Say what you will about YouTubers, but they sure know how to spend their money. We’ve previously seen the internet’s video stars invest their earnings in a rehomed Battlebot, a hovercraft bar, a way-too-big balloon, and a grenade complete with the ATM it was thrown into. Now we have Allen Pan of YouTube channel Sufficiently Advanced, a guy who’s decided that the best use of his pandemic stimulus check is to buy a robotic exoskeleton so he can try to wield a giant anime-style sword.
In a video documenting this decision, Pan gets a welder to create a 50 pound sword modeled after the one used by Cloud in Final Fantasy VII. Because the distribution of this weight makes it impossible for most non-cartoon people to actually use the thing with any kind of martial grace, Pan decides he needs a little help. So, he buys a used, $900 camera-stabilizing exoskeleton, the idea inspired by the powersuits worn by the characters in Edge Of Tomorrow, in order to manage his huge sword.
Pan modifies the suit to better absorb the extra weight, straps a bungee cable to the center of the sword, then, at long last, is able to hoist his absurd weapon well enough that he can use it to beat the hell out of a television. “I have the power of god and anime on my side!” Pan yells in triumph.
Still, the sword is awkward enough for Pan to use, even with his exoskeleton, that he decides to see how his ingenuity measures up to a big muscly guy’s natural strength. He recruits an enormous dude who manages to use the giant sword to crush watermelons, coconuts, and an entire table with the blade.
Is all of this ridiculous? Sure! But we think it’s far better for Pan to use his money and fame to investigate ways for all of us to become brooding environmental terrorists ready to retake the planet from evil corporations than whatever some other YouTubers get up to.
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24 Comments
Thanks to his exoskeleton, he wields that sword like a feather
Why didn’t he just join expose himself to Mako and inject himself with Jenova cells? That’s what I would’ve done. Way easier, probably.
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In related news, we’ve been stuck inside for a whole year.
I watch that video (and others like it) and just mentally say, mask. Mask. MASK!!
I wonder how long it’s going to take for that to get out of my head.
Yeah I realized the last time I ate a meal inside with my parents was a year ago for my birthday. Illinois locked down right after. The good news is my wife has an appointment for a vaccine in two week and there is a good chance I’ll have the first dose(or fingers cross the JJ one shot) by the end of April. Really debating taking our stimulus check when it comes in and booking a Disney vacation for later this year.
*me, spending my tax return money
Sadly there is no exoskeleton strong enough to support any female Final Fantasy character’s rack.
Loser, anyways off to go reenact the end of Lord of the Rings with my two newly purchased eagles and my hamsters.
Unless he’s planning on taking that thing into battle, why not go with aluminum or a titanium alloy and learn how to hollow it out instead of being the 6′ tall dimwit who thinks he can swing a 5′ tall slab of weld steel?
Because he wanted to make a video about making the sword and why it’s an impractical design?
Fair enough, but did we really need a video explain why it’s impractical? It’s a 5″ sword. Unless you’re a Space Marine, impractical is implied.
Yes, but why?
Because said sword is only 40 lbs. I can lift a 45 lbs weight pretty easily and bench press three times that. So why is a sword that weighs the same impractical?
Well, if we’re gonna fall down this rabbit hole, lets. You have to swing that sword. Comparing the effort of swinging a 45lb sword to bench pressing 150lbs is apples and oranges, and that’s not accounting for the negative force being rocked back through you when it actually hits something. It’d be like saying you’d have no problems firing a 50cal sniper rifle because it only weighs 25lbs and you can deadlift 300lbs – deadlifts don’t have recoil. Raw muscle strength is no indicator for the ease of swinging a sword. A hammer? Yes. A sword? No. If you can find one, I suggest you go find a daikatana and swing it 5 or 6 times. Then multiply the soreness by 5 because this thing weighs 5 times as much, at least. Also notice how horrible your control is after the third or fourth swing. On top of that, you still have to carry it everywhere and if the Marine Corps taught me anything it’s that 45lbs on your back isn’t conducive to being fresh and ready for battle after about 5 miles. Like I said, for this thing to be a practical weapon, you’d have to be 8ft tall and roided beyond belief and you’d still wear out in a fight after 4 or 5 swings, tops.
I stand by my assessment.
Well, having watched the video, the answer is also “torque.” Because the center of gravity of the sword is offset, there’s a strong rotational force that pulls it down, as if it weighed significantly more than it actually weighs. It’s the opposite of using a lever to lift a heavy object. (Which is why swords tend to be balanced, with heavy hilts and sizable pommels to offset the weight of the blade.)
Yeah, where the handle is makes no sense from any standpoint unless you were intending on using it as the world’s most OP meat cleaver. At that weight, you’d be overusing your hands to make sure the cutting edge stayed perpendicular to the target which would suck extra hard if you hit something particularly hard. Maybe cushioning the pommel and then choking up on the handle might absorb some of reverb and rebalance it some but this is an up-and-down swing only type of weapon I’d think. I’ll admit I don’t know much about torque but I’m pretty sure if you tried to swing this thing with the blade parallel to the ground, you’d twist your torso into a Twizzler pattern Bugs Bunny swing-and-a-miss style.
“I have the power of God and anime on my side”Oy Vey
after watching the video, “wield” is too strong a word.
Someone wearing this rig has got to show up on The Walking Dead.
This is why people make there things out of foam. Like a big metal store is cool but you are never gonna get to bring it to an actual convention even if you could carry it.
Or he could have 3d-printed one that he could have lifted on his own ..
https://medium.com/@monofuel34089/3d-printed-buster-sword-8e2ea1e6ed64
Amazingly it was also the very same day the family next door put their house up for sale……