LMHGNeon Genesis Evangelion

Evangelion EVA-02 Production Model

The 1996 kit that proved Bandai could turn a TV Eva into a genuinely posable desk piece, stickers and all.

MechaGrade Score

3.1/5

EVA-02 · non-scale · 1996

GradeLMHG

Scalenon-scale

Released1996

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is the original LM-HG take on Asuka's EVA-02, and for a 1996 snap kit it is more ambitious than it needs to be.

Bandai gave it pre-assembled arms with elbow joints sealed in flexible rubber, which was a real engineering swing for a non-scale toy-aisle kit at that price point. It is not going to hold a pose the way a modern inner-frame kit does, and it leans on stickers for a lot of the fine markings, but as a first pass at a posable Eva it holds up as a fun, quick build rather than a static statue.

Best for: Evangelion collectors who want the original TV-series EVA-02 in its classic 1996 tooling, not a modern reissue

The full review

What it is

This is Bandai's original LM-HG EVA-02, molded in the orange and red of Asuka's TV-series unit and built around pre-assembled arm units with elbow joints enclosed in flexible rubber so they bend and hold without extra parts to fit. It comes with figures of Asuka and Misato plus a set of accessories, and the box states it finishes at about 25cm tall. Everything snaps together with no cement needed, and the plastic is molded in the finished colors, so you get a reasonably clean-looking Eva straight off the runners before a single sticker goes on.

The catch

The color separation is not total. The kit ships with both a waterslide decal sheet and a sticker sheet, so some of EVA-02's finer markings are applied rather than molded, which is normal for a kit this old but worth knowing if you want a fully molded finish. The rubber-encased elbows are the headline feature but they are a 1996 solution to posability, not a real ball-jointed inner frame, so the range of motion is nowhere near what a modern kit offers. This is a display piece from the toy-aisle era of Gunpla-adjacent kits, not an engineering showcase.

Who it's for

If you want the classic, first-run EVA-02 exactly as it looked on TV and you are fine with a simple, sticker-assisted snap build, this is the one to track down over the later reissues. If you are looking for the redesigned Rebuild-film EVA-02 or want genuinely modern articulation and molded color separation, skip this and look at the RG Evangelion line instead, which covers the same unit with real inner-frame engineering.

The build story

What the build is actually like, and the engineering worth knowing about.

It is a straightforward snap build with no cement needed: the body panels click together and the pre-assembled arm units drop straight into the shoulders. Decal work is the main time sink, since the sheet includes both waterslide transfers and stickers for the finer EVA-02 markings, which takes more patience than a sticker-only kit but is standard for the line at this age.

The standout engineering idea is the flexible-rubber-encased elbow, which lets the arms bend and hold a rough pose without a jointed inner frame, a clever workaround for the technology Bandai had in 1996. The accessory set and the included Asuka and Misato figures add real display value beyond the Eva itself, and at roughly 25cm finished it sits at a substantial desk-piece size for a non-scale kit.

Lore & trivia

01This is Bandai's original 1996 LM-HG kit for EVA-02, the Eva unit piloted by Asuka Langley Soryu in the TV series.
02The catalog number 0054296 is also listed under the internal line code LMHG002, placing it among the earliest Evangelion kits Bandai released.
03The kit was later re-tooled from scratch for the Rebuild film era as a separate 'Evangelion 2.0 Ver.' release with a new mold to match the redesigned movie unit.