Japan to Open Largest Domestic Gunpla Center

Along with the announcement of the Unicorn Gundam statue,  Japan will be opening its largest Gunpla themed facility, The Gundam Base Tokyo.  

Sunrise and Sotsu announced recently with the closure of the Gundam Front Tokyo theme park on April 5th, a Gunpla themed center will be its replacement, The Gundam Base Tokyo. This new facility will be Japan’s first and largest center dedicated to Gundam plastic model kits or “Gunpla”. The Gundam Base Tokyo is slated to open Summer 2017 on the 7th floor of Diver City Tokyo Plaza.

Under the theme of ‘Let’s Build Gunpla!’, The Gundam Base Tokyo will distribute various information and the charms of Gunpla to Gundam fans of all generations across the world.

The Gundam Base Tokyo boasts it will sell over 2000 different models, aswell as limited edition exclusive products only available at the center.  The facility will offer several amenities for Gunpla enthusiasts such as the “Gunpla Builders Room”, a workspace for creation of Gunpla models, “Gunpla Tokyo” is a display room with over 1500 models on display dating back to the 1980s, it is place where one can experience the evolution of Gunpla, “Gunpla Factory”, a booth related to the Bandai Hobby Center, the Japanese factory where Gunpla are manufactured.

Gundam Base Tokyo have additional features planned, such as video and music productions, event spaces, and more yet to be announced. The Gundam official fashion brand store, “STRICT-G” will also be reopened with the new facility.

“The Gundam Base” began as an official store in South Korea in 2003 , then opened a location in Taiwan in 2005 with the intent of popularizing Gunpla throughout Asia. Currently, there is a total of 11 store locations active those two countries.

Gunpla were first sold by Bandai in July 1980, months after the broadcast of the original 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam series, with model kits based off the mecha, aircrafts and space battleships from the series. Since then Gunpla has become the largest hit product series in the history of plastic models selling over 459 million items as of March 20, 2016.

Source: Gundam Info Gundam Base Tokyo