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Japan responds to U.S. giant-robot battle challenge: Bring it on

What a time to be alive.

 

Aja Romano

Internet Culture

Posted on Jul 6, 2015   Updated on May 28, 2021, 10:26 am CDT

Last week, a U.S. giant-robot company summoned a Japanese giant-robot company to fight them in a giant-robot duel. In their challenge video, U.S.-based Megabots gave Japan’s Suidobashi Heavy Industry—and all of Japan—the opportunity to name the battlefield and “meet in one year’s time.”

It’s on.

Suidobashi has delivered its own in-your-face response to Megabots’ challenge, accepting in true Japanese style—that is, mocking the hyper-American notion that just sticking guns on a bot is what makes it cool. 

Granted, that’s pretty much the coolest thing we can think of to do to a robot, but Japan has been doing this whole giant-robot thing way longer than we have. We defer to their expertise.

We should note that Suidobashi, which has already been marketing its automated giant-robot suits for three years, is probably going to kick Megabot’s metal butt if this duel actually does happen. In their corner, they have a series of badass videos showing their primary robot, the Kuratas, kicking ass in the wild. In America’s corner, we may have an impressive human-piloted robot, sure, but it’s not exactly standing on the shoulders of giants:

Still, giant-robot battle! Giant-robot battle! We look forward to our country’s humiliation at the hands of our betters, all in the name of human progress.

What a time to be alive.

Screengrab via Suidobashi Heavy Industry/YouTube

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*First Published: Jul 6, 2015, 11:47 am CDT