AltJapan: Sengoku Gundam

Forget "G.I. Samurai." There's a new Sengoku Jietai in town: Sengoku Gundam. Given the insanely high level of interest in warlords and samurai, stoked by the popularity of the 2009 NHK Taiga Drama "Tenchijin," it was probably only a matter of time before this happened. (It also helps that Bandai's been churning out endless Gundam variations based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms and generic suits of samurai armor for decades.)

From left to right, we have Takeda Shingen Gundam, Uesugi Kenshin Gundam, and Naoe Kanetsugu Gundam. Compare them to the actual suits of armor worn by their namesakes in the 16h century:

These guys rank as some of the biggest bad-asses ever to walk a Japanese battlefield. If I had a time machine, I would love to try to explain the mash-up:

"There was a big war... a couple centuries from now. And your country -- I mean the WHOLE country, it's been unified, but not by any of you guys, sorry -- anyway, your country loses to the barbarians. What? No, not the SOUTHERN barbarians. Other barbarians. That don't really exist yet. Anyway, you lose, but then you sort of win the peace afterwards. By making transistor... uh... Forget that part. Anyway, the kids of the people who experienced the war make animat-- I mean, "magic moving pictures" -- that are a metaphor about their country's experience in the war. And it's like a huge merchandising success... Huh? Yeah. The merchant class sort of runs your country in the future. Not the samurai. Anyway... oh, to hell with it..."