Two years ago, to celebrate the 30^th anniversary of the Gundam series, Sunrise erected a life-sized RX-78-2 Gundam on the island of Odaiba in Tokyo. The Gundam was on display for two months before it was dismantled and moved to Shizuoka the next year and displayed next to the Bandai factory. While it was the same Gundam that was at Odaiba, a beam saber was added to encourage more people to come see it. Again, the Gundam was only displayed for a few months before being dismantled again.

There was some speculation about what would happen to the Gundam after the second dismantling. Some people thought that the pieces might eventually be scrapped, others thought that it would be continually erected and dismantled at different sites in Japan. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like the Gundam has been tossed away, as it has returned to Odaiba this summer (sort of).

Many people had realized beforehand that it would be too costly to keep up and maintain a life-sized Gundam and let tourists view it for free. To solve that problem, Sunrise is once again displaying the Gundam, but in pieces rather than fully constructed. For a small fee, visitors are able to get up close and personal with the Gundam and marvel at all the small details they put into it.

While a dismantled Gundam is nowhere near as awesome as a fully constructed one, there are a couple of perks to visiting the Gundam pieces. First of all, you can actually get close enough to the different parts to see the writing on them. Secondly, you can actually sit on one of the Gundam’s hands and take a picture. Third, you can actually control the lights in the head using your own power (pedaling power). It’s not as cool as lighting up the whole Gundam, but who here didn’t enjoy trying to turn on as many devices as they could by pedaling at a science center as a child?

If you’re a Gundam fan and just happen to be in Tokyo for the next week, then you should definitely visit the Gundam display in Odaiba. For those of you living further away, you might want to book your flights soon as the display will only be around until August 21.

Mobile suits are already in a humanoid form, so it’s not that difficult to turn them into anime girls. All you really need to do is replace that cold stare with a pretty face, make the torso curvy rather than pointy, and replace those bulky fingers with slender ones. Leave on the armor (except maybe around the midsection), weapons, and accessories, and BAM you’ve got yourself a MS Girl.

You can find MS Girl versions of almost every major Gundam out there, even some of the less popular mobile suits will have some artwork dedicated to them. This is thanks to artists like Eiji Komatsu (aka CO2A) who have been rather prolific when it comes to combining girl and machine. For anyone interested in more general machines, go search up mecha musume. You’ll find not only MS Girls, but fighter jet, tank, submarine, battleship, and even missile girls.

Not Gundam himself, but certainly this feminine version of Gundam we found here.