Narita Airport cleaning robots

Tokyo's Narita Airport is probably one of the cleanest airports in the world, thanks in part to these two adorable cleaning robots, Narita-kun and Epo-chan.

via Shibuya246

I'm a contributing editor here at Boing Boing. I also have a blog (TokyoMango), a book (Urawaza), and I freelance for Wired, Make, the NY Times Magazine, PRI's Studio360, etc. I'm @tokyomango on Twitter.

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Anonymous

they look like they belong in WALL-E
gwailo_joe

It’s 2010 and this is all we get? Giant Roombas with cartoon faces? Phooey! (or akanbeee~; whatever. . .)

At this rate I’ll never get to see Veritechs or Masamune Shiro cyborg babes. . .and that’s a crying shame.

(or not, now that I think about it: all the cool robotics seem to come after a major calamity of some kind. . .I’ll settle for a Kaneda bike with reverse gear. . .)
Anonymous

Just walk into the spinning blades.
benher

It’s a playful use of Kanji. The “Ta” of Narita Airport is “field” and the “Ta” of NariTA-kun is more commonly used in boys names, such as Taro.

It’s a pity the photo doesn’t show them fully transformed alongside their teenage female pilots.
arboretum.ind

Yes… YES!
Finally all of Osamu Tezuka’s dreams (and mine) coming true!
Darran Edmundson

I’ve never seen the ‘ta’ in Narita-kun’s name written like that. Is this common?
Stefan Jones

Something about the lettering on the chins disturbs me. Like they characters have a linguistic Five O’Clock Shadow.
Yossarian

Does anyone else find these massively terrifying? I get a sense of brooding malice and automated, robotic resentment.
Anonymous

I’m gonna be going through Narita soon. Wonder if I’ll see em…LOL.
lenore

The ‘ta’ in Narita-kun is the kanji character for fat (also pronounced ‘ta’). It’s not the same ‘ta’ that is used in writing the name of the town Narita, so it’s a bit of a naming joke. He’s a very plump little guy, isn’t he? My guess is that Epo is an abbreviation of the word airport. Very cute!