It's on: Japan accepts America's giant robot battle challenge

Last week, American company MegaBots Inc. issued an audacious challenge to Japan's Suidobashi Heavy Industry, makers of the massive Kuratas robots.

"Suidobashi, we have a giant robot. You have a giant robot. You know what needs to happen," Megabots' Matt Oherlein said in a YouTube video. "We challenge you to a duel. Prepare yourselves and name the battlefield. In one year, we fight."

The video featured Oherlein donning an American flag as a cape and showing off his company's 12,000-pound Mk. II robot with a paintball cannon capable of shooting 3-pound paintballs at 100 mph.

Sunday, Suidobashi released its own video, accepting the challenge -- and upping the ante.

CEO and creator Kogoro Kurata -- wearing a Japanese flag cape, of course -- responded, "Yeah, I'll fight. Absolutely. But you know what we really need? Melee combat."

"Just building something huge and sticking guns on it," he said. "It's super American." What he wants is hand-to-hand, metal-on-metal action.

"If we're going to win this, I want to punch them to scrap and knock them down to do it."

Both giant robots are controlled by pilots inside the machine -- one in the 9,000-pound Kurata, two in Mk. II.

Kurata told MegaBots to name the time and the place and he'll be there, ready to rumble.

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