Who can forget the promise? We heard it over and over, always hoping that the next time would be the time that the promise was kept. Yet we were always turned away, disappointed. Who could forget it? “Service, service!” she promised, but we never got it. Instead, we got some strange Judeo-Christian imagery, several examples of very bad parenting techniques, numerous blatant violations of UN law governing the deployment of child soldiers, and emo kids before the world knew what emo kids were. Screw all that, I want my fanservice.
This figure of Misato Katsuragi is an original sculpt by E2046. They’ve also done a version of Asuka, both figures obviously being inspired by the Rei Ayanami figure based off of a Shunya Yamashita drawing, sculpted by REFLECT, and sold by Yamato. Looking at my site stats, that review is peculiarly one of the more popular ones that I’ve done, which suggests that there’s a market for this sort of style. (Incidentally, going through my early reviews makes me want to torch this site’s archives.)
I recall that there was a bit of consternation on the E2046 forum when this figure was unveiled, and I don’t suppose that’s all that surprising. For one, she arguably doesn’t look a lot like Misato. Misato is usually depicted with black hair and wears a crucifix. For another, E2046 calls this figure the “plugsuit version” and Misato, being well out of her teens, obviously never wore a plugsuit. And while Misato was a temptress and a tease, one probably wouldn’t call her slutty. By anime standards, anyway; there are a lot of things and behaviors that are acceptable to anime fans but would make other people wonder what the hell is wrong with these weirdos.
On the other hand, hair color is one of those continuously variable things in anime. Misato’s hair is usually given a purple sheen which could plausibly be interpreted as its actual color. Furthermore, she’s not the worst offender in this respect by any stretch: Asuka’s hair has gone from brown to red to blonde to everything in between. Even Rei is no exception; a quick look at some of her figures reveals her hair’s variegated hues in all her incarnations, with more kinds of blue than Miles Davis. And her outfit here is dictated by theme, and as Misato typically wears a short dress as her work uniform, it is not completely out of place.
And yet you protest, “This still isn’t Misato, this is just some loose woman cosplaying as her!” Okay, okay, I can dig that. Some people won’t like this figure’s style or that of Yamato’s earlier Rei Ayanami. Some people aren’t going to like Misato being squeezed into a slinky, bottom-baring minidress, particularly since, other than a suggestive photograph shown in the first episode of the television series, she hasn’t been sexualized to nearly the same degree as the younger female cast (and arguably Shinji and Kaworu, too). Some people just don’t like anything that deviates from a character’s canonical appearance and personality. That’s all fair. There are obviously some tremendous liberties being taken with the character, and no doubt those will not be acceptable to everyone.
This version of Misato is listed as 1/6 scale and stands about 24.5 centimeters tall, actually putting her closer to 1/7 scale. That’s fine, though, since that nearly matches the size of Yamato’s Rei. My figure came with no problems or damage. There’s not much that needs to be done to set her up; just pop on her bust plate and head, set her onto her base, and you’re good to go. More on that first thing in a bit.
Her face has been given a relatively realistic sculpt which makes her look as young – if not younger – than Yamato’s Rei. I think her face is very pretty but seeing her as a contemporary of Rei rather than her elder is a bit off-putting. She does show quite a bit more skin than the First Children, though, with some very sexy underboob flashing out. She’s carrying a pistol of made-up manufacture; I think it would’ve been nice if it had a laser sight or something to make it look a bit more high-tech, given her futuristic clothing. Unlike REFLECT with their forthcoming Asuka, E2046’s sculpting team has given Misato a fine behind, which is saucily tilted towards observers in her best viewing angle.
The paintwork is quite good for a hand-painted figure, with her outfit given a latex-like sheen. Her skin also gets the glossy treatment, which makes Misato a bit difficult to photograph. She’s put together well but up close, some of her joints are visible, particularly around her right thigh. That’s not unusual for a hand-built figure but it is noticeable.
Misato gets to stand on this oversized base, which seems to depict the front view of one of the Evangelion mecha units. It’s got an abstract raised pattern covered in a chrome effect, which looks very nice. Presumably this base is meant to match with E2046’s Asuka figure but as I do not own that one, I can’t say for sure.
E2046 is staffed by perverts at heart and so Misato’s bust plate can be removed to free her breasts. I’ll refrain from inlining the pictures to keep this review marginally work-safe but you can click here and here to check out her goodies.
I think this is a great figure, though I wonder if my opinion may be in the minority. Me, I’m not too bothered by alternate adaptions of characters. Part of that is because I’m a fan of American comics, and almost no major comic book characters have a canonical look – not even Batman or Wolverine. I also enjoy seeing alternate takes on characters; for example, I’m not all that a big a fan of Miku Hatsune’s rather derivative default appearance, but I love the different looks that she’s been given, particularly the more realistic ones like Max Factory’s VN02 figure and her Miku Append persona. I’d like it if PVC figure makers deviated from the original source artwork more often rather than slavishly trying to reproduce the most faithful rendition possible.
And there’s also my fondness for sexy anime women, which I readily admit to. I certainly have no objections to Misato slithering about in a fetishistic sheath dress and as I like Yamato’s earlier Creator’s Labo figure, I think this figure is a very nice complement to Rei. I’m not so certain she’ll go as well with Yamato’s upcoming Asuka, but as my hesitation with respect to that figure is increasing as time passes, that may be a moot point. I wonder if E2046 will roll out a version of Mari in this theme?
Mmmm..compared to the Rei sculpt, this one actually screams the original essence of Misato. So yes, awesome figure.
..can’t wait to see what Mari would look like. *w*
Anyways, awesome review Tier! ^^b Covers everything there is about alter versions, from bickering fan comments to DAT ASS. xDD The pictures are saucily taken as well..your handiwork perhaps? :3
The world definitely needs more Misato, I’ve said it in the past and I’ll continue to do so until my demands are met. There should be at least one well made figure where Misato’s in her casual home attire drinking some beer, displaying some of that service you speak of.
I don’t really like figures like this, I often tend to lean towards the ‘cute’ rather than the ‘sexy’. But I certainly don’t mind when a manufacturer decides to go off on a tangent and deviate from default appearances. Following artwork for characters I like pretty closely thanks to sites like Pixiv and danbooru, I see all sorts of costumes and stylistic designs that would be amazing as figures. That said, I’d only like this done if I feel there’s a definitive version already. Your examples of Miku are good because I feel GSC’s original is the definitive Miku figure, so the tanget is justified.
I find it odd you decided some how your site would be mostly work safe today. You feeling sick? Those pictures of Misato’s breasts should hve been inline!
I too wish to torch my site’s archives. Some of those pictures are pretty poor, the layouts, the writing, well the writing is always poor lol. Regardless, I totally understand how you feel, there are a couple I feel I should rewrite a bit as opinions have changed as I’ve gathered more points of data on which to measure them by. Or I have ‘funny’ new descriptions of certain traits a figure may possess.
Anyway, I don’t think I’ve really said much about Misato here, but part of me feels her hair reminds me of Revy, say from this angle. Nice smoke effect btw, how do you do it? I’ve seen others as well, I just feel I’ll set of fire alarms or something.
Side complaint, I don’t like how ‘realistic’ or ‘adult’ means thicker.
I don’t know much about Misato. But this figure is pretty awesome, thanks to your smoky effects in the background.
Indeed, I see similarity between her and Rei of Creator’s Labo. I like the teasing of the butt-cheeks. They would be sure nice to smack. 🙂
Also, thanks for making it SFW, I’ll make sure that I look at a more sexy side of her when I’m home later. Cheers!
I’m all up for skin-tight rubbery suits and I also dig the shunya eva girls, but this one just rubs me the wrong way. I’m not too crazy about the choice of colour for her plug suit, since an predominately black palette obscures the details on it. Her forehead also looks a little too prominent to me.
On a bright side, the smokey background looks fantastic! I’m sure you’d be able to make Sader look amazing through photos, given the chance.
I was pondering whether to get these plug suit versions from E2046 too, but opted out in the end. She turned out well, but I really don’t see much Misato in this figure.
And I agree with the others, the smoke background came out great. Your backgrounds are getting better and better, it’s always interesting to see what you’ll do next.
WooooW so georgeus!!!, she has a very sexy body!! what really good adquisitión tier!
Excellents photos like always!
Saludos!
Wow! Your shoots are spectacular! Grats! 😀
>> Marx-Taich0u
Thanks! I’d love to see a version of Mari in this style; pink latex is hot as hell. I always try to take pictures to make the figure look good and highlight the best parts, and I know what I think Misato’s best part is here.
>> Aka
Yeah, I wonder why she’s never gotten much figure love; the only one I can recall in recent memory was Kotobukiya’s one, and I don’t think they even re-issued that one when they did another run of Rei and Asuka to coincide with Mari’s release. I liked that figure, it did a pretty good job capturing her character, I think. I’d still like to see one showing off her fun (and insecure) side though, as you say.
I like cute, but I like sexy even more. Looking at my preorder list, I think Sasami’s the only figure I got ordered that qualifies much more as “cute” than “sexy,” and I’m really only ordering her because she’s flashing her crotch out at the world.
Haha, yeah, in retrospect, I shoulda just tossed those boob pictures up there. I’ll be honest, I try not to use the NSFW tag too much because I have the feeling it scares people away, and I enjoy seeing this site grow. On the other hand, porno figure reviews are what I do, and I’m pretty sure that this site isn’t really work-safe regardless of whether I tag the title NSFW or not, so next time, I’ll just inline them. (Incidentally, this site has been filtered by Google Image’s SafeSearch thing right from the very start.)
I still have this plan to go back and re-shoot some of the older figures that I like a lot, like Haruka Takamori, Metatron, and Saber Lily. Maybe the black miko Kanu Unchou too, since I think I’m better at building sets than I was back then. It’s hard to find the time, though, since I’ve got tons of stuff in the review queue and I’ve got other hobbies (particularly with fantasy football kicking off again real soon).
Yeah, they do have the same bangs, don’t they? I got the smoke effect by lighting up some incense and firing a couple of flashes with red and blue gels at it. My room’s still smelling pretty holy.
I usually determine age in anime characters by eye size and sometimes by the presence of lips; I’ve noticed that older characters sometimes have lips while younger characters don’t. I don’t really get how as a character grows up, their eye size grows down, though I remember I was looking at a Clannad doujinshi and I found out that one of the characters was a mother and that really confused me, because her eyes were the same size as all the other girls’.
>> softz
It is begging for a pinching, aren’t they? XD Uhh, gee, you know, I didn’t do a character writeup at all, which I usually do if I haven’t covered a character before. Lessee, if I remember correctly … Misato is a captain (later a major, and I heard she got another promotion in the movies) who directs the Evangelion pilots during operations. She’s takes care of Shinji and I think Asuka too (I forget), she’s something of a drunkard, and she is very protective of the people under her care. She suffers from a very traumatic and painful childhood but she is possibly the most well-adjusted adult in the series, apart from Gendou’s second-in-command (what was his name again? I can never remember his name. It was Fuji-something, I think).
>> Chag
I really like the color scheme of this figure, though I like black and purple a lot in general (it’s no surprise that I’m looking forward to the upcoming Uncanny X-Force comic book, since Psylocke is shifting to it, and I’m also keeping an eye on Super Dimensional Game Neptune on the PS3).
Man, I’d love to photograph Sader. I wonder if she’s a collector’s item now? It’d be hilarious if she were running like a hundred bucks or more on eBay.
>> Visual Fanfare
Yeah, I think that was the most common criticism I heard on the E2046 board (well, there was a lot of other criticism too, I guess, but there’s always a ton of whining there so I forget most of it). I wonder why Misato looks so strange in something other than her usual black dress when Rei has been a nurse, Santa Claus, a fish, a somewhat slutty race queen, a commando, and a Gothic Lolita. It probably means there’s not nearly enough Misato fanart out there.
>> Marcucho
Thanks! I need to decide what figure I want to review next, and I’m thinking I’ll make up for the lack of inlined boob pictures here with a review that will have nothing but inlined boob pictures.
>> Andrea
Thanks for the kind words XD
Here my last purchase…not in anime/manga/bishojo style but..It rocks!
http://img807.imageshack.us/img807/711/001hi.jpg
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/7466/002sla.jpg
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/7365/003mul.jpg
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/6483/006za.jpg
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/8733/005ena.jpg
PS: I know, i know… as photographer i suck! XD
oh you have this nice figure
I saw her recently as I was scrolling through the E2046 Shop, I was interested but the price keeped me cautious.
Im also a bit sceptical when it comes to handpainted figures even though I have no experience with buying that kind of figures.
As NGE Fanboy I would say no that isn’t Misato, but
I never cared much about the origin of figures as long as the figure looks good.
this is the case with this Misato figure, she looks rrally great and has a beautiful face.
the outlining of the two boob pics isn’t really necessary, actually Im prepared when I visit your site =)
your shooting skills are getting better from review to review,picture 11 is great Im really impressed.
I’ll have to try this smoke effect ,too in the future. ;D
I’m not familiar with Neon Genesis Evangelion at all, so I don’t know anything about this character, but something about her costume brings the Hellraiser series to mind. It’s a good sculpt, though, don’t get me wrong! Love the face on this one.
>> Andrea
I like it! You know, I’ve never read the Dark Phoenix Saga, despite being a big X-Men fan; I ought to pick up the trade paperback, since I am told that it was a significant event in the history of the title.
I’ve actually got a Sideshow piece in the review queue. I’m hoping I can get to it in a week or so.
>> Fabienne
Yeah, the price is high, though I’m noticing PVC figures are getting close to their prices these days. E2046 does pretty good work, though.
I guess anyone should be able to tell by the name of this site what’s going to be in it XD I’ll just go ahead and put the boob pictures in next time. I don’t see why naked boobs would harm anyone, anyway.
>> Halbred
I’m not familiar with Hellraiser (other than knowing that it’s a series of horror movies), but Wikipedia tells me these films include sadomasochistic themes, and now I’m suddenly more interested in them. I’d also like a 1/3 scale Pinhead to go with my big-ass doll now, too.
Rofl at the first line…Ah makes me feel like a copycat for making it my parting line in the review I just posted if I hadn’t written that stupid thing months ago…Procrastination FTW! T_T
Meh anyway you on the other hand are a machine Tier!
She’s certainly an interesting…concept. I have a hard time finding Misato sexy though in this sortof way…To me she’ll always be that loud drunk older sister type character complaining over her destroyed car. >_>
Love the rear end. Im one of 5 people on earth who’ve never watched Neon Genesis, but have known about it since 1995 XD.
Maybe I should stop being lazy and download it. Im only 15 years late.
I own that Kotobukiya Misato, and did a review of her along with Asuka and Rei, and now Mari. I really liked the Misato figure and I enjoy her base as well. It seems very much like you could build a diorama around it if you wanted it seems easily integrated. Random pic from my shoot.
I’m buying Sasami because of a few reasons. I like her eyes, her hair is nice, but mostly I like her black panties.
My site’s been blocked by the safe search as well, I believe I show up if you drop to Moderate search though. Never tried your site.
I find work really conflicts with what I’m able to do. I have a lot of time off, but I’m so lazy on that time off due to my strange shift work that I accomplish next to nothing. I’d like to reshoot but, I order too much, and I’m not creative enough every week as it is. And if I reshoot or re-write, do I keep the original on the site as well as the new one? Seems bad practice to change the past.
I wondered if it was just incense or something. I’ll have to give it a try some day. I also need to pick up some gels for my flash, though I need a new camera body first that lets me use my flash remotely.
Eye size is an interesting metric to go by. I don’t think I’d ever thought of that. I’m just used to the adult women having tits the size of their head, never bothered to look at them in enough detail to see their eyes I just throw them on ignore after I see their breast size.
>> Ashlotte
Procrastination is a good way to live life. I’ve had this picture idea for 1/4 scale Saber for about eleven months now and I haven’t started it at all yet. I’m not sure when I’ll get to it.
I don’t really remember much of the television show, but the memory of Misato that really sticks in my mind is when she kisses Shinji in End of Evangelion. I suppose there’s a good reason for why I remember that.
>> Phil
It took me years to watch it, and I haven’t watched it in years. I ought to find my DVDs and give it a re-watch one of these days. Or I should watch the new movies, I guess, since everyone talks about them and I always have to scroll past that discussion since I haven’t seen them.
>> Aka
Yeah, I was looking at Mari’s base and I was thinking that it’d be pretty easy to come up with some ideas for her or any of the Kotobukiya Evangelion figures, particularly since I can simulate stone pretty easily. Too bad I photographed Mari right before I decided that going for more interesting backgrounds was a more appealing idea than what I was doing.
I think I’ve got a few props that would fit into her hand just perfectly. And now I’m kinda hoping Kotobukiya does reissue her at some point.
Yeah, I’m filtered by Moderate, and I think it’s been that way since I started this site. I wonder if it’s all the “NSFW” tags I use. Or I wonder if Google is just smart enough to filter sites that have “tentacle” and “anime” on the same page.
I ought to bring a laptop with Photoshop to work so I can do my post-processing in the office instead of at home. I’ve got a truly boring job so I’d have time to do that. And yeah, that’s one of the things that’d bug me, if some of the comments in a review referenced a set of photos that I dumped. It’d make other people look dumb or strange and I don’t really want to do that.
Flash Zebra sells pre-cut packs of gels, I bought a bunch from them. It’s more cost-effective to go with sheets if you need a lot, though. And you should still totally go for a D300s. And a bunch of flashes. I gotta admit, it annoys the hell out of me when I read some feature that Nikon flashes have that Canon doesn’t (like, the gel holder and 200mm max zoom on the SB900, the remote commander ability that just about every current Nikon body with a popup flash has [though I guess I’ve got the only Canon camera with that ability], being able to use rear curtain sync in manual flash mode … )
It was something I learned back when I was trying to learn to draw (I never got anywhere with that). Eye shape is always something I look at in anime, particularly with characters that I’m not familiar with, since it’s an easy way to guess their personality.
I wish I could do photoshop work at my job, but it’s just not feasible. Security would never allow me out with my own laptop without permission ahead of time and a good reason to have brought it.
My Nikon being so old doesn’t have the remote commander ability which is one of the reasons I want to upgrade. I also only have an SB-600, not the 900 as it was twice the price. So I don’t have 200 mm max zoom, I believe I have 85 mm. I’m holding out till August 19th before I choose a body, because Nikon is doing some announcements that day and I’m hoping for some new bodies to replace the D90 and D300S. If they release nothing I’ll probably just get a D90, I don’t see the D300S being worth it to me.
If I get the new camera body I’ll really have to start experimenting again, I’ve been using four lamps with CFL bulbs for shots, and never a flash, as it was limited to the top of the camera. But additional issues, the flash has different lighting colour than my CFL bulbs. Oh well, I’ll defnitely need to pickup another flash though I think.
I feel like I’m the most unobservant person in the world sometimes, I’ve never attributed any characteristics to the eyes with regards to a characters age or personality.
That sounds like a good plan, I’m hoping Canon makes a few announcements themselves with Photokina coming up soon. Though I really need a new tripod first because my noob-level Best Buy model is really flimsy and pieces are starting to fall off of it.
You know, since I started using flashes I don’t pay a lot of attention to color temperature anymore. In fact, the pictures with the light-colored background here were shot with a 2500K white balance setting. I sorta see light color and white balance as things I can play with rather than things I’m trying to get spot-on.
White Balance is something I stick to because I tend to do the very much sterile review shots, then some fun shots at the end if I’m up to it. Keeping the white balance constant allows for better comparisons between sets as my setup rarely changes beyond lighting positions, you can then tell how paint qualities might differ between figures.
For my fun shots, I’m all over the place on white balance and colours, it’s not something I necessarily pay attention to and often modify in post to whatever suits the shot. I also add in different coloured/temperture lights for their effects at different white balances.
Trudat, getting the color right is definitely useful to help a viewer evaluate a figure. I pretty much do all fun shots now; they’re probably not as useful for helping judge a figure’s quality, but they are way more interesting for me to do.
Ah E2046 Misato Plugsuit (I’ve not been to their website for months, not since that stupid malware pop-up). She looks great; loving the black plugsuit. Although I do question the cast-off option, it feels unnecessary with this particular figure.
I can’t say I’m a fan of the other Eva girls that deviate from the original source, such as Yamato Rei, but Misato like this I fully approve of.
Yeah, I’m leaving her boob plate on; I ordinarily prefer the topless look but in this case, the underboob looks too nice to have her go without.
I really wish Yamato had given Rei her bandages in her initial release rather than adding them in a re-release. I also wish that they’d given their upcoming Asuka figure a bigger butt; given those flaws, I think Misato’s my favorite of the plug suit-style figures.
Great review and pictures. I just recently got this figure too from E2046. My first Gathering figure and I love it!
I mainly wanted to say that your website is awesome. Very nice and well laid out and of course your pics are great! Keep it up! By the way.. I always thought her hair was purple too.
Thanks for the kind words! Yeah, I’ve always been confused as to whether it’s black or purple, because Yoshiyuki Sadamoto’s art often shows it as purple. Like here, it’s pretty hard to say that her hair’s not purple when she’s right next to Shinji.
Oh wow. Misato piloting an eva would be epic. The last of the new eva movies should have Misato jumping in an eva and saving the world 😀
She does look younger than the Rei. Random speculation: Perhaps she is actually a clone of Misato. Hence she would be younger, able to pilot an eva, and it would answer the slight discrepancies in appearance. It works perfectly and is actually possible.
Anyway, the figure looks great. And I love how you have light reflecting off her plugsuit.
I think she’d be a great pilot, especially if she’d had a few beers before she suited up and strapped in. I agree with that idea, Misato ought to be the hero, it’s hard for me to cheer for the kids since all of them are kinda screwed up but Misato is the kind of hero I can get behind XD
That would certainly work. And it’d open up a lot of possibilites for doujinshi. There isn’t nearly enough Misato doujinshi out there, probably because she’s older, but teenaged Misato would be an awesome subject for doujinshi.
You know what? I am tired of hearing people say but she doesnt look like the character at all when they see a fan favorite character reimagined by another artist.
Isnt that the whole point of letting a different artist have his take on the character producing a fresh new look and possibly a new perception of the character?
I mean I could bitch how much she doesnt look like a ShunYama Artwork but who cares.She looks like a hot babe and thats what counts ^^
Actually her Base is designed to fit in with Rei and Asukas Base.Rei and Asuka`s Bases both have a female and male “Puzzle Part” making their two bases a perfect rectangular base together.Misatos Square Base would therefore perfectly fit in the theme by docking it on either side of them.
You can bet your ass that theyre gonna release a different base when theyre doing Mari though.Atleast thats what they did with rei when they made Asuka
I agree! Adaptations of a character never bother me, unless they’re poorly done. And besides, the Evangelion characters have been around for so long now that it shouldn’t bother anyone if they get product-whored out in some unusual fashion.
Ah yes, I remember that their version of Asuka and Rei have custom bases. I don’t really care too much about that myself, since I’m space-limited and I need to squeeze all my figures together on the shelves. The two Volks Super Robot Wars figures I’ve got have these bases that are meant to mate up and so they get in the way of my display space compression.
Really nice figure. I really like your picture with purple background (last pic).
She is! And I wish I’d shot more pictures with the smoke, it’s pretty interesting to do since I don’t know what the smoke pattern is going to look like until the picture flashes on the LCD screen.
I stumbled upon your website several months ago while searching for figure reviews from the world of Japanese anime. Your reviews are very professional, by the way. I received Misato Katsuragi undamaged in her box last fall but didn’t set her up until now. After putting her head in place, I noticed that there wasn’t quite enough clearance between a lock of her purple hair and her right breast to slide the breast cover on. Did you notice this too, or were you wise enough to put the breast cover on first? Frankly, I’m reticent about forcing it on and breaking off that lock of hair. I like the way her head fits snugly in place, and I want to keep it that way. Misato looks great as is . . . until I invite a real lady over to the house! What do you think? Should I force the issue?
Thanks for the kind words. Yeah, I just remove her head if I need to remove or replace her chestplate. If you’re unable to remove her head, I wouldn’t advise forcing it; E2046 makes their kit figures out of a fairly stiff and brittle resin which snaps really, really easily. If this were a PVC figure I think it’d be elastic enough to give it a shot but I would not try it on a resin figure like Misato.
Hey Tier and the gang,
I am Joan a staff from E2046 and I have been looking at your website for sometimes now, and I am really glad you like our products! You even made a link just for our items =)
We have a friend link which is for you to use, all you need is filling in the form here:
http://www.e2046.com/links.php
What a friend link does is you post our web-link on your site, people can access to our website and check new figures, and we’ll post your link on our website and attract more attention for your site!
If you have any problem or inquiry, you are more than welcome to contact me.
Best Regards
Joan from E2046 =)
OK im sold on this figure. i want one for sure. But is E2046 really a good seller? i do NOT want a bootleg or counterfeit. at 154$ with shipping from a site ive never shopped before im skeptical…and i want to be sure.
E2046 definitely sells bootlegs; in fact, a large chunk of their business is centered on selling bootlegs. This figure technically isn’t a bootleg, I guess, since they sculpted it themselves, though they certainly didn’t license the character likeness from Gainax. Of their product lines, anything labeled “ORI” is something they sculpted themselves, anything labeled “Antihero” is absolutely a counterfeit, and anything labeled “Gathering” is a prepainted version of one of their own figures, a limited-run resin kit, or a bootlegged PVC figure.