The list of things you can’t buy on Amazon is pretty small and, as of yesterday, you can take gargantuan mechs off of the list. Looking like something out of a Terminator movie, the robot known as Kuratas is an actual, five ton ridable mech that could be yours for the modest price of over a million dollars.
Bloomberg Businessweek journalist Brad Stone billed Amazon as “The Everything Store” in his 2013 book about the company. Now, here’s irrefutable proof: if you have ¥120,000,000 (about $1,020,000) handy, you can currently buy a rideable mech robot through Amazon Japan. The robot is Kuratas, a passion project of Japanese blacksmith Kogoro Kurata that has been in development for several years. It’s 3.8 meters (12.5 feet) tall, weighs 5 tons, and should be able to scare the snot out of entire towns with aplomb. (Kurata bills the machine as a “toy,” but that seems like a liberal use of the term.) Its terrifying BB Gatling gun can rattle off 6,000 rounds per minute, set to trigger when the pilot smiles.