Shoji Kawamori's "Macross" goes live-action... in a pachinko machine

by Chris MaGee

Japan has certainly seen its fair share of real life giant robots this year. Well, let me clarify that a bit - Japan has certainly had a number of "life-sized" giant robots sprout up this year what with the Mobile Suit Gundam on Odaiba Island and the Tetsujin-28 in Kobe being erected and drawing crowds of onlookers. It certainly seems that these massive mechanized heroes will never totally fade from Japan's pop consciousness. The latest example of these robots jumping off the pages of manga and into our reality (at least somewhat) are these commercials for Sankyo's new Fever Macross pachinko machine based around the characters of Shoji Kawamori's "Macross" sci-fi anime. Not only are the commercial pretty cool, but so is the website for the pachinko machine that has you navigate via a joystick at the bottom of the pages.

Thanks to Danny Choo for pointing this neat bit of news out.