Series: Neon Genesis Evangelion

Craftsmanship: 9.8 out of 10

- Another amazing sculpt with excellent paint

- More amazing articulation

- Awesome accessories (Sword!!!!)

Playability: 9.5 out of 10

- Similar excellent posability and playability as other Evas

- Accessories are still easily lost

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Evangelion Unit 02 Production Model

by Kaiyodo Toys

Having looked at Unit 01, the Test Type Evangelion from the awesome series Neon Genesis Evangelion, I'm now moving on to the final Production Model, the enormous four eyed Evangelion Unit 02.

Evangelion Unit 02 is 'the red one', piloted by Asuka Langly Soryu, introduced in Episode 8 of the series. Asuka was originally presented as a binary opposite to Shinji's shyness and lack of social schema, a loud, self-centered, obnoxious girl who thought of her piloting like an immense battle she had to win; her facade eventually crumbled much like her Evangelion.

Once again, Kaiyodo has made a beautiful figure; a perfect figure of the massive anime robot. Unit 02 shows the ingenuity and creativity of the Unit 01 figure cranked up a notch; as Evangelion Unit 02 is not a test type, this makes sense. Unit 02 has more movement and posability that Unit 01.

The stance of the figure is once again more human-like that robot, accurate to the source material, and the sculpt benefits with lots of human movement. Unit 02 can crouch, run, jump, bend backwards, you name it. The paint job is awesome - the variant I own is the metallic version, although there is a normal version with basic red paint, I prefer the glorious metallic paints, which make the Evas look so much better. Detailing is great, from the

 powerful eyes to the type written on the Eva's arms, Kaiyodo have done an awesome job.

Evangelion Unit 02 is chock-full of accessories, a notch above Unit 01, including half a dozen extra hands and then an array of weapons, some of the best in the series: a pulse rifle with attachable silencer and magazine, pistol with mechanical attachment, progressive knife, and an enormous sword. The sword is the bomb, Unit 02 looks truely at home with it. It's so poseable and cool, it's my favorite accessory in the Evangelion line.

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This brings us to articulation, and Unit 02 has the whole shebang, with even more poseability than Unit 01. Just checking out the images on the back of Unit 02's packaging shows off some of the movement of this awesome toy. Further, it's durable enough to stand up to some heavy play, though still isn't for children, with the small and losable parts. (It's also cool to note that Unit 02's head comes off, allowing creative and sick players to recreate all those terrible scenes from later in the series in which Asuka feels the pain of decapitation.)

This is the first Evangelion Unit 02 toy. There is an upcoming figure based on the End of Evangelion movie, soon to be reviewed here, with a new sculpt and new weapons; definitely a toy to look out for. Overall, Unit 02 is an even more awesome toy than Unit 01 and a toy worthy of your collection. Put it on top of the TV with your other Evas.

- Shocka

(March 2, 2003)