Years after Evangelion went by the way side but remained in the memories of fans, Hideaki Anno revived the series in 2007 with The Rebuild of Evangelion. The Rebuild is a series of movies that take a lot from the original Anime series and updates it with cleaner, more modern art and animation and alterations to the story through the plotlines and even whole scenes are changed in order to give the Rebuild of Evangelion a new look.

The first movie, “You are (NOT) Alone” features the introduction of Shinji and Rei along with all of the other recurring characters. The second movie, “You Can (NOT) Advance” introduces Asuka (pronounced Ah’s-Kah) and a new character whom was not in the original series named Mari Makinami.

Makinami Mari Illustrious is introduced in the first scene of “You Can (NOT) Advance” wearing an old style Plug suit which is an outfit that an Eva pilot wears to allow them to make contact with the giant in which they are piloting. The green and white outfit that Mari wears is loaded with tubes and bulk and not enough room for her breasts (which she makes a point to mention), it is also equipped with a helmet—probably to keep this battle-aggressive teenage girl from hurting herself more than she already does.

I was close to saying Revoltech was better than Figma—so close, but after opening Mari and trying the figures posing out, I think I’ll have to say that a Revoltech is awesome, but still, a Figma is better.

The front of the box is detailed in a very cool way with not only character photos and a revealing window, but also a very visual band along the bottom.

The back of the box features poses and other information.

Removing the tray reveals a snap-off shell and everything that the figure comes with including a ton of hands, the figure herself, and a stand with the characters name and what they are from printed on the base. Also included is her helmet, which she can hold by the strap or it can be swapped with her head piece; also a few panels are included to open the visor. An extra face, a cube shaped container for the extra parts and a coin for Revoltech points are also included.

The figure is beautiful, enough said on that—well, not yet—the sculpting is just perfect and she has the prettiest face. Mari’s glasses are part of her front bangs and she even has some pink on her lips—so much detail!

Now, for the worse thing I’ll ever say about a figure I love…the stand sucks!!! That’s right, the Revoltech stand bites, blows and I would throw it somewhere, but I don’t want to dirty up where it lands. OK, well, I don’t need to go that far! Anyhow, the stand has some adjustments, but it is higher than it should be and the figure pretty much floats above the base which makes for some poor posing options. However, it is just the stand…na, it’s needed for something like this, so maybe Revoltech needs to take a cue from Figma and make a better stand.
The figures detail is perfect, however, the connecting joints are kind of small, one of the arms came off in my hand, it pressed back on without much issue however, I don’t like figures falling apart on me like that.

The detail on the back is as nice as the front—look down a bit—nice huh! (cheesy, I know).

Now, where Revoltech is superior to Figma–where Figma comes with a zipper seal bag for the extra parts, the Revoltech has a plastic box with vents, so that is a pretty cool addition.
Don’t get me wrong though, I really like the figure, but I can’t have her displayed because of the issues like the stand and pieces falling off, so I returned her to the box which is nice that, that is possible.

GRADE: VERY GOOD (I can’t use a letter in this case).

Mari is the designated 05 pilot and has 3 major scenes in the entire movie; however she is probably the most interesting character, even more so than the classic characters from the original series. What makes Mari interesting is the fact that she has a gentle personality brimming with kindness—as though she cares about people (mainly the other kids) which is something that none of the other “children” really show. Shinji is more concerned about himself until he falls for Rei. Rei is a “doll” as Asuka calls her and Asuka is very selfish and puts on an over-aggressive act because she is afraid of being loved or liked for that matter.
Mari has a very prominent line that stands out after her first “act” she is basically saying that she feels bad using the adults to get what she wants—this is referring to how she is just as well addicted to battling. The adults throughout are saying that they dislike using kids to get what they want, so I like how it is reversed in Mari’s case.

Other great Mari moments are from the first few minutes of the second movie, the best is her singing some childish song as she is “skating” with her 05 Eva to meet an enemy Angel in battle, the scene is comical, but her action allows the viewer to start understanding how troubled she must be.
Mari’s second prominent scene is her parachuting out of the sky to the top of the school where Shinji is and lands on him–probably one of the most fun scenes in the movie. After finding her glasses in the style of Scooby Doo’s Velma she gets a call from her “bosses.” In the English version it’s just the conversation written into the script; however in the Japanese version she starts speaking English which is absolutely awesome because it almost comes from nowhere. Mari is from the Euro division and she is from the remains of England, however she is Japanese, at least in appearance and name. I found it really cool that different languages are used often in the movie, I give a lot of credit to the voice actors, they really are amazing, and it was also nice not to read subtitles for a few moments so I could focus on the beautiful art.

This is an official calendar page featuring “School Girl” Mari, if there were rips in her thigh stockings, then she would resemble her fall from the heavens onto Shinji.

Mari gets one more spot in the movie which shows how she is probably the most intelligent of the pilots—if not intelligent, than she knows things that others have to take half the movie to find out. Mari dons a pink plug suit which she uses more fan service exclaiming that it has more room for her boobies than the green and white. She also mentions for the second time (the first being in her encounter with Shinji on the roof of the school) that she likes the smell of the LCL liquid that the pilots are immersed in within the plug. Mari is piloting the 02 Eva which “belongs” to Asuka and she can smell her in it.
Although Mari is a skilled soldier, she begins her battle failing with whatever she tries to do, so she causes the 02 Eva to go into “Beast” mode with some command words that apparently no one but the adults have any idea about.
Sadly, even with the enhanced power, Mari gets her ass kicked and ends up helping Rei in a failed assault on the enemy; however she does live with all of her body parts still intact.
The very end of the movie finds Shinji being a man for once and Mari makes a cute comment and sneezes which I find to be the icing on the cake for a great character who transcends the norm of these depressed characters, these angry characters and the ones who plot and tell you nothing until 5 minutes before the show ends forever. Although there isn’t as much info as I’d like for probably my second favorite Anime character of all time, the third movie “You Can (NOT) Redo” will be out on DVD in Japan in April (unless the date changes) and maybe it’ll be released in the U.S. too, then I can see what more is going on until having to wait another few years for the 4th movie.

I would save my favorite action figure of maybe all time for a “Figma Fanatic” review, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to open her, so this is probably the best place to review.
Pink Plug Suit Mari, one of the coolest Figma’s I have. The figure is of course fully articulated and has joints that you can count on being pretty tight and secure. The detail is just perfect and she is loaded with some great accessories. Mari has a few different faces, a second head piece, tree of hands and—holy crap! She comes with the plug chair!!! The plug chair has multiple points of articulation for maximum Angel fighting action—makes me want to open her, but I just don’t know if that’s what I want to do at this time.

The back of the box shows better poses than I can set up, so there you go, who needs to open the box.

GRADE: A+ (Well, come on, she IS my favorite figure)!

I want to apologize in advance to the artist of this picture, it is absolutely beautiful, however I can’t find a signature on it anywhere, I also can’t find a name on the page I found it. I’d love to advertise for you in return for me showing it here. OR, maybe this is official?
The art piece shows Asuka in red, she is missing her left eye, something that I think a pretty female character should do is cover the mess with her hair and not end up looking like a pirate. The look on her face is damage, she just seems like a whole different person where she is genuinely angry; after all, “Stupid Shinji” did {kind of} try to kill her. On the far right is Rei in black, oddly, according to the story of the 3rd movie, she isn’t with them, at least for a while if at all, I don’t know, the 3rd movie wasn’t shown in the States. In the middle is of course Mari, she is number 08 instead of 05 at this point and she is part of a different group with Asuka—apparently, they are all pushing 30 too.
There is something very powerful about the contact between Asuka and Mari—now, I’ve seen about 20 clean pictures of the 2 of them in contact, (not related to porn either) so I’m wondering if there is something going on between them in the third movie—or all of the pictures are just meant to be porn and its nothing. Either way, I think this is one of the best pieces of art relating to Evangelion I’ve ever seen and I really love it.

So, that’s Mari Illustrious Makinami, at least until I can finally see “You Can (NOT) Redo.” It’s a tough thing to talk about Evangelion because most see their own story unfold, which is why I’d rather focus on individual characters and describe how I see them.

Until the next one…

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