Here be dragons

I was in the port of Yokosuka southwest of Tokyo recently and dropped by the new Yokosuka Museum of Art, where installation artist Kenji Yanobe's robotic artwork Giant Torayan is on display. Torayan is a fire-breathing sculpture that's the size of a small house.

See how small the museum attendant is in this photo. She's doing the Japanese "X" sign because you're not allowed to take pictures. The huge funnel-like object behind Torayan emits a deafening steamship blast in case you're not intimidated enough by the baby-faced bot. The spikes on the back of its head are a direct reference to comic icon Astro Boy.

Torayan can also move its head and arms a bit. As it says in the ad above, a pyrotechnics display will be held July 14 at the museum, which is about 35 minutes by bus from JR Yokosuka Station. The sculpture is part of a larger Yanobe installation that includes an army of little men wearing yellow Hazmat suits, some riding a ferris wheel. It's all very surreal.

There's a video of Torayan spewing flame and jamming with Tokyo synth band Mas here.

23-foot, fire-breathing robot art

It's three stories tall. It breathes fire. It has a baby's face.

Giant Torayan may be awkward at cocktail parties, but it keeps the conversation flowing. It's certainly one of the most striking pieces of Japanese robot art I've come across.

Sculptor Kenji Yanobe, known for mind-bending installations that incorporate subculture icons, created this titan in 2003 to give kids a thrill. Its "command device," also a baby's head, contains a computer that only responds to children's voices, giving them the reins to a pretty impressive flamethrower. Yanobe calls Torayan "the child's ultimate weapon."

Yanobe's work recently came up in a blog by Robot Museum in Nagoya President Masayoshi Ishiko, who thinks Torayan would be a great ambassador to promote Japanese robot culture in China! Shock and awe indeed.

Ishiko-san has told me about his big plans for robots in Japan on several occasions. Think traveling robot circuses and the like. I hope he branches out to the Tokyo area - his company Gyro Walk also runs the popular RoboCafe in Osaka.

Speaking of Kansai, if Kobe is to get its own giant robot, q.v., Tokyo needs one too. Torayan is perfect.