Another reason you wish you lived in Tokyo: Sakakibara Kikai Co., Ltd.'s giant "Landwalker" robot made a surprise appearance in Shinjuku's Kabukicho yesterday afternoon. The visit to Tokyo's red light district was business, not pleasure: the Landwalker sported logos for Pepsi's newest concoction and stomped around while its pilot (yes, it has a pilot) fired ping-pong balls at bystanders. Unfortunately, I only caught reports on the news -- one of the images showed what looked like "captured" military cos-players lined up against a wall to take their ping-pong punishment from the towering robot. Nice touch.
No word as to if the Pepsi acquisition is permanent. Sakakibara actually attempted to auction off the Landwalker on Yahoo Japan Auctions late last year, with an opening bid of 36 million yen (a whopping $300,000 USD) plus a sneaky $2000 a year maintenance fee.
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