In 2013, a huge piece of street art was commissioned in Leeds, England for the launch of Metal Gear Rising. For some reason it has stayed up for seven years, becoming something of a local legend, until last week it was finally covered over by a different ad that has nothing to do with Raiden.
The ad, located on Aire St, became kinda-famous online over the past decade, with some fans even seeking it out on pilgrimage while in the area. Here’s what it looked like in 2013 after it first went up:
Late last week, perhaps because an agency remembered “holy shit we can sell building-sized ads here”, it was finally covered up by what looks like a fashion campaign (maybe Gucci?), as captured in this photo by biroguyleeds (thanks Kraker!):
We can only hope that they simply covered him up, and didn’t just remove him, because I dearly want somebody to peel back the layers of posters and paint on the side of this building in 2079 and wonder, hey, who is this well-dressed man with cool hair?
Then strip back past that and wonder “what the hell was Metal Gear?”
DISCUSSION
This seems like a bummer since Shinkawa’s art seems way more interesting than “just another magazine ad,” however much work might have gone into the latter, but what I’m more interested in is the community attitude surrounding giant Raiden and his massive bulge—like, people in the area who had no idea what it was, what did they think about it?
“Yeah, mom, I live on the corner just past the giant handsome robot man. It’s really affordable, and a great neighborhood!”
“The what?”
“Don’t worry, you’ll, uh... You can’t miss it. In fact, once you see it, you can’t ever forget it.”