--- title: Yaskawa Sword Wielding Robot Isao Machii description: This robot can cut through anything canonical: https://time.com/3911676/yaskawa-robot-sword-isao-machii/ author: Josh Sanburn article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-06T17:44:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:20:49.347Z og:title: Watch This Robot Perfectly Mimic a Master Japanese Swordsman og:description: This robot can cut through anything og:url: https://time.com/3911676/yaskawa-robot-sword-isao-machii/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2cab8d8dfd307ebd/698853450b72e3325d6e455b/yaskawa.jpg?branch=production&width=823&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 823 og:image:height: 463 og:image:alt: yaskawa sword robot og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch This Robot Perfectly Mimic a Master Japanese Swordsman twitter:description: This robot can cut through anything twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2cab8d8dfd307ebd/698853450b72e3325d6e455b/yaskawa.jpg?branch=production&width=823&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Watch This Robot Perfectly Mimic a Master Japanese Swordsman > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=78fdc1cd-5aa6-4748-ad7a-2f0b14b422c7&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) by [Josh Sanburn](https://time.com/author/josh-sanburn/) ## Josh Sanburn Jun 6, 2015 5:44 PM UTC  Yaskawa by [Josh Sanburn](https://time.com/author/josh-sanburn/) ## Josh Sanburn Jun 6, 2015 5:44 PM UTC Robots these days can [play the violin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzjkBwZtxp4), send us [Amazon packages](http://time.com/3605924/amazon-robots/), even [adapt](http://theweek.com/articles/558636/robots-are-adapting) if they get hurt. Now, one of them can slice us all to bits. Yaskawa Electric Corporation recently tracked the movements of Isao Machii, a renowned Japanese swordsman, and taught a robot called Motoman-MH24 how to mimic his use of a katana (also known as a scary Japanese sword). In a [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3XyDLbaUmU) released by the robotics company, the sword-wielding robot can be seen slicing through flowers and fruit with ease and precision. He even battles Machii, who holds several world records and has sliced through a [fried shrimp](http://kotaku.com/modern-samurai-slices-an-80mph-fried-shrimp-1704397993) hurtling towards him at 80 m.p.h., in a 1,000-cut challenge. Hopefully, Yaskawa’s next project is a robot that’s really good at dulling swords so it can protect all of humanity. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3911676/yaskawa-robot-sword-isao-machii/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3911676/yaskawa-robot-sword-isao-machii/"},"headline":"Watch This Robot Perfectly Mimic a Master Japanese Swordsman","datePublished":"2015-06-06T17:44:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:20:49.347Z","description":"This robot can cut through anything","url":"https://time.com/3911676/yaskawa-robot-sword-isao-machii/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Tech","robotics","robots"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2cab8d8dfd307ebd/698853450b72e3325d6e455b/yaskawa.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Josh Sanburn","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/josh-sanburn/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2cab8d8dfd307ebd/698853450b72e3325d6e455b/yaskawa.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"yaskawa sword robot","caption":"yaskawa sword robot","creditText":"Yaskawa","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3911676/yaskawa-robot-sword-isao-machii/","name":"Watch This Robot Perfectly Mimic a Master Japanese Swordsman"}}]}] ```