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New Life-Size Statue of RX-0 Unicorn Gundam Debuts in Tokyo This Fall
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The anime studio Sunrise announced at Sunday's closing ceremony for the life-size Gundam statue (pictured below) in Tokyo that a new life-size statue will debut this fall. The new statue will depict the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam from the Mobile Suit Gundam UC anime. The new statue will debut at the site of the current statue, in front of the DiverCity Tokyo mall on the artificial island of Odaiba.
Sunday is the final day the original life-size Gundam statue is available to view. The send-off ceremony on Sunday ended with a live performance of music from the first Mobile Suit Gundam anime series, and a parting message from Gundam franchise creator Yoshiyuki Tomino.
The Gundam Fanclub website is previewing a concept image of the new statue.
The "Gundam Front Tokyo" attraction located in the seventh floor of the DiverCity Tokyo mall will also close on April 5.
The current statue, which portrays the iconic RX-78-2 mobile suit piloted by protagonist Amuro Ray in the first Mobile Suit Gundam series, was unveiled at Odaiba's Shiokaze Park in 2009, where it stood for 52 days. 4.15 million people visited the statue. The statue was then relocated to Shizuoka City in 2010, where it stood from July 2010 to March 2011, this time holding a beam saber in its right hand. In 2012, the statue was dismantled and rebuilt at its current location, where it has stood since.
The "Gundam Global Challenge" press conference had announced plans in July 2014 to make the statue move by the year 2019. The current statue could already move its head and automatically "open" its cockpit to reveal a screen inside.
The "Gundam Front Tokyo" attraction features the "Dome-G" theater, a collection of Gundam model kits, and artwork from the franchise. The attraction debuted many short anime for the franchise both in its Dome-G theater, and through its giant Wall-G presentation setup that projects videos onto the outer wall of DiverCity Tokyo behind the Gundam statue. These shorts include "Mobile Suit Gundam UC: A Phantom World," a Mobile Suit Gundam-san special episode, the "Competition of NEW GUNDAM -RED or WHITE-" short, the "Gundam VR Daiba Assault" virtual-reality experience, and the Gundam Reconguista in G: From the Past to the Future short.
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