Giant Gundam to rise again

Good news for Gundam lovers: According to Japan's Sankei News, the life-sized Gundam statue that wowed more than four million visitors in Tokyo during the summer of 2009 is scheduled for a comeback.

The thirty-five ton, eighteen meter colossus, which features flashing eyes, a rotating head, and exhausts steam from its vents, will be reassembled in the city of Shizuoka in July 2010.

Shizuoka, roughly an hour from Tokyo by bullet train, is (not coincidentally, we assume) also home to the Bandai Hobby Center, where the plastic model kits of Gundam are manufactured.

The site was apparently selected so as to allow commuters on the bullet train an unfettered view of the giant robot as they pass through the area -- an only-in-Japan touch if ever there was one.