Robots are seemingly doing everything in Japan from working in hotels to running cafés. If that wasn’t enough, they are now cooking up some delicious fried chicken.

The Karaage-kun Robo started working in Tokyo recently. The five-foot tall robot cooks Lawson’s Karaage-Kun bite-sized fried chicken. While you may have never heard of Karaage-Kun, the chain sells 20 billion pieces of mini chicken bites annually.

Karaage-kun Fried Chicken Robot

The Karaage-kun makes your chicken in a flash as designers claim the bot can cook the chicken in one minute where normal methods would take a painstaking six minutes. The robot is cooking up three different flavors: regular, red and cheese.

“We want to maximize efficiency and minimize food preparation time,” said Lawson President Sadanobu Takemasu. The robot lives inside a vending machine which resembles the Karaage-kun mascot. Karaage refers to Japanese fried chicken.

As of now, you’ll still have to interact with humans to get your fried chicken bites. Customers pay a human worker at the register who gives them a package of the chicken. The customer scans the barcode at the robot and inserts the package. The Karaage-kun then cooks and dispenses the delicious chicken. The company claims that since the cooking process is so quick, the chicken is always hot and fresh.

Lawson says they hope to expand the robot’s menu and have the process be completely automated. So far the Karaage-kun Robo is only at the Lawson’s TOC Osaki branch in Toyko. The company plans to eventually expand the automated service to every Lawson’s store. Along with Japan, the chain also has locations in China, Thailand, Philippines, and Hawaii.

We fully expect KFC to respond with fried chicken robots of their own.

Check out our articles on robots making ice cream and one’s that are herding cattle in Nebraska.