OK, so you have probably guessed that Japan is not just the land of the rising sun, its the land of Idols (Young girlies doing nothing much but looking nice in bikinis) who you see everywhere - TV, billboards, train adverts and in some cases
printed on long pillows... Erm kind of going off at a tangent here but I am trying to say is that most importantly - Japan is the land of Mecha's - large humanoid vehicles used to transport humans and fight with bad naughty mechas. Examples are
Gundam and
Macross - known as
Robotech in the west.
You can indulge in a bit of mecha by watching anime, reading manga, buying mecha figures and occasionally come across real mechas...
The above is a real life sized Mecha (Scopedog) from the anime
Votoms - see the making of this at
Kurata sans site. Apart from just standing there looking cool - it does not do much - it cant walk or beat up your enemies. If it falls on somebody they will probably die with a huge "splat". But still - rather be killed by something as cool as this right?