Life-Size Evangelion Bust's Grand Opening to Be Streamed Live

Japan's Fuji-Q HighLand amusement park has unveiled the world's first life-size bust of the Evangelion anime's EVA-01 unit before members of the media on Thursday. The public grand opening of the "Evangelion: World - Life-Size EVA-01 Construction Project" pavilion will actually take place next Friday, and the theme park plans to stream the event live on the Ustream website.

The pavilion's main attraction recreates the scene where the anime's main character Shinji Ikari encounters the EVA-01 unit in its 7th Cage hangar for the first time. The bust measures 9 meters (about 30 feet) tall and 16 meters (52 feet) wide. The pavilion also has a life-size Entry Plug cockpit of an Evangelion unit (from where visitors can pay to have their photos taken), life-size figures of the character Kaworu Nagisa and the Seele monoliths, a miniature video theater, a museum, two studio galleries for taking photographs, and a shop. The construction costs of the whole facility eventually added up to 150 million yen (US$1.6 million).

The pavillion's official website is streaming the sixth and final progress report video on its construction. The video includes a summary of the previous videos, a tour of the facility, and a sneak peak of the life-size bust. The following websites have posted images from the press tour:

* Jiji Press
* Walker Plus
* Sankei Sports
* Response.jp

Fuji-Q HighLand is located near the foot of Mt. Fuji, and it has already hosted two amusement park attractions based on the Gundam anime franchise in the past, including a life-size Gundam figure (lying down on the ground). A second life-size Gundam figure stood on Tokyo's artificial Odaiba island last summer, and it will stand again with a full-length beam saber in Shizuoka, the home of Bandai's main Gundam plastic model kit factory. The city of Kobe unveiled a life-size figure of Tetsujin 28-gō (Ironman 28 or Gigantor), the manga/anime robot created by Kobe native Mitsuteru Yokoyama.

Image © 2010 Fujikyuko, Co., Ltd. & Fujikyu Highland
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Source: Anime News Network