It was only a matter of time.
To even a casual observer, the robot is immediately apparent as permanent a fixture of postwar Japanese culture as the automobile and pop music are of the United States. The island nation took America's passing interest in the Robinson's Robot, Robbie, C-3PO, and R2-D2 and ran with it. Stateside children in the 1980s were deluged with Japanese cartoon programs following the adventures of human-piloted giant robots, from the legendary Voltron to the curious Tranzor Z and the moody but exquisite Robotech. American producers, entranced by the specialty transforming giant robot, offered two television shows of their own, Transformers and Gobots, each with an accompanying line of merchandise. As the decade waned, so did the novelty. When the generation that grew up watching the Super Dimensional Fortress One blast a Zentraedi fleet of calculator-busting numbers — and trying to master Rubik's Cubes like Broadside and Jetfire — stopped playing with toys, their successors took to different, if inferior, youthful diversions. The age of robots came and went.
Not so in Japan. What finds its way across the Pacific to our shores is often found tenfold over there. Would a Hovertechnics employee design a functional, russet hovercraft in honor of Luke Skywalker's landspeeder? Perhaps — though we've yet to hear of it. At Sakakibara Kikai, a national fascination landed on the drawing board:
An environment machinery maker has developed a robot that can be ridden and maneuvered like one in the animation series Mobile Suit Gundam, the company employee in charge of the development said Sunday. ...[Designer Masaaki] Nagumo, 32, developed the product over two years almost all by himself as he wanted to develop a robot that could be driven and operated to move like Gundam.
Aptly named Land Walker, the fully manual contraption tromps around and fires foam pellets right out of a ten-year-old's daydream. According to the Mainichi Shimbun, Land Walker can be had for a cool six figures but Sakakibara Kikai is happy to rent out its undoubtedly coveted services by the day. Obviously, a bipedal robot carries military potential — though Sakakibara would be prudent to consider the disadvantages of fictional counterparts. The six-story-tall Battle Pod, for instance, would require a thirty-foot-tall pilot; and the All-Terrain Scout Transport, though offering much simpler logistical requirements, performs miserably in forests boiling with excitable teddy bears armed with rocks, sticks and redwood lumber.
Until then, a few privileged Japanese children will remember a special birthday party for a long, long time.
CHIZUMANIA: I, for one, encourage Steven Den Beste to become the first man who regularly blogs from inside a San Diego-licensed, public park-trolling robot. For required additional equipment, a Raidar-X communications crest would be a nice touch. Auto body shops need a good challenge.
Want more? Kateigaho International Edition heralded the Expo 2005 Aichi with an authoritative historical account; and here, conjecture on the eternal question.