In 2020, engineers in Yokohama, Japan, finished building a full-size, moving RX-78 Gundam, the giant robot from the 1979 anime Mobile Suit Gundam. Standing 18 metres (about 60 feet) tall, it could step forward, turn its head, raise its arms and kneel, making it the first life-size Gundam that actually moved. It was the centrepiece of the Gundam Factory Yokohama, which opened in December 2020 and welcomed more than 1.5 million visitors before closing in March 2024.
This article looks at how the robot was built, what it could and could not do, why the franchise's creator was unimpressed by early work on it, and what happened to it afterwards.
What Gundam is and why it matters in Japan
Mobile Suit Gundam was created by director Yoshiyuki Tomino and the animation studio Sunrise, and first aired on 7 April 1979. Its robots, called mobile suits, are piloted war machines that run out of ammunition, break down and need maintenance. That grounded approach helped define the “real robot” genre of mecha anime, in contrast to the almost magical super robots that came before.
The franchise has since grown to more than 50 television series, films and video releases, plus manga, novels and games. Its plastic model kits, known as Gunpla, make up the vast majority of Japan's character model market, and the brand earned about ¥145.7 billion in 2024. Its cultural weight in Japan is often compared to Star Wars in the United States. A 2020 New Atlas report called it the 14th highest-grossing media franchise of all time. Such rankings depend heavily on how revenue is counted, so treat the exact position as approximate.
Earlier life-size Gundams already existed. A full-scale RX-78-2 statue was built for the 30th anniversary and later stood in Odaiba, Tokyo, until 2017, when it was replaced on the same site by a statue of the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam. Those figures could light up and move a few small parts, but they were essentially statues.
Building a giant that moves
The Yokohama robot grew out of the Gundam Global Challenge, a project announced in 2014 to celebrate the franchise's 40th anniversary by making a Gundam move. Designer Masaki Kawahara, who had worked on previous full-size Gundam attractions, led much of the design work; this was his fourth.
The numbers in early reports were striking. The finished figure was planned at about 25 tonnes, with 24 degrees of freedom, and each hand alone stood around 2 metres tall while having to stay under 200 kg including motors, cables and outer panels. Weight was the central engineering problem: every kilogram added to an arm multiplies the force needed at the shoulder, so the team relied on lighter materials, careful joint design and extensive testing.
The control software was built on the open-source Robot Operating System (ROS) and the Gazebo simulator. A full-scale virtual model was released so that programmers could experiment with movements safely on a computer before anything was tried on the real machine.
Did the Gundam really walk?
Early coverage promised a robot that could walk around. The reality was more modest, and more honest. The finished figure, given the designation RX-78F00, was attached at its back to a large movable support structure. That armature bore much of the robot's weight and moved it forward and backward, while motors in the legs, arms, torso and head produced the poses.
The result worked more like a giant, motorised puppet than a free-walking robot. It could step out of its dock, lift a leg, turn, crouch to one knee and raise a hand toward the crowd, all with convincing weight and timing. True independent walking for an 18-metre, 25-tonne humanoid remains beyond current technology; the balance, power and structural demands are enormous.
Did the laser sword make it? No. The beam saber from the series was not part of the moving figure, which stuck to gestures and poses.
Tomino's blunt verdict
Part of the project's charm was a documentary web series following the build. In one episode, Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino visited Kawahara to see work on the head and torso and did not hold back. He said, in translation, that it “feels like they're going backwards, trying to reproduce a 40-year-old original.”
Tomino is famously outspoken about his own creation and has often urged fans and creators not to be trapped by nostalgia. His criticism was less a rejection of the engineering than a challenge to do something new rather than simply copy the 1979 design. It did not end his involvement: he spoke at the closing ceremony in 2024 and was there to see the robot off.
Opening, extensions and closure
The Gundam Factory Yokohama was built at Yamashita Pier in Yokohama's harbour. It was originally due to open on 1 October 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed construction. After an opening ceremony on 18 December 2020, the public was admitted the next day, with timed tickets and pandemic precautions.
Planned to run only until March 2022, the attraction proved so popular that it was extended twice, first to March 2023 and then to 31 March 2024. The final day included fireworks, a drone show and a last activation of the robot in front of about 1,500 fans. More than 1.5 million people visited during its three-plus years.
The figure did not disappear. It was rebuilt as a stationary statue for the Gundam Next Future Pavilion at Expo 2025 in Osaka, this time without its moving machinery.
What the project tells us about real robots
The Yokohama Gundam was entertainment first, but it was also a useful public lesson in robotics. It showed how far large-scale actuators, lightweight structures and simulation tools have come, and how far there still is to go before giant humanoids walk on their own. The engineers chose an approach that was safe for crowds standing just metres away, and that choice is itself part of good engineering.
It also showed why fiction matters to technology. A generation of Japanese engineers grew up with Gundam, and many say it helped draw them into robotics. Seeing a 1979 cartoon robot lift its hand above a real harbour was, for many fans, a moment where imagination and engineering finally met.
Sources: Wikipedia: Gundam Factory Yokohama; Wikipedia: Gundam; New Atlas, 28 January 2020: Yokohama Gundam Factory's 18-metre moving robot; Time Out Tokyo, April 2024: The Yokohama Gundam Factory has closed; Gundam Global Challenge documentary episode with Yoshiyuki Tomino.
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