Honda is making a Koraidon motorcycle

If you ever imagined what a real life Koraidon would look like, well, now’s the chance. Honda has built a Koraidon motorcycle and the company will present it at the Honda Koraidon Exhibit from Friday, March 7 - Sunday, March 9, 2025.

Here’s what the company has said about the project (and a link to the Honda project page in Japanese):

Honda Koraidon is future mobility created with Honda’s experiences and unique technologies in the shape of Koraidon, a Legendary Pokémon that appears in the game “Pokémon Scarlet,” with the cooperation of The Pokémon Company. Honda has realized an almost life-size reproduction of the shape of Koraidon in both weight and size, down to the finest details.

Honda will use its proprietary self-balancing technology to enable Honda Koraidon to walk on all four legs, and self-stand on two-wheels which is unseen in the game. This balance technology world premiered as Honda Riding Assist at CES 2017, the world’s largest consumer electronics trade show, which was developed by applying the self-balancing technology cultivated in ASIMO humanoid robot research. Honda will apply this technology to realize Koraidon’s “Sprinting Build.”

Unlike the in-game Koraidon, this one can actually run on wheels as well as walking on four legs. It’s remarkable that we’ve had no one but two legendaries built using real-life tech. Does that make them mechas? Is there potential for a crossover? Am I clutching at straws? Who could possibly say?