It’s on! Japan has accepted US giant robot maker MegaBots’ challenge, and hopefully there will be a Gundam-style showdown between MegaBots and Suidobashi Heavy Industry’s “Kuratas” mech soon. But while MegaBots’ mech looks impressive, Japan’s is extraordinary—it even came out with an instructional video on how to pilot it back in 2012.
MegaBots is in trouble.
The video above shows an airline-style visual manual on how to do everything in the Kuratas mech, from firing BBs to cruising the streets of Japan (which looks surprisingly normal). Kuratas’ operating system looks awesome, much more advanced than MegaBots’ steel bars, and the bot has a surprising range of movement and control given that someone is actually Gundam-ing this thing.
Kuratas’ weaponry includes a water bottle rocket launcher and twin Gatling guns that can pump out 100 BBs per second. The firing system can even lock on to targets, ensuring that “Kuratas will not allow any wild targets to escape.”
But the best/most bizarre/terrifying aspect of the mech’s weaponry is that the system fires when the pilot smiles. It’s called “The Smile Shot.” The more the pilot smiles, the more the robot unloads.
If this robo-duel ever goes down, my money is on Japan.
