Gundam: You Can Pilot Your Own Metal Mech For $3 Million
If you want to step into your own Gundam-like mech suit, it's going to cost you.
For quite some time, anime fans and science fiction fans alike have wondered if our technology would ever make it so that mech suits would become a real-life technology. While we might never see fully-realized Gundam suits walking the Earth in our lifetime, not including the life-sized statue in Japan, Tsubame Industries has made available a mech suit that you can purchase if you're willing to part with a few million dollars. The mech might not be readily available for those thinking of purchasing said suit as if it were an automobile, but it does go to show how technology is inching closer to making mech suits a reality.
The name of Tsubame's mech suit is "ARCHAX" and retails for around $2.73 million USD. Standing 14.7 feet tall, the mech suit allows the owner to step into its cockpit to pilot the mechanical wonder. While the mech doesn't fly in the sky or harbor an energy sword like so many Gundam suits that we've seen in the past, it has twenty-six cameras to help it navigate and can transform into different modes to go from a more humanoid appearance to a vehicle that can move a little over six miles per hour. Luckily, Tsubama has shared a new video showing off ARCHAX's moves.
ARCHAX Blasts Off
Tsubame Industries' Representative Director, Tatsuo Yoshida, had this to say in relation to creating this pilotable mech, "Science fiction world to science reality…We want to cherish romance. Dreams and romance It also has the role of heavy equipment useful for disaster recovery and space development, such as a boarding type robot that has actually been made into a shape, and has functions that extend the human body such as feedback of the feeling of what the robot is holding in the hand, and carries heavy objects. My ultimate goal is to develop a robot that is based on this technology."
Mech suits have become a big factor in the anime world with both Mobile Suit: Gundam and many other franchises. The likes of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Macross, Gurren Lagann, and Escaflowne are some movers and shakers when it comes to how technology can impact a story.
Do you think we might hit an era where mech suits become a common technology? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the world of mechs.