Stop-motion masterpiece is a whole new kind of Gundam animation.

In the modern era, anime fandom has grown so big that there’s a constant stream of high-quality, pre-assembled figures being released. But even now, there’s a special satisfaction that comes from assembling your own mecha model.

Maybe that’s because it puts you into the headspace of the robot’s creators, both the real-world artist who came up with the design to be used in the anime, and the in-anime engineers who built the machine before the hero strapped into the cockpit. Of course, there’s also a downside to building your own models.

Just look at all those pieces. Even if you somehow make it to the end of the project without losing or breaking any of them, that’s still going to be a huge time investment. Still, there’s something undeniably fascinating about seeing how all those components come together. If only the pieces could assemble themselves…like in this awesome video from Japanese YouTuber GeeTee.

After the box’s lid rises and the sheets of parts spill out, the individual pieces start popping off the plastic frames and coing together to form the MSN-04 Sazabi, the regal yet intimidating mobile suit piloted by antagonist extraordinaire Char Aznable in the Gundam movie Char’s Counterattack.

But while Japanese toymakers have produced some pretty cool things, autonomous self-building Gundam models aren’t actually on the market. Aside from being a skillful model kit builder, GeeTee is also amazingly talented at stop-motion animation. At one point, the mecha just starts pulling pieces off the frame itself.

The high-speed build video is actually a series of 1,145 still photos that GeeTee took while putting the Sazabi together. The assembly and photography took him a total of 30 hours, and he spent almost as long – 20 hours – editing the photos into a flowing video and adding the robotic sound effects heard throughout.

Of course, Gundam fans may think the Sazabi looks a little lonely without its fated rival from Char’s Counterattack, the heroic RX-93 ν Gundam. Don’t worry, GeeTee has built that model too (or, at least, provided a video of it building itself).

 

Aside from their healthy doses of coolness, both videos have some comedy too, as the self-building models mirror their human counterparts with a couple of incorrectly placed or dropped pieces that require later correction. Possibly the most enviable part of all is when the post-build mess cleans itself up after it gets a stern look from Gundam.

So far these are the only two Gundam model videos that GeeTee has produced, but with the anime’s huge catalog of robots, hopefully there’ll be more to come in the future, and maybe even a team-up with the Gundam snowboard team or this fellow stop-motion master.

Source: YouTube/GeeTee Channel via Jin

Follow Casey on Twitter, where the RX-93 ν Gundam remains one of his all-time favorites.