Kotobukiya Evangelion Unit 01 TV Ver. Review

For a long time, the only Evangelion model kits that were based of the original TV designs were the kits from Bandai's old LM-HG line that was made all the way back in the late 90's. Sure, back in the day, those were some impressive kits, but frankly nowadays, they're quite dated. Skip forward about 20 years and Kotobukiya unexpectedly makes a kit for the TV version of Unit 01. I've always heard good things about Kotobukiya's Rebuild Evas but never actually tried one because they didn't scale with the LM-HG's I had. However when they announced TV Version of Unit 01, I could not hold back my temptation, especially since I already had the LM-HG's for Unit 00 and Unit 02, meaning 01 was the only one left out of the trio. In the end, I was extremely hyped for this kit and really wanted to see how great it really was before others, so after mocks, I managed to buy one for myself at a very nice price...

...and I did not regret buying this kit for a second.

Box:

The boxart is epic. You get a picture of Unit 01 in her iconic pose of tearing apart Sachiel's AT field, with a a shot of a berserk Unit 01 in the back. Red waves and lighting replicate the tear of the AT field as well as 01's fresh bloodlust.

Parts:

For parts you get 4 purple runners...

...6 black runners...

...2 green runners, a grey runner, 2 yellow runners, a bluish grey runner, and a teensy white runner all at varying sizes.

You also get waterslides for the optional decals, as well as bags containing all the hands and pre-painted parts.

Finally you get a black polycap runner, a floppy flexible wire, and a sheet where you can order individual runners if you live in Japan.

Manual:

The manual is a very formal and standard looking one. It's stylised to look like an actual file and I quite like the aesthetic.

There is the part count, and it also gives you some advice on how to build their model kits.

You also get the color guide, which is compulsory and very helpful for 100% complete anime accuracy.

Finally, you get some product shots, some info on the entry plug, as well as some info on it's pilot Shinji.

Completed Product:

OOB, and this guy looks really good as a kit. There are a few minor missing color apps, most noticeably the orange on the knee, however all can be forgiven considering the fact this kit uses zero stickers. Yep, this is all plastic color separation, and the green on the chin as well as the eyes are pre-painted parts. This alone deserves a lot of praise, and if you notice the legs, the seamlines are actually used to create the panel lines in the front area, which looks really awesome. The arms are asymmetrical, so they look a lot more natural and organic. Speaking of the arms, there is a section that the manual tells you that you might want to cement, but personally I didn't use it, and it stayed on just as well, so it's not a necessity by any means. The kit is also very solid, it's one of the most solid kits i've ever owned, and I own over 70. It doesn't feel very hollow if at all, and the plastic quality used is top notch, I can swing it around slightly and nothing really goes out of place, it's a model kit that I would actually play with. I do have one gripe with the kit, and that is the proportions. They don't resemble the lanky, thin, and skinny proportions of the Evas in the original show, and line up more with Unit 02's redesign for the End Of Evangelion movie. Hopefully this will mean that Kotobukiya is using those movie's proportions as a universal Eva basis, and will later produce more TV Evangelions, i'd certainly be waiting for that!

Articulation:

Since this was such a hype kit for me, i'll be comparing this kit's articulation to the articulation of Bandai's old LM-HG's, nice to see you again Unit 02!

The head and neck are both on individual ball joints, which allows for some extremely good poseability with the head in most, if not all directions. While the LM-HG only has a balljoint and a hinge going forward for the neck.

The kit even has a little gimmick where a part of the neck moves up when you look up with the head, and it also allows for some great movement, while the LM-HG has this gap when it looks up.

The arms go up very far, about 110˚ despite having those huge shoulder pylons, in fact they barely hinder articulation at all due to the way they're connected. This contrasts a lot to the LM-HG's, which have their arms on a ball joint, and they really don't go up at all.

In terms of swinging forward, the arm goes out a bit, but the LM-HG's win here, the armor swivel at the shoulder allows for more movement, while Kotobukiya has her joint built into the torso.

This however leads to a very nice gimmick with the arms, as when you swing it out, a piece of armor in the back goes out with it, which is really neat.

The arm is on a swivel at the bicep and bends about 110˚ with a single joint. Meanwhile, the LM-HG has no swivel at all and has a far more limited bend due to it's rubber arms.

It's also worthy to note that the hands and elbows are on revoltech-like joints, so they've got a huge amount of poseability, meanwhile the LM-HG just uses a standard ball joint for the hands.

Sideways on the waist is quite limited despite the Eva's segmented body, only the segment at the top moves, and it's not a lot by that. Bandai easily wins here, as all of it's segments move very well and are quite flexible.

Although, in terms of forward movement, the kit marginally beats the LM-HG's abcrunch, both are really good already due to the design of Evas.

The thigh of this kit is actually on a peg that swings down, so if you swing down and use the leg, you can get the leg to kick up a perfect 180˚ at an angle, while with the LM-HG, articulation is hindered by the armor so it only goes up perpendicular to the leg.

Both legs swivel, although 01's is a lot easier to do since it's on a peg and not a ball jointed polycap. The kit's leg can do a perfect 180˚ bend, while the LM-HG can only do about a 165˚ bend, despite both being double jointed.

Both legs pivot and go forward, however while the LM-HG has a joint on the arch which doesn't move a whole lot, while Kotobukiya has a toe joint which moves up quite a bit. The foot armor itself can also swing up to allow for more articulation.

All in all, Kotobukiya's articulation easily trumps that of the LM-HG. The engineering gap of about 20 years, as well as the different innovations of then different companies does show here, and Kotobukiya really delivers some awesome poseability with this kit.

Accessories:

You get the expected amount of accessories with this kit, however the LM-HG's come with a lot more due to using universal accessory runners, so keep that in mind.

You get 4 pairs of hands and a single right trigger finger hand. These are separate parts that aren't on runners, and are made of a hard rubber so they bend a bit. For hand pairs, you get normal open hands, wide stretched open hands, bent open hands, and fists. You simply switch them pull them off the revoltech joint wrist.

You also get an alternate butt piece to plug onto a kotobukiya stand if you can find one.

For weapons, you first get her signature progressive knife, which is a powerful knife that vibrates to cut better at a molecular level.

It slides into the trigger finger hand easily and works as any super hot 1000˚ knife should.

You also get an alternate shoulder pylon piece which has the knife deployed.

You can use it on either pylon but the correct one is the left pylon. The trigger finger grips onto it too.

You finally get her other signature weapon, the pallet gun . This is entirely in grey, so paint will be needed for complete color accuracy.

You just slide it into the trigger finger by the side to do some bang bang shooting.

The Evas don't usually grip their rifles with a single hand, but it's a lot easier to do.

Since Evangelions are usually externally powered, you get the umbilical cable.

You just plug it into the hole in her back.

The wire is very flexible compared to bandai's LM-HG's stiffer wire and is quite nice. People complain it doesn't lead anywhere, but we don't know where it leads to anyways and how it works so I don't really mind.

Gimmicks:

The mouth opens, but the red inside it isn't painted despite the lower jaw being a pre-painted part anyways. A little disappointing but it's still cool.

Another gimmick is the entry plug gimmick on the back. The entry plug is where the pilot sits, which gets inserted into the Eva to control it. This kit actually has parts moving in tandem together to eject the entry plug. To do so, simply pull at a small section on the back.

As you pull it up, the panel under it raises up, with the entry plug coming up as well! It can even be pulled out, so I think this gimmick is really nicely engineered and works really well. To put it back, simply push down the panel on top.

The entry plug can also be pulled right out of her, although something interesting to note it's not the same size as Bandai's entry plug. Bandai's plug is longer, thicker, harder, and double the size of Kotobukiya's smaller, white plug, which also feels softer.

...What?

Size Comparison:

The kit is about double the height of your average 1/144 scale Gunpla, meaning they're not to scale at all. It's a very nice size though, and I think it has enough presence on the shelf.

Another bonus comparison, here's the kit next to Bandai's LM-HG's, and you can see that it's definitely shorter than them. While maybe in an action shot, the difference might not be too noticeable, it's definitely something that might make you want to go for the LM-HG Unit 01 instead.

My gang so far, i'm really loving my Evangelions, and this shot makes me really happy. >v<

Verdict:

The Kotobukiya Evangelion Unit 01 TV Ver. is simply a fantastic kit. It's got very little to complain about, and has almost everything you'd really want from a modern Evangelion Unit 01 kit. I've got very little issues with this guy, those issues being the inaccurate looking proportions, as well as the minor missing color apps, but I can let that pass. I especially love the amount of sheer parts on this kit, one of the problems with the old LM-HG's were the intense amount of stickers and color inaccuracies they had, this kit fixes almost all of it, it's got pre-painted parts, and uses zero stickers as most Kotobukiya kits do, which is something I love. It's also not fiddly at all, with a solid build, it holds poses very well, and does not feel like it's going to flop around at all. The gimmicks and armor features are very nice too, and combined with that articulation, you'd really have little reason not to pick this guy up. In the end, it's a fantastic Evangelion kit, and it's personally one of my favorite model kits that i've ever built to date, it is a little pricey, but I personally think it's overall worth the finished product. So if you're an Evangelion fan, and are thinking of getting this kit, I can strongly recommend that you go right now and pick this one up, you really won't regret it.

Now another thing you might want to know is how does it compare to the LM-HG's. Well, most of you might be thinking that this one beats the LM-HG's in basically every aspect, and that's quite true for the most part. However, there are a few redeeming factors to Bandai's older LM-HG's. One of them being that the LM-HG's have far more accurate proportions which capture the inhuman, elongated, and iconic body style of an Eva, which is honestly the only real problem of Kotobukiya's kit. The other is that LM-HG's have a lot more more variety, and if you want a scale display of all Evas, you might want to consider going for those instead. Finally, the LM-HG's have a lot more accessories due to sharing accessory runners, meanwhile the Kotobukiya only has the bare bones accessories of Unit 01. So if you want more weapons for your kit, you might want to consider the LM-HG as well. The final advantage is that the LM-HG's are a lot cheaper at less than a half of the price, so if you're on a tight budget, you also want to consider the old LM-HG too. Personally though, I would recommend that you should go for Kotobukiya's TV version, as it still remains a far superior kit. However, the LM-HG does have it's redeeming qualities.

Pros:

- Zero stickers used, waterslides used for optional details. (!)

- Extreme amount of parts separation and plastic used. (!)

- Absolutely great articulation, little to no complaints in poseability. (!)

- Engineering on kit is overall very well done with the gimmicks and posing.

- Super sturdy kit, does not feel loose.

- Pre-painted parts used for small details.

Cons:

- Proportions are not very show accurate. (!)