Giant Gundam Returns With Giant Beam Saber

\Ready to slice you up! After being erected this past summer in Tokyo's Odaiba, the life-sized Gundam statue is returning. With an beam saber.

The huge 18-meter statue will be once again erected in the city of Shizuoka this July - specifically, the east exit of Japan Rail Higashi-Shizuoka Station. The beam saber even lights up at night.

The city of Shizuoka guestimates that the statue is able to draw 900,000 visitors and 40 billion yen over the course of 300 days. The statue will also create 9,600 jobs for things like security, maintenance and the like.

Why Shizuoka? The Production Factory for Bandai's Gundam plastic models are located in Shizuoka. This is a homecoming of sorts. A really, really big homecoming.

Originally, the statue went up in Tokyo's Odaiba last July for the 35th Anniversary of Gundam and was taken done in September. The statue was visited by over 4 million.

Source: Kotaku.com