FORSYTH COUNTY, Ga. — Something inexplicable awoke inside David Leyva when the Forsyth County resident saw a toy robot sitting in a Tokyo shop.
Specifically, it was an RX-78 from the Japanese science fiction anime Gundam series, a franchise that has spawned numerous television shows, movies, novels, manga and plastic model kits.
For Leyva, who grew up making models of military jet aircraft, the robot was simultaneously familiar and electrifyingly new…