Suidobashi Heavy Industries Accepts Megabots Inc.'s Robot Battle Challenge

It began as famous duels not involving Alexander Hamilton do, on YouTube. This summer, Oakland-based startup Megabots Inc. decided to make their robot fighting dreams come true, threw on some American flag caps, and challenged Suidobashi Heavy Industry to battle. The Tokyo-based maker of 13-foot OG giant robot Kuratas, Suidobashi didn’t react immediately, pondering, presumably, how intimidating the Megabot Mark II is. But that calm is now officially the calm before the storm. The challenged has agreed to meet the challenger on the field of battle. This week, Suidobashi accepted.

“We have a giant robot, you have a giant robot,” Megabots Inc. said in a statement aimed at Suidobashi in June. “You know what needs to happen. We challenge you to a duel.”

“We can’t let another country win this,” Suidobashi Heavy Industries founder Kogoro Kurata responded, presumably over metal guitar rifts, this week. “Giant robots are Japanese culture. Yeah, I’ll fight.”

While the fight is expected to happen next year, an exact date and location are yet to be determined. But the sad fact of the matter is that USA-robot Mark II isn’t totally ready for battle — its makers say it’s currently too slow. Megabots Inc. put up Kickstarter asking donors to help them “defeat Japan.” and got to their funding goal this September, so hopefully Mark II is up to speed soon. They’ve also announced that engineers from NASA, software company Autodesk, and the television programs Myth Busters and BattleBots are ready to help out Team USA.

Seems like Suidobashi Heavy Industry’s trash talk worked like a charm. In their acceptance video, founder Kogoro Kurata took on a whatever tone.

“Come on guys, make it cooler,” said Kurata. “Just building something huge and sticking guns on it — it’s super American.”