Always double check your nerdy references before you make them, otherwise you risk the wrath of pedantic Gundam fans from across the internet.
The BBC learned that lesson after it incensed fans of both Bandai's franchise and Hasbro's Transformers. The broadcaster's sports account tweeted out an image of an Olympic speed climber performing in front of the famous Unicorn Gundam statue that's located in the Odaiba neighborhood of Tokyo. The image was accompanied with a caption that read "Just when you thought speed climbing was frightening enough, you now need to impress a Transformer too at #Tokyo2020." Obviously, a Gundam is not a Transformer, and the tweet has since received over 500 replies and 2,000 quote-retweets reminding the BBC of the many differences between a mobile suit and a citizen of Cybertron.
The BBC seems to be taking the Twitter ratio in stride, as the company followed up their original tweet with another image of the notably not-a-Transformer statue, alongside an acknowledgement of their mistake that read, "We see what's happened here... But who would win in an Olympic battle between a Gundam v Transformer?"
To be fair to the BBC, the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam is a giant robot that does indeed transform. The statue in Odaiba is based off of the flagship mobile suit from Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, which was released in 2010 as a seven part OVA series that was later adapted into a TV anime. The life-sized, mechanical statue performs a show accurate transformation between the suit's Unicorn and Destroyer modes at regular intervals. The statue was erected in 2017 and replaced a similarly sized figure of the RX-78 Gundam from the original Gundam series.
Source: Twitter
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