Gundam robot from various anime TV series and manga took its first tentative steps along the road to killing all humans being fully functional.
2020 is throwing pretty much everything at us. From Siberia’s “gateway to the underworld” creeping open to ancient life “waking up” after millions of years under the ocean via scientists disturbing a 66-million-year-old giant egg they discovered in Antarctica and discovering 13 Egyptian mummies sealed and unseen by human eyes for 2,500 years, it’s pretty clear the year is gearing up for one hell of a climax.
So why not throw giant Gundam robots into the mix. I only hope we survive the forbidden microbes long enough to be slaughtered by kaiju.
As we reported earlier this year, the upcoming amusement park Gundam Factory Yokohama in Japan has created an 18-meter (60-foot) life-sized replica of the RX-78 mecha (crewed) Gundam robot from various anime TV series and manga. Back in July, the robot took its first tentative steps along the road to killing all humans being fully functional.
During that test it appears no weight was put on the legs of the robot, which has now been rectified in a new test. The robot has moved on from merely doing steps and is now performing lunges as well as a series of gestures that I’m pretty sure means “bow before your robot overlord” or merely “I am your god now,” my robot sign language is pretty rusty.
Before you get too excited and/or release the kaiju to watch them fight, we should point out that the video is sped up 4x. Unless you have an elderly kaiju that isn’t as spritely as it once was, currently the robot is going to get pummeled before it’s even swung a punch. Here it is at normal speed.
Here are some humans for scale.
It might be slow, but nevertheless the Gundam is an astonishing achievement of engineering. Japan has had other full-sized Gundam statues before, but this is the first that can actually move, soranews24 reports. The 25-ton robot is due to remain at the Port of Yokohama, just south of Tokyo, for a year. It was originally scheduled for debut when the park was due to open in October of this year, but Covid-19 has delayed construction and it’s currently not known when people will be able to see it up close.
The article is originally published at IFL Science.