The U.S. and Japan might have been on the same team in Pacific Rim, but that was a movie, and this is real life. Last week America's MegaBots, the robotics firm that's partnered with Autodesk to make giant fighting robots (that admittedly fire paint cannonballs rather than live rounds), threw the gauntlet down. They've brazenly challenged Japan's Suidobashi Heavy Industry, which has developed their own giant fighting robots (named Kuratas after company founder Kogoro Kurata), to a duel.

First off, here's the American challenge:

Suidobashi was silent for nearly a week. But on Sunday, the same day that the USWNT trounced Japan in the World Cup Finals, Suidobashi CEO Kurata posted his response:

I love the trash-talking, which is as cutting as it is accurate: "Come on, guys, make it cooler," said Kurata. "Just building something huge and sticking guns on it [is so] Super American." Also cool is Kurata's insistence that melee combat be part of the deal, because you have to be super-confident to send your multi-ton robot at another multi-ton robot where both are going to punch the crap out of each other.

Enter a caption (optional)

The melee demand likely means each company's current robots will have to be modified. But if we look at their current offerings, we can get a sense of how the battle might shape up. First off, let's look at what MegaBots recently pulled the sheets off of at Maker Faire:

That was three weeks ago. Now contrast that with what Suidobashi was scarily rocking three years ago:

Between the Kurata's crushing claw, the dual Gatling Guns, the rocket launchers and the automatic targeting, I think we Americans might be in for some trouble. Not to mention the Kurata is wheeled and will probably dance circles around MegaBots' tracked creation.

Enter a caption (optional)

However, there is one—or should I say two—rays of hope for the U.S.:

The Kuratas are all currently single-pilot affairs, whereas MegaBot's mecha are designed to be piloted by two. If we choose our duo carefully, we've got a good shot. My votes are Tim Howard operating the defensive mechanisms and Carli Lloyd on offense.

Enter a caption (optional)