Mobile Suit Gundam, created by Yoshiyuki Tomino in 1979, is a popular anime series that helped to popularize the mecha genre of anime, which features giant robots.

The Japanese automotive industry is a major employer in Japan, with over 1.3 million people working in the industry.

The Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 and subsequent tsunami devastated Japan's northeast coast and caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster.