cockpit though; the cockpit had "opened" during the ceremony to reveal an image of Amuro at the controls. The below video provides a close-up of the cockpit and Amuro's image in the cockpit during that opening ceremony.

The self-described "Gundam videographer" darwinfish posted a new time-lapse video on Monday of the life-size Gundam that remixes earlier videos posted so far this year.