Last night the first real-life giant robot mech battle was streamed on Twitch, pitting America against Japan in a robo-duel. The battle came three years after the Japanese robotics manufacturer unveiled the Kuratas and two years after an American robotics company, MegaBots, challenged the Kuratas maker, Suidobashi, to a giant robot battle.
The battle has ended and the challenger, MegaBots, won. Reactions to the battle are pretty much all over the place.
Hate to say it about a giant robot battle but I feel like I'm watching a particularly poorly staged cable reality show #giantrobotduel
— Dave@SKULLOMANIA (@sasuraiger) October 18, 2017
Lot of people somehow disappointed in the robot fight. You just saw a 500 pound fist knock an 11 foot robot down flat. #GiantRobotDuel
— (((TormaMasuda))) (@TormaMasuda) October 18, 2017
I'm so embarrassed for my country right now. No, this is not a tweet about Trump. #GiantRobotDuel
— MAN (@MANvsGAME) October 18, 2017
Many expected the battle to be a live-stream of a live event, however, the battle was fought and filmed months ago over a two-week span. The long filming allowed for the robots to be repaired to go into battle again and for the show to get scripted.
A great example of how staged the show felt came at around 1:00:00 in:
That's right, the giant robot battle had it's moments, but those moments were in encased by advertisements, staged scenes and scripted lines. Countless threads on theMegaBots subreddit have been locked over repeat threads of how disappointed fans are.
Even MegaBots had to comment on the ads:
Apologies for the ads, but y'know… Gotta pay for giant robots somehow! #GiantRobotDuel
— MegaBots Inc. (@MegaBots) October 18, 2017
It appears as though a majority of the upset isn't over the fight itself, though fans expected more, it was over the commentators and staged scenes. In the end, it's safe to say that the epic punch was the highlight of the battle.
What did you think?
