Goodbye (again), Gundam.
Seeing Tokyo’s life-size Gundam statue is an amazing experience, but also surreal one. Sure, Japan is the land of anime and all, but even then, a 19.7-meter (64.6-foot) tall mecha feels like something too awesome to be standing outside of the Diver City entertainment complex in the Odaiba district.
And sadly, it’s not going to be standing there much longer.
Both the official Gundam franchise website and the site for Tokyo’s life-size Unicorn Gundam statue have posted notices that the 1:1-scale recreation of the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam will be removed. They’re not giving fans much advance notice to make one last visit either (or one first visit, if you haven’t been able to fit Tokyo into your travel plans yet), as the Unicorn Gundam will be gone at “the end of August.”
It’s a sad turn of events for what has become both a symbol of the neighborhood and a mecha mecca for anime fans from around the globe. The Unicorn Gundam was completed in September of 2017, meaning that it won’t quite make it to a full 9 years. I went to go see the big guy as soon as I could, and on my most recent visit just this month, the Unicorn was still looking great, as you can see in the photos in this article.
Gundam rights-holder Bandai hasn’t said why the Unicorn Gundam is being removed, and with it still drawing huge crowds, to the statue itself and to the two Gundam specialty stores inside Diver City, the decision comes as a shock to many fans.
The blow of the Unicorn Gundam’s departure is softened by Bandai’s promise that it will be starting a project it calls the “Gundam Landmark Concept,” creating a new Gundam facility/attraction that “fans from all over the world will want to come visit.” No further details have been released yet, but with Yokohama’s moving life-size Gundam having been sent off in the spring of 2024 to Osaka for the Expo 2025 world’s fair, the removal of the Unicorn Gundam will leave the Tokyo area with no life-size Gundams at all.
That seems like a vacuum Bandai would want to fill as quickly as it can, and this actually isn’t the first time for Odaiba to lose a life-size Gundam, either. Prior to the Unicorn Gundam’s installation, a life-size version of the original RX-78-2 Gundam stood in the same spot for several years, until it was removed in March of 2017, followed by a Gundam-less period of roughly six months before the Unicorn Gundam, was completed.
So hopefully this doesn’t mean Tokyo will be saying goodbye for good to Gundam so much as goodbye to this particular Gundam, and then hello to a new one. Still, there’s been no official word that a replacement mecha is one the way, and while Bandai says it will have special events to send the Unicorn Gundam off in style, there’s very little time to waste if you want to see it.
Related: Unicorn Gundam statue official website
Source: Gundam official website, Unicorn Gundam statue official website via Oricon News
Photos ©SoraNews24
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