As part of its 150th anniversary celebration, the Japan Iron and Steel Federation got ironsmithing genius Kogoro Kurata to display his insane 1:1 scale model of the Scopedog mecha from the 80s anime series VOTOMS. Weighing in at two tons and standing a full four meters tall, it dwarfed everything else at the exhibition. The cast iron structure was actually finished in 2005 and has been on display before at other Japanese conventions, but it still thrills every time it rears its mechanical head. Look at the detail on this thing! In VOTOMS, the Scopedog is a military all-purpose unit— a mass-produced combat vehicle that can fit a single pilot. In an interview with PingMag, Kogoro said that he built the entire structure out of iron mainly to prove that it was possible. The project ended up taking a year, because he broke a bone while working on it. [Robot Watch Japan via TechEBlog
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Lifesize Scopedog Mecha Towers Over Iron and Steel Celebration
By
Elaine Chow
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