SOC Spec Prototype Evangelion 00: The Most Awesome Dress Up Doll Ever Made

This is the second toy form the SOC Spec line that I've purchased, the first being Tekkaman Blade & Pegas. It feels much closer to the level of detail and engineering that you find in the straight Soul of Chogokin line. Once again the figure comes in a window box with a flap. The window box is used to great effect here by showing the naked figure in the box, with box art covering up half of the figure depicted in full armor.

Now, I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I've not watched Evangelion in it's entirety, so the only background you're getting here is the little I've gleamed from the few bits and pieces I've seen, and from my good friend that's seen the whole run. Neon Genesis Evangelion started back in 1995, which is pretty recent, compared to most of the sources that Bandai's pulled figures from for the SOC lines. Since then it's become one of the most iconic super robot animes. Evangelions, or Evas, are somewhat unusual in that they're not straight up robots, but are actually largely organic, with some cyborg augmentation. There's something in the fiction about them actually being derived somehow from angels.

Okay, so that's all the background I got, Eva's have an unusual look, they're very lean and lithe compared to most super robots. Once you get the figure out of the box, you can see that affect is only increased when the armor is removed:

The figure's a pretty decent size, and really has an amazing level of articulation.




As freaky as that looks, the fun doesn't really start until you start snapping on armor.

As you can see, there are quite a few bits of armor to attach, about half of them, I'd say, are diecast metal. There is a little bit of disassembly required to get the Eva fully suited up, you completely swap out the head, hands, feet, shoulders, and the "entry plug" point between the shoulder blades. Additionally you have to disconnect the legs at the knees, and pop the torso apart at the waist in order to fit all of the armor in place.

As you can see, the difference in look between armored and unarmored is pretty drastic. It adds a lot of bulk to the figure, as well as adds a miniscule amount of height.

It takes a bit of time to put all of that armor on, but it's a lot of fun, and the end result is definitely worth the effort. The level of detail you can see all of the figure is amazing.

Now, if you're going to pilot an Eva, you don't just climb into a cockpit, that would be too easy and normal for Evangelion, instead you're placed into a big cylinder, called an entry plug, which is filled with goo, and dropped into a hole between the shoulder blades of the Eva. Which is all represented with this figure in the smallest detail.

There's actually four pieces that slide and fold around to reveal the entry point, and the plug is just as detailed with the rest of the figure, only lacking an opening door with a teeny tiny pilot, but there are limits to how small you can make this stuff, and with a plug that's less than a quarter the diameter of a pencil, I think they went far enough.

Evas require a massive amount of energy to fight, and at least to begin with, they are not able to generate that energy on their own, so they have to be charged up:

The similiarity to a gas pump nozzel always strikes me as really amusing.

Eva 00 also comes with a cannister of N2B, which is molded specifically into a hand. I don't know what it is, but this certainly looks like a strong product endorsement to me.

Okay, so that's the weird random stuff, now, onto the weapons! First up is a handgun, with a removable clip, and functioning slide

Then every Eva has some weapons stashed in those shoulder fins, the initial fins don't actually have those, but they can be swapped out for some slightly thicker ones that do.

Really, I don't think the functioning shoulders look that much bulkier than the "cleaner" blades, but hey, I'm always a fan of more stuff!

The right shoulder splits apart to reveal a project launching battery, I'm not sure if it fires missiles or something else, I think I recall seeing a clip where it launched some kind of spike or needle.



The left shoulder houses a sheath for a combat knife.

Sadly, the full knife can't fit inside the shoulder, but rather a removable hilt.






That's all the goodies in the shoulders, up next is an assault rifle.

And then the best gun in the box, a sniper rifle. Again, there's just a stupid amount of detail here. The rifle has a folding stock, flip down bi-pod, removable magazine, and a choice of two scope sights.

There's of course the traditionally telescope sight, but there's also another one that sends the image back to the pilot via a cable that attaches to the base of the head.

Lastly is the Lance of Longinus, which is half again as long as the figure itself, and has two configurations, a forked end, and another as just a long spike. From what I've seen, it looks like the lance looks like the straight up javelin as it's being thrown, and transforms to the forked form mid flight, before striking the target. It definitely stands out from the more mundane military weapons that the Eva possesses, so I'm sure there's more to it that I just don't know yet.

So, in closing, I really like this figure, it's a lot of fun, and if you're a fan of the series, I'd recommend you check it out, they made figures in this line of all the major Evas, but sadly they all seem to cost about twice as much as this figure does, so I'll likely not get any of the others.