First peek at the full-scale Yatter-Bark

It looks like Takashi Miike will be pulling out all the stops in his live-action take on the classic 70s cartoon Yatterman. Here’s the full-scale version of Yatter-Bark, the huge rescue robot dog which will be featured prominently in the movie. Yatter-Bark measures 5.5 meters and took 3 months to build at an expense of over 30 million yen (currently about $280,000 USD). The photo was taken on the Takada toy shop set, located in an underground garage.

Sho Sakurai, the actor who plays Yatter-Bark’s creator, Gan, was surprised to see it in person for the first time, thinking it would just be added later in CGI. He drew inspiration from being around it during scenes and claims its massive scale and force created a certain tension on the set. Producer Yoshinori Chiba says that although a lot of CGI is needed for the film, great care was taken to maintain a specific feel between the wardrobe and set design, and being in the presence of a real-life Yatter-Bark brought adults back to their childhoods. The live-action shooting for Yatterman wrapped up in the beginning of June and the next few months will be spent working on CGI and editing, with release tentatively scheduled for March 2009. [source]