While this isn't a sentinent being, it is one step closer to a real life transformer. How would you like to pilot a giant freaking mecha robot? With Kuratas from Suidobashi Heavy Industry, you can own anyone with your very own real-life mecha robot. This is no joke, the prototype it was officially unveiled and demonstrated at Wonder Festival this summer. Finally, Kuratas brings the sensation of piloting a 13-foot combat robot down to mankind, for a mere $2,000,000 USD. See the video clips and more information after the jump.

ROBOT PILOT

KURATAS is the first giant boarding-robot, which is about four meters height. Robot pilot, an occupation most man would want to be, comes true at last.

THE MOST ADVANCED CONTROL SYSTEM

KURATAS has the AE "V-Sido", the control system of the computer technology is watched by all world with interest. Not only operating by boarding the pilot’s seat, but also enabling you to control and interact KURATAS with Kinect*. Moreover, without taking a professional training such as a combat plane, people can operate it easily. Furthermore, you can control KURATAS via the mobile 3G Internet access.

CUSTOM MADE

We could customize your KURATAS as what you hope; holding a squirt gun as a fire fighter, painting a body camouflage as a ranger in jungle, giving a mop and a cleaner as a home cleaning robot, so it is really up to you.

EASY TO BUY

Wherever you are, you can buy KURATAS on the online site, which will be opened when KURATAS Project completed.

SPEC

Height : about 4,000 mm / Width: about 3,000 mm / Length : about 4,000 mm / Weight : about 4,500 kg

Control system : AE V-sido

ABOUT SUIDOBASHI HEAVY INDUSTRY

This is an organization which is aimed to spread human ride robots. We will mass-produce and sell prototype KURATAS by Japanese artist Kogoro Kurata. KURATAS is coming out in 2012, by SUIDOBASHI HEAVY INDUSTRY.

Details from the Video:

Pilots wanted for giant mech robot Kuratas. Inspired by animated mecha, Kuratas brings the sensation of piloting a 13-foot combat robot down to Earth. Mecha-heads rejoice: A Gundam-style giant robot has come to life in Japan, promising joyrides aplenty in this 13-foot humanoid machine on wheels.

Suidobashi Heavy Industry showed off its Kuratas mecha bot over the weekend in Makuhari just outside Tokyo. Kuratas is a four-wheeled, 30-joint exoskeleton that can be piloted from its cockpit or remotely with a 3G touch-screen phone. It was demoed at the Wonder Festival, where legions of robot fans gathered.

Kuratas can move its massive torso, arms, and hands, and has a few "weapons" like a "LOHAS launcher," but it actually shoots BB pellets and fireworks. It can also grab things (like humans) with its claw-like fingers. After all, Kuratas is billed as an "art project" but it "makes your dream of becoming a robot pilot come true," as a promo video tells us.

The man behind it is metalworking wizard Kogoro Kurata, who is known for creating a full-scale cast-iron model of a Scopedog mecha from the 1980s series "Votoms." Kurata has also done a variety of art and commercial design work in recent years in and around Tokyo. He assembled the robot in a remote garage in the mountains. Kuratas is a case of life imitating art. It evokes the realism of Votoms and the Gundam animation franchise that debuted in 1979.

Inside the cockpit, AR-style info is overlaid over the video feed. Game-style controls rotate the torso and move the arms. The exterior has "shot-proof armor" and is painted with military-style insignias. Suidobashi Heavy Industry's logo, meanwhile, recalls those of Japanese weapons and shipbuilding conglomerates like Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.