Kuratas, a real-life mecha

[AmuroNT1]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iZ0WuNvHr8

There's a chance this is a hoax, but if it's not...just wow. Whoever predicted that the first mecha would be like Armored Troopers was right. It's not at the walking stage, but still.

[Sume Gai]

Smile to fire... yeah I'm pretty sure this is mainly a joke.

[Ryujin]

Whoever predicted that the first mecha would be like Armored Troopers was right.

It's not surprising, given Kogoro Kurata's involvement in the project.

[AmuroNT1]

I tried out the build-to-order applet on their website (http://suidobashijuko.jp/#bto) for fun. Of course, it has color options based on the Zaku II, Char's Zaku, Gundam, and Eva-01.

[E08]

I saw a short report of it in the newspaper today. It appear at the Wonder Festival and is priced at US$1 mil.

[Aldaeus]

Diesel fueled it certainly is a start and actually seeing it in action is kinda really killer. Around 1 million a unit isn't bad considering an M1 Abrams runs about 6 mil... Sure it doesn't have a 120mm smooth bore... but if the Japanese defense force actually gave it some thought they were looking at possibly developing a mecha/Gundam... this is a good first step... it took less than 100 years to come from those lumbering 4km/h tanks in ww1 to the monsters of the battlefield today... this is essentially the same as a first step tank like the ww1 tanks.

All we need now is a George S. Patton of MS to realize its potential and we're in business...

I would actually kill to see some airsoft junkies get their hands on this and deploy it in a match.

[Compass]

I would not trust ANYONE to use that mecha in airsoft with those weapons, especially if their 6000RPM minigun is accurate.

[Aldaeus]

I would not trust ANYONE to use that mecha in airsoft with those weapons, especially if their 6000RPM minigun is accurate.

There are matches and situation games that use tanks with similar rates of fire from the mounted weapons on them. There are airsoft grenade launchers on said tanks which are basically what they showed though its a cut in half water bottle filled with airsoft bb's... It's not the rate of fire its the FPS that matters.

[Compass]

To fire at 6000RPM, you'd have to have enough FPS to clear the initial barrel without hitting the follow-up BB. I'm not expecting them to say "Oh, 1000FPS for sure!" But I'd expect it to be right at the 1J limit for airsoft. Any less and it'd be droopy BBs =_=

[Geoxile]

Looks like a big rip off to me. A barely functional mockup designed to resemble a Armored Trooper to sell to the fanatics, some of whom will no doubt sell everything they own just to get this thing. An oversized, dangerous, expensive toy.

[the Gatekeeper]

Hmmm... If I were to get this...(I won't.) This would be the most badass first car any teenager's ever had! I wonder if I would be allowed to park it on school grounds... I wonder if it's street legal. (Stick a license-plate on it's ass and you're good to go right?) Chicks dig giant robots. (Not at my school they don't.)

Anyway, in all seriousness I agree with Geoxile. The Kurata will end up being a novelty item that you only bring out of the garage once in a blue moon to show it off to some house-guests. (And then proceed repair the crap out of it afterwards.)

But I can't tell the future (I can guess), maybe this technology will develope into a dead end. Or maybe one day in the (extremely) far future I'll be telling my son the story of the first mech as he's buying his first Gundam at the used robot lot. (Definetly not.)

(Or maybe my child will become and accidental teenage pilot.)

In closing I will ask you all to think back. (Before you were even born.) When cars were first invented, who would have guessed that they would be as widely used as they are now? Same goes for may other technologies that we consider every-day, perhaps mechs will join those ranks? (I want an Arm Slave!)

The answer is a hopes-and-dreams crushing: Most likely not...

[Kenji]

Yeah, it's an expensive toy. Hey, good on 'em and I wish 'em luck, but don't expect this to go much farther.

A technological sea change (if you will) requires some kind of advantage. Let's compare, for example, bullets vs. blasters. The only way blasters will ever become unambiguously advantageous is in a situation where huge quantities of electrical power is cheaper than whatever physical material can be molded into a shell.

Naturally, I'm speaking of something rational: The Europeans adopted a style of warfare that made early rifles pertinent despite bows and arrows having longer range and greater accuracy (John Smith spoke of this in captivity).

Automobiles, which began as a rich man's toy, became a mass market thing because of the enormous, politically unified American countryside. Had North America been divided into a bunch of mutually-hostile states no larger than a European country, would the automobile have progressed as far as it did? Without a situation like the Cold War, in which two continental powers stared each other down across two oceans, would long-range airplane or rocket technology have progressed as far as it did?

Imagination plays a big role in innovation, but those innovations being adopted on a mass scale has more to do with necessity.

[Ryujin]

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Pacific....

Stompy, a Work In Progress, by Project Hexapod

[mysterE101v2]

And of course no one in the video thought it was weird that a mecha was driving in the streets? Still awesome though

[Kenji]

Kickstarter...? Seriously?

i'm starting to run out of reasons why I shouldn't just put up an ad for, "I don't wanna work for the rest of my life, pay for that!"

[Kuruni]

Rise, thread, rise from your grave!

Amuro just board the KURATAS

[Zeonista]

Rise, thread, rise from your grave!

Amuro just board the KURATAS

Wow, that is nerdgasm-inducing video goodness. Watching Toru Fuuruya climb into the cockpit and do his Amuro routine has to be the best fandom thing I've seen this year. As for the Kurutas itself, I want one; more than a Ferrari or a personal jet, one's one personal mecha suit puts everything else in the shade! Plus there would be the added benefit of taking it for a brief spin in my Ohio town & scaring/delighting all the locals.