The arm decals only show up once or twice in the anime, but they're on some model sheets from the show's production, and appear in a lot of official artwork and merch for the series. The mechanical designer for the series, Ikuto Yamashita, almost always includes them in his artwork of the Evas, so I assume it's a situation where the markings are "supposed" to be there on the design, but are omitted from the animation to create a simpler, easier to produce picture - and this simpler design became the primary one due to it actually being what you see in the anime. Also, I definitely recommend feeding some kind of wire through the umbilical cable - allows you to adjust it and get it bent and curled however you please.
As someone who has gotten used to buying non-Bandai kits, I've became numb to the prices. I've came to realize Bandai is the oddity in the industry with the low prices and never ending stock that people are familiar with.
Because Bandai kits are made purposely cheap for the most part to be accessible towards everyone. Other model kit companies meanwhile aim towards more experienced modelers.
Which is bizarre considering that they are the only Made in Japan model kit company. Very few factories in Japan All the others like Kotobukiya have their production in China, hence the Made in China label. Much more availability so prices should be lower, not double the Bandai prices for the same amount of plastic and size, like now.
@@HaohmaruHL Chinese labor cost isn't as cheap as it has been, stated desingers Toriyama and Apsy during one of their Megami Device talks. Prices of figures and plamo made in China will only increase as time goes on if they don't move operation out. Not to mention the pandemic completely crippled the shipping industry for 1+ years and is still having ripple effect (surrace parcel still not available for many). Fun fact, Kotobukiya has started producing a few M.S.G sets in Japan as of now, and Good Smile Company is building their own factory in Japan. Still, their production and market won't be as much as Bandai so prices will remain to off-set the initial investment.
That rant about the hands really made my day lol But yeah, it's sad when you buy a kit and you're unaware that it has some terrible hands (looking at you HG Asshimar)
I recently got the Eva 01, and I love it. The joints on the arms should definitely be loosened, but other than that I love it. Always love to hear from you Citrus!
I've been trying forever to get the Unit 01 Kit. I have Unit 00 and 02 and love them both. Great review! The kits do need a little extra love for 100% accuracy, but I think they are worth it.
I bought the newer EVA 01 with Spear of Cassius model from Kotobukiya, and did not realize how bad color separation was, despite the good amount of prepainted parts. Since I'm an inexperienced painter, I've been going to my cousin's house painting W40K minis and cheaper HGs in preparation for this kit, as I really do think they are the best looking, most TV accurate models.
These were good pre Bandai EVA RG. I remember you couldn't get a decent EVA kit and the old LMHG kits kinda blew. Now? Now they're just expensive 2nd tier to Bandai's RG line. About the cost - I heard it had something to do with the molding/injection tech from Bandai that made Koto take the longer and more expensive route. Not sure how true that is. But At least it gives some explanation to Koto's cost + preprints.
@@SETO-HUTO I really dislike how Bandai did the tricep areas and the forearms of the RG Eva. Otherwise I think they are a decent modern take of the Eva design.
I had to buy the kotobukiya tv version of 02 , because the current 00 and 01 RG out there from bandai are the rebuild versions, and they honestly absolutely look awful (I hate the rebuild 00 and 02 designs). I happened to pick up 01 because its the only version that looks close to the OG version. Good review, title a little misleading, but I bought it thanks to this.
Always found it sad that these are the ONLY decent figure representation of these TV designs because I much prefer them over the rebuilds. The prices were fucking nuts before they started reprinting them too.
@@randoooooooooooo4676 lol do you want mine? I'm planning on selling my set. I had a Revoltech MP Eva. It was pretty fun to mess with, but the proportions were definitely something.
what do you recommend for top coat? I have the EVA 2 TV ver I dont like how it looks oob so I plan on top coating it but I'm not sure what kind I should buy
hey yo , just a little thing about the scale , Eva's don't really have a proper height , Anno played a lot with size , and it pretty much depend on how effective it is in a shot , sometimes they are massively huge , sometimes they are the size of a gundam if you wanna have a go at it rewatching the show ,a good hint would be to look at their hands ... it's ridiculous but hey props to them cause it realy works haha so yeah when a kit gives an eva scale it's bogus
i hate how hard to find and expensive these kits go for these days. only places i could find the unit 02 kit is ebay and amazon both of which go for around 200 euros. i really wish that bandai returns ton the original series once more and gives us a newer better version of them.
Kotobukiya in general is more expensive than BANDAI I've noticed. I have a bunch of their kits, but they were all expensive. They tend to also be more rare and imho a bit more intricate than Bandai's stuff.
Bandai purposely make their kits mostly cheap to make it easily accessible. Kotobukiya on the other hand make their kits for a specifically older audience in mind.
Also interesting is that Bandai plastic model kits are all made in Japan while Koto's are made in China. Consider the cost of living/labor I would say that Kotobukiya is upcharging way too much.
Wasn't expecting you to do Evangelion now, Now you gotta take a look at Bandai's RG Evangelion line and their old LMHG line and they're only PG Evangelion.
Absolutely horrendous kits these Kotobukiyas. I started assembling the pieces for my Eva 02, and the arm joints were too stiff and impossible to move that they broke the pins in half. Both arms broke. And that's it. 100usd down the drain, just like that. Apparently and I didn't know, the joints shouldn't be so hard to move around but what did I know it was my first model kit. Trash.
Koto kits require a bit more finesse in my experience; the plastic quality is noticeably different which doesn't help with potential breaks. This doesn't mean their kits are TRASH or that I don't like them, just that I definitely wouldn't recommend them to first time builders.
