Mobile Suit Gundam as a franchise is one of the oldest mech series to ever grace the anime world, first starting in the 1970s and still releasing a steady stream of television shows and movies to this day. With Hathaway’s Flash: The Sorcery of Nymph Circle coming to American theaters this summer, one of the franchise’s mechs has shown up in a wild environment. Japan has long had several life-sized statues that recreate some of the franchise’s greatest mechs, but now, a village in Indonesia has a Gundam statue of its own, as fans speculated on where the recreation sprung from. Now, the truth has been revealed.
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In 2019, numerous reports arrived regarding an ancient statue that looked shocking, like one of the mechs from the Gundam franchise. For years, many anime fans and history enthusiasts debated whether this statue was “ancient” or if it was all a prank. In a wild series of events, the statue was recently revealed to be created by a Gundam enthusiast named “Yatman.” The mech creator modeled the statue from the Gundam Exia from Mobile Suit Gundam 00, fooling many who believed it to be an ancient creation. The sculptor stated, “I made the Gundam statue as a marker to show that it’s my home. I worked on the Gundam statue every night after coming home from work.” You can see the side-by-side of the creator and the once mysterious Gundam statue below.
Gundam Statues in Japan
If you don’t want to travel to Indonesia to check out this stone statue, there are plenty of other avenues if you want to see a real-life mech. In Japan, two permanent, life-sized statues recreate the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam and the RX-93ff v Gundam, with them still standing to this day in Tokyo Plaza and Fukuoka, respectively. Unfortunately, one of the biggest and most impressive statues from the mech franchise is no longer in operation, as the Walking Gundam in Yokohama stopped taking steps in 2024. While the walking mech didn’t have the opportunity to fly through the air, the Gundam did walk under its own power, marking the first of its kind.
As of the writing of this article, there has yet to be a life-sized Gundam statue that has been made for the United States of America. With the anime world gaining more traction in the West, with a One Piece/Popeyes crossover recently taking place, we might one day see a mech land on our side of the world. With more Gundam movies and television series making the jump from Japan to America, anything is possible in relation to the space-soaring mech series. Luckily, even if a statue is never made in the U.S.A., the Gundam franchise has no plans of stopping when it comes to creating new entries in its anime universe.
What do you think of this ancient Gundam’s origins being revealed? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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Image courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
