Anime-themed room has everything you need to build a Gundam model, including free kits.

Ariake isn’t on all travelers’ short list of neighborhoods to stay in while spending a night in Tokyo. Located on Odaiba, an island in Tokyo Bay, Ariake is connected by rail lines with the rest of the city, but a little out of the way if you’re hitting the major tourist attractions in Shibuya, Asakusa, or Akihabara.

Ariake is, however, where you’ll find Tokyo Big Sight, so it’s a convenient place to stay if you’re attending an event at the convention center, such as Comiket. What’s more, the Tokyo Bay Ariake Washington Hotel has been offering a very compelling reason to spend a night with them: a Gundam model-making room!

The theming starts before you even step inside, with a futuristic-looking door for the special anime fan-oriented guestroom, but that’s only the beginning of the cool design points.

Gundam-blue is the key color for the interior aesthetic, with insignias of the franchise’s Earth Federation Space Force adorning the wall and bed runners. The most dynamic touch is the mural of the original RX-78-2 Gundam that’s stylized like an exterior window giving you a view of the mobile suit flying by.

With the lights turned down, it really gives the impression of being outside Earth’s atmosphere, and the unique moon crater-print bedsheets further help set the scene of being on a starship or at the lunar facilities of in-anime Gundam manufacturer Anaheim Electronics.

And while it’s not as flashy, the room’s desk is just as focused on Gundam fans as the decorations are.

With extensions on both sides, the desk wraps around you, sort of like a cockpit layout. Why all the extra space? Because this isn’t just a desk…

…it’s a Gunpla (Gundam plastic model) workstation.

This isn’t a strict bring-your-own-tools deal, either. The Tokyo Bay Ariake Washington Hotel’s Gunpla room comes equipped with tweezers, files, coloring markers, and other model-building essentials for you to use during your stay.

There’s even a runner stand, a kind of rack used to keep sheets of yet-to-be-disconnected plastic piece (“runners”) organized during your build.

And since it would be cruel to supply you with tools to build a Gundam but not the parts, the Tokyo Bay Ariake Washington Hotel provides guests staying in this special room with not one, but two Gunpla kits.

The first is part of their Ecopla series that uses recycled plastic. It’s a 1:144-scale version of the RX-78-2, and we got right to work assembling it.

It’s detailed enough to be fun for veterans, but also simple enough that it won’t frustrate first-timers.

We figure an experienced builder can have it finished in about 15 minutes or so, but the fun doesn’t stop when you’ve snapped in the final piece. The Gunpla room also has its own diorama zone, so now it was time to snap some photos of our new Gundam.

There’s actually a second, hidden-in-plain sight photo op spot too. Remember those bedsheets we mentioned?

Zoom in close enough, and they make pretty awesome scenery for a Gundam mission on the surface of the moon or an asteroid, with a genuinely impressive 3-D effect to the actually flat image.

Want even more modeling? The second Gunpla the hotel provides, which is also part of the Ecopla line, is even more complex.

There’s no rush to finish both builds during your stay, since the kits are yours to keep. If you have made enough progress, though, that you’ve got some otherwise empty runner frames by the time you’re checking out, you’ll want to stop by the lobby, where next to this Gundam…

…is a Gunpla Recycling Project collection box, where you can drop off any leftover plastic scraps so that they can become an eco-friendly part of the endless waltz of Gunpla manufacturing.

It’s now, though, that we have to come to the only thing that’s not awesome about the Tokyo Bay Ariake Washington Hotel’s Gunpla room, which is that the promotion is ending on August 31. However, fans can take solace in the fact that it’s officially called the MG RX-78-2 Gundam Ver. 3.0 Room, showing that this isn’t the first time for a special room for Gunpla builders, and hopefully a Ver. 4.0 will be coming in the future, and it’d be especially nice if it coincided with that Gundam Wing dinner show that’s scheduled for this winter.

Related: Tokyo Bay Ariake Washington Hotel (1, 2)
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