DARPA, the American agency commonly known for its hilarious supervillain-esque laser projects and weaponized dolphins, took time out of its wacky military inventions schedule to hold its Robotics Competition in Miami, Florida, where a humanoid robot from Japanese company Schaft, Inc. took top prize.
DARPA
Robotic Firm Boston Dynamic working with the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) made a splash with a demonstration video of a highly functioning quadrupedal robot called LS3 (Legged Squad Support System).
When many internet fiends in Japan laid eyes on it they couldn’t help but think of Homo, a parody of girls into homoerotic art (fujoshi). It was developed on Twitter from ASCII art (┌(┌^o^)┐ホモォ). Since then it has become something of a subculture phenomenon spawning various merchandise.
A few months later, has the US military improved LS3 enough to quell the giggling of otaku everywhere? Let’s see.