Suidobashi Heavy Industry





The US Women's soccer team may have won the World Cup against Japan on Sunday, but that doesn't mean the battle between the countries is over.

Japan's Suidobashi Heavy Industry, a company that has developed a giant robot, has accepted a challenge from American-based giant robot team MegaBots to engage in a full-on fight. The acceptance was posted to YouTube by the Suidobashi team and included its fair share of fighting words.

The duel is set against the backdrop of a dramatic end on Sunday to the FIFA World Cup, which pitted the US Women's team against Japan's Women's team. The US won, scoring five goals to Japan's two.

"My reaction? Come on, guys, make it cooler," Suidobashi founder and CEO Kogoro Kurata said in a YouTube video posted to the site on Sunday. "Just building something huge and sticking guns on it -- it's...Super American."

Kurata's playful comments came after MegaBots on July 2 issued a challenge to Suidobashi to engage in a real-life giant robot battle. The MegaBots pugilist is called Mark 2, weighs six tons, and is piloted by a team of two. The Mark 2 fires three-pound paint cannonballs up to 100 miles per hour. The Suidobashi Kuratas weighs 4.5 tons, making it a bit more agile. However, it comes with a pair of Gatling guns, coupled with an advanced targeting system and heads-up display.

In its own video, MegaBots called the fight a "duel," and said that it hoped to host the event in one year. The team called on Suidobashi to name the battleground.

The giant robot challenge will see the countries against each other again -- only this time, it's a must-win, says Kurata.

"We can't let another country win this," he said in the YouTube video. "Giant robots are Japanese culture."

Kurata also added one last request: the ability for the robots to engage in hand-to-hand combat in addition to simple gun-wielding.

"I want to punch them to scrap and knock them down to [win]," Kurata said.

So far, the MegaBots team hasn't responded. But now that the giant robot battle is heating up, it likely won't take long for a response.

Here's the Suidobashi video response: