Tag: kaiyodo

EVA-02 Beast Mode – Evangelion

Now onto EVA-02… in beast mode. Decided to go for this one over the normal EVA-02 as it is a much more interesting look to it. 

So here she is outta the box:

Grragrarrrgghh. I love the cores popping out of its back, and the hunched pose. Though working out what to do with the feet was a bit problematic. It doesn’t pose very easily imo, and feels a bit of a strain to get it looking good. I love the paint on the legs, and the overall beastly look. 

Close-up of the face:

You can leave the blood off the top of its head, and there is a picture on the box, including the issue of doing so – you’re left with an odd, flat bit and a hole in the head that doesn’t look good if the top of its head is showing. 

Here we can see some of the sloppy paint – a white dribble on its chin, and some orange creeping out from underneath. Overall, there’s a few lines that aren’t neat here, giving the overall painting a bit of a scruffy look. The jaw does move though, so it has that going for it. 

Another effect for the head:

This one is a little awkward to get into place,  but looks cool once done. Fire! 

From the top:

Gives a good feeling of motion, and the paint jobs are done nicely on these effect parts imo. 

Left:

I think the hunched-over part of its back has been done very well, and I love the blending of colours here, plus the shape. You do get a sense of the inorganic giving into the organic. Looking at that arm in the foreground, I am definitely seeing some wandering grey paint. Also a paint chip on its back – recessed part, near the reflection. There are a couple of paint chips, and the paint feels like it could be easily chipped. It’s part of why I’m not so happy with these Evangelion figures – they’re not finished to a high standard, which doesn’t make them look as good as they should close up. It leaves me kind of frustrated, as there aren’t many options for articulated EVAs, and they’re figures I feel work well with articulation. I like the size of these too – you can fit a few in a display, unlike my model kit EVA-01. 

Right:

Still liking that blood splatter from the head – at least I think it looks good on the figure. The colour blends look good on this side too. Also we have the equipped “claw” – I did have both equipped at one point, but needed to remove the other as it was getting in the way of photos. 

Close-up of the “claw” swipe-lines:

These are supposed to be giving the hands motion, to show The Beast clawing at things. I think they kind of work. However, putting them on the hands is a bit of a tricky challenge, but once all four fingers are in, they stay on OK. I think it’d be cool to have two EVAs fighting, and use this effect. 

Back:

Here we get to see the cores closer… and that damn scratch. I’ll just keep looking at the cores/rods… yeah.. I like them. 

EVA in the box:

Now for some first impressions time… I love the way the figure was presented in the box – the pose looks really good and certainly looked good when it was boxed. If I saw it in a shop, I’d definitely pick it up and look at it, even if I didn’t know Evangelion. And now for the other thing… a bunch of large accessories, and no small ones. No spare hands, no extra arm parts or anything like that… but you do get a blood splatter for if you tear its arm off! Or a part of your choice! I do like this idea, and is worthy of losing some accessories for this one. However, the swipe claws I would’ve liked to see something else tbh. Some more hand poses could’ve been interesting – maybe something with the fingers outstretched and the thumbs flat/backwards, for posing in a crawling pose. The dirt smash accessory I could take or leave – I think it’s a decent idea, but I just don’t like the look of this splat. 

Overall, a bit of a mediocre figure. I still love the design of it, just the execution could’ve done with some more work, as it feels kind of half-baked. I can’t really see this one going up much in the aftermarket, but I think it’s decent enough. 

EVA-01 Awakened Ver. – Evangelion

Here we have the second Evangelion I’ve bought from the Legacy of Revoltech series. 

So here he is, out of the box:

Mostly I like this guy from the front. The striking colour scheme works well, though you can see a couple of paint flaws – one on his right arm, one on the upper right part of his chest in red are visible in the photo. I find the arm transition a bit sudden – maybe it could’ve done with a paint job to blend it more. The flare on this pearly part of his arm is a bit flat too – could’ve done with more texture so it didn’t look like a plastic offshoot. 

The halo looks nice though, on reflection, I think I prefer the downwards part, rather than a less-sturdy connection method. 

Left:

The flare on his lower arm is less of a distraction than the upper one. I really think they should’ve gone for a smaller elbow joint. The clear hand looks really good though, and I like that they transitioned to a transparent part. The joint shape in his knees works well though. I like the way the shoulder parts on these figures articulate, so they don’t get in the way whilst playing/adjusting with the figure. 

Right:

Mostly loks good from this angle, but there are some shaky elements to the paint if you look closely. I like the shiny black, though I think it’s supposed to be more matte. 

Back:

Again, no subtlety to that arm transition. Here we see the hidden ball joints form the back. And the plug

hatch

alternate part designed to hold the halo – if you don’t like the halo, by default there’s a

plug

hatch part that doesn’t have the peg for the halo. Think it’s good that they included this option, as halos can usually look a bit cheesy, at the best of times. 

Face close-up:

His jaw hinges on this head, which is a cool feature. Grrowwwl. 

Halo from the side:

This clear peg part works well. 

Halo from the top:

Annoyingly, there’s a tiny paint chip on mine. Nice texture on top, though maybe less transparent than it should be to feel “halo-y”. 

Alternate head:

This head has a fixed mouth, but you can “equip” the starry eyes. They seem to stay on there reasonably firmly. 

Default plug hatch:

This was an absolute ass to take out, but does eventually come out if you keep prying! 

Extra arm:

For if you don’t want glowy action. 

Gun and charging cable:

Might get the gun out, but the charging cable would be a pain, so that’s going in the accessory bag for me. 

Hands. More hands:

I guess the arm accessory is for switching sides of the glowing arm? And plenty of hands, for all your hand-posing needs. 

And that’s your lot. Overall, the figure does feel on the cheaper side, which it is. Posing may be a bit of an issue – he does come apart at the middle rather easily for me. Posing, I had a bit of an issue getting the joints where I wanted. However, he certainly is well-represented in the accessories department, which does help make up for the QC issues. Overall, I’m OK with this figure, but not wild about it. The prices are certainly more reasonable than Figmas though, not that there is ones of these dudes. 

Alien Big Chap – Alien – Revoltech

I couldn’t come back from Japan without an Alien figure:

The first thing that stands out on this figure is the detail in his head and on the main part of his body. He also has some copper-coloured highlights on his body, which stand out more in-person than they do in this photo.

A closer look at that head:

The ridges are nice and pronounced, and the shading on the plastic looks really good. Not many figures have the clear plastic shaded, so a plus for this figure. 

Left:

Here we can see the highlights more, and his slender hands. I think the shading on the “back pipes” is a bit overdone, but still looks cool. I like the neutral-ish pose for his hands. 

Close-up of a hand:

The fingernails are painted well, and I like the way they’ve sculpted his tendons. The brown-to-black paint is blended well. The lines on his arms are sculpted well, and he has the pokey bit from his elbow. 

Right:

Love the shininess and the detail. The fin that pokes up above the “pipes” has a nice evenness with the parts protruding. You do rather see the ball joints in his legs quite well from this angle though. 

Closer look at the tail:

I think the texture has been replicated well for a 1/12 figure. Some colour highlight here too. Tail indeed does end with a barb. 

Back:

Everything barring the ball joints looks good back here. I think if this figure was reproduced today, they’d use smaller ball joints for the knees and ankles, so they don’t protrude so much. I could run my hand down the middle of that back though… and down his tail. 

“Pipes”:

I think the colours could have been blended better here, and made a bit darker. Looks kinda odd having the tips be such a bright colour of brown. 

And what kind of accessory would a xenomorph come with?

An egg, complete with facehugger! I really love the paint job on these two, and the amount of detail that went into the bottom of this facehugger. 

Side view:

Not too much to see here, but nice to see it isn’t totally flat, which makes it feel more natural. If you can call it natural. 

Back:

The level of detail is replicated on the back – his spine looks good, and you can see where the body goes into the “fingers” of the facehugger. The egg has a very nice green-to-black fade going on. 

Top of the egg:

The detail looks really good here too. The facehugger is a separate part, so you can display it separately if you wish, but the egg holds it sturdily despite the small connection between the two. 

Egg base:

Love the wormy, alien texture here too. The paint is also neatly done, and this is actually slightly transparent, which looks really good in person when the light goes through it. 

Overall, I’m very pleased with this figure. Would recommend to a fan of xenos, but don’t expect anything in terms of accessories – the xeno is “as-is”, plus the egg. Both are great pieces imo. 

Figure Spotlight – Halloween Chan

This one was one of those figures that I had on my wishlist for ages, then fiiinnally got round to buying many months (possibly years?) later. 

She came in a very yellowed box, but the figure seems to be fine. 

And here she is:

image

Not as nice as the promo shots, but still cute, and I’m a sucker for purple. 

Here’s a closeup of the pumpkin and her face:

image

And a side shot, which shows how she “floats” in the air:

image

The downside of this stand is that the stand plastic is VERY wobbly. Originally had her in a detolf, but when you walked past she’d wobble, so I moved her to a shelf that’s firmly attached to the wall, where she gets to sit without wobbling.

Back of the figure:

image

Nice pair o’ wings, and her hair is pretty nice. Would be nice if it was a bit more visible from the front, but it’s OK. 

Initially I found this figure pretty underwhelming when I first opened it, but now she’s an OK part of my collection. She sits somewhere in the middle of likeage.