A Japanese man has pleaded guilty to burning down his family home after his mother threw away some of his favourite robot toys.

Yoshifumi Takabe told Kobe District Court in western Japan he became suicidal after losing the figures, which he says were partners he wanted to spend his life with.

The 30-year-old, who lived with his mother, torched the family home in retaliation, saying he wanted to die with his robots in the fire.

His mother had long complained that Takabe was cluttering the house with enough toys to fill at least 300 boxes.

The blaze on August 9 last year completely destroyed their two-story wooden house, but no-one was injured.

The robot toys were figures from the Gundam animated TV series, which started in the 1970s, about space wars involving giant robots.