Great King Kizer defeats Mon*(ster) to capture the ROBO-ONE Gran Prix 2009 Championship (Video)

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Nao Maru’s King Kizer series of robots have always been impressive, even going back to his first generation design, which was a modified Kondo KHR-1 humanoid. Competition after competition, year after year, Maru keeps surprising and delighting ROBO-ONE fans, and taking home so many trophies and metals that he might have to build a special wing to his home.

Yesterday, at the ROBO-ONE Gran Prix finals, Maru did it again. His latest robot, Great King Kizer, is so tall, and so well coordinated/balanced, that it literally walked away with the competition title. In the final match, Great King Kizer was paired up against Mon*(ster).

Purely from a specification perspective, the match appeared to be pretty even. Mon*(ster) stands 52 cm tall, tips the scales at 4.98 kg, and came in second place last year in the ROBO-ONE Gran Prix 2008 series.

The original “Great King Kizer”, which everyone expected to be the favorite in the competition, stood 54 cm tall with a weight of 4.37 kg. However, the robot that entered the ring on Saturday apparently was actually “Shin Great King Kizer” (‘shin’ means ‘new’ in Japanese), a new, improved version.

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As you can see from the photos, Shin Great King Kizer actually is a full meter tall, and towers over any ROBO-ONE competitor. And the robot moves surprisingly smoothly, and even makes small hopping moves to quickly shift position without losing balance or stability. It’s a real design ‘work of art’.

Here’s Iketomu’s video of the final match: