Pullip NGE Asuka Langley review --- A case of pretty BAD aging! (╯⩺Д⩹）╯︵ ┻━┻

[Kanrabat]

Because I needed a Pullip body and some accessories to create my own version of Red Riding Hood, I ordered the Pullip Asuka Langley from Neo Genesis Evangelion. I never saw the anime and I never cared. But I do have a thing for red-haired girls.



Asuka was affordable but not cheap, brand new at 6000JPY on Mandrake. Not counting shipping. The description on Mandrake told about a defect: Plug-suit pain. With the picture to show the "pain".




Fair enough, I didn't bought her for her plug-suit. I eect the same thing as Pullip Withered's leather coat.
Oh dear...
It's worse... So much worse...



That plug suit's fabric is some kind of foamy material. The kind that just dry-up over time. And the color is "printed" on top. Just breathing on the damn thing make EVERYTHING flakes-off. 

Asuka is a T3. The T3 is rumored to have fragile wrists. I never eerienced it with my Holly before. But here, removing the left glove proved to be too much:




The plastic parts of the suit are made to pop off, but they are almost fused together and it took force to pry them appart and off the suit. 



And this is the result:



"Plug suit PAIN" indeed.
Well, that's one thing I'll never keep and will find it's way to the garbage.


EEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww………………..   

Anyway, I have no use for the armor parts nor the included yellow dress. The dress will remain sealed and will be sold on Ebay along the rest of the spare parts.



At least the doll is not stained and her wig is all right.



The troubles should be over, right?
WRONG!

Asuka have a very cute face and I love her naughty smile. It will fit the character I want to make perfectly.



However, her eye mechanism is messed up. The right eyelid don't close at all and when I shift her eyes to the right, she get a derpy look because the left eye don't fully turn.



Fixing it would require ungluing the wig and I don't want to do that. Oh well, I'll deal with it.

It will take a while before I get the Red Riding Hood accessories and costume. So I'll have at least Asuka the schoolgirl in the meantime. I superglued her broken hand by the way. Also, those school shoes are extremely hard to put on over her socks. I required all of my manly might to put the damn thing on!
Once I get the RRH set, she will keep her socks, shoes, and panties on. The head barrettes, the wristwatch, and the very nice school uniform will remain in storage.



Overall, if it weren't for the horrendous aging and QC problems, NGE Asuka Langley could have been an amazing set. But unfortunately as she is now, poor Asuka even put Byul Rhiannon to shame!
At least the casual or schoolgirl version are pretty nice. She will remain so (although a bit out of place) before becoming Red Riding Hood, Werewolf Hunter.

[davidd]

I must say, the de-boxing and de-plugsuiting photos are quite entertaining! Carnage! Destruction! Dismemberment! That is an epic example of decomposition! The pic of the shattered plug suit in the sink is awesome!

Still, for ¥6000, or about $55 USD (plus shipping... what, another ¥3000, or $27 USD, so total price around $75 USD) I think she looks like a good deal. She looks abso-freakin'-lutely adorable in her blue schoolgirl outfit... complete with a tiny wristwatch! I'm guessing you will be able to sell the yellow summer dress and the plastic parts and recoup up to half of your investment.

Considering your interests, you might want to keep the plastic parts. They look like they would lend themselves to some kind of sci-fi Pullip-Mecha hybrid custom.

Removing the wig might not be too difficult. I usually use a blunt butter knife and gently work it around the edges under the wig cap. If the glue has aged and dried out like the suit, the wig might pop off fairly easily.

Then again, the elastic in the wig cap may have aged poorly, so the wig might not fit properly afterward; or at least, not without glue or tape.

I find that most of my Pullips have a "derpy look" when the eyes are shifted. I've resigned myself to accepting that it's just a Pullip thing. And how often would you close the eyes or shift them side to side anyway? So yeah, as you say, it's probably something you can live with, at least for now, until you find the rest of what you want for this custom.

But she's totally adorable, and I think well worth what you paid, even with just the school uniform.

Bummer about the wrist socket, but the wristwatch covers the glue seam!

[Kanrabat]

Thanks for the kind words!
Even if it was frustrating on principle, I still had a blast unboxing her.
I'll sell the spares for around the same price I did Holly's around 40 or 50$CAN plus shipping. Once Ebay and Paypal take their due, I'll recoup around the price of the Red Riding Hood costume (3K yen, not counting shipping). a fair trade I say. I thought I'd keep my Asuka complete, but that plug suit was against the idea.

At least, Schoolgirl Asuka will always be an option. And that eye thing, I can deal with and I won't mess up that perfect wig.
Now, to wait for the Red Riding Hood costume... and her weapons!

[*NatTheCat*]

"In pain" Well then .  
Too bad she ended up with a faulty wrist. I've owned several Type 3 Pullips, and only had problems with about three - it's when Groove makes the plastic hand too big for the wrist socket, so when it's stressed during bending, the hard plastic just snaps. (I fixed one wrist by carefully trimming down the soft plastic with an x-acto.)
It's a shame her eyes don't work properly! 3: I've never heard of that happening with a new doll. Perhaps, if you do open her head: remove only the back and sides of the wig from her head. That way the front stays in place. (You can always keep the un-attached parts down with glue or tack when you're done.)

[fishy]

Xacto knives are the key to successful deboxing, I've found.

Seconding that you can just flip the wig over the front of the face, but not detach it! Only way I can keep them on straight lol. Learned that trick from Truefan iirc.

[Kanrabat]

Xacto knives are the key to successful deboxing, I've found.

Seconding that you can just flip the wig over the front of the face, but not detach it!  Only way I can keep them on straight lol.  Learned that trick from Truefan iirc.

I'll keep that in mind, but the eye thing is not that dramatic of a problem anyway.

I always advocate for unboxing toys but for this Pullip, anyone who want to display their Asuka in her plug-suit should leave her SEALED in box. It's sadly the only way. Quite ironic for a doll that came with two change of clothes.

[Lejays17]

The commentary with the pics of the plug suit in particular

I picked up my Asuka from the sample sale, and it clearly started that the plug suit wasn’t included - looking at yours, I’m glad!
I was sweeping up white flakes from Ayanami’s plug suit for ages after I took her out of it. I’m not even sure where it is at the moment - I didn’t chuck it out, but it’s not with the rest of the clothes.

[fishy]

Xacto knives are the key to successful deboxing, I've found.

Seconding that you can just flip the wig over the front of the face, but not detach it!  Only way I can keep them on straight lol.  Learned that trick from Truefan iirc.

I'll keep that in mind, but the eye thing is not that dramatic of a problem anyway.

I always advocate for unboxing toys but for this Pullip, anyone who want to display their Asuka in her plug-suit should leave her SEALED in box. It's sadly the only way. Quite ironic for a doll that came with two change of clothes.

Some of the layered traditional outfits I've made are really, REALLY difficult and time-consuming to take off...

There *IS* a better way!

Just rebody then to switch outfits.

No, I'm not joking. I wish I were. But seriously that might be a way to switch clothes for Asuka without destroying anything.

[davidd]

There *IS* a better way!

Just rebody then to switch outfits.

No, I'm not joking.  I wish I were.  But seriously that might be a way to switch clothes for Asuka without destroying anything.

Or purchase multiples of the same doll to dress in different outfits. I've done that (for photo-story purposes), but only with inex.pensive playline figures.

[Cornflower Blue]

Sorry for the bad eerience with poor Asuka.  It's very possible to peel the wig up from the back just enough to flip the wig up and out of the way to get at the screws, leaving it attached to the front face plate.  I don't recall if she has the 2-part head or the 3-part with a scalp.  But you can do it with either kind.

The wrist cracking in T3's started around the time of the Rozen Maidens.  The earlier T3s had hands made out of a softer type of plastic which was prone to staining.  They obviously thought they could fix the problem by making the hands out of a harder plastic.  Except either the hands got slight bigger or the harder plastic wasn't flexible enough and caused the lower part of the arms where they were attached to crack.

[Alliecat]

That's pretty appalling quality, and I don't care what the price would be. SMH that they are making stuff like that... I mean, it must've been known that cheap pleather does this...? And I won't even start on T3 wrists. Fixing a staining problem with a different type of plastic, but who designed the dang things in the first place??? They are so hard to pose realistically in photos without looking terrible.
ANYway, congrats on the new arrival and yay for rescuing her from her wardrobe disaster.

There *IS* a better way!
Just rebody then to switch outfits.

Sounds quite sci-fi -ish. Swapping your head onto another body for a different activity.

[GreysPrincess]

Oh no, that plug suit is a hot mess! I’m glad it’s not something you were actually attached to; that would have been such a disappointment!

[Kanrabat]

Oh no, that plug suit is a hot mess! I’m glad it’s not something you were actually attached to; that would have been such a disappointment!

I  planned to put the suit in storage because that wasn't the primary role of the doll. That's why I bought a "suit in pain" on purpose. But I never ex.pected that it would be completely unsalvageable.

Seriously, it's VERY bad planning to have made the suit this way. It would have been much better to just print the pattern on a one-piece jumpsuit made of actual fabrics. They did it with the cheap mass retail Incredibles 2 dolls so why Jun Planning couldn't do it?


I'll be mean but maybe those bad clothes and general QC shenanigans may be why Groove took over.

[*NatTheCat*]

OH, Kanrabat, don't get me started on GROOVE's lack of quality control. I liked Jun Planning way better. I think except for the pleather (which I believe Groove still uses for Sailor Moon uniforms), Jun Planning had much, much nicer stock. You've seen Groove's latest version of Sebastian and his awful silk suit.
And glued things fall off like mad, accessories are nonexsistent or cheap, and if the wig's cheap you're just screwed. I know not all Jun Planning wigs were the nicest in feel (dry) but they at least looked like something.
(Just to clarify, my gripe on the wigs mostly stems from Luke Takamura, but there's similarities among Groove's products. And I must mention Taeyang Pluto's BRIGHT BARBIE PINK hair elastics. Groove, he was steampunk world, not Barbie in the Dreamhouse. .)

All in all, they're probably similar in quality (though I'd say Groove isn't typically as nice) but there's more to the older Pullips. And I genuinely think there's something just misplaced in your Asuka. Groove dolls are the only ones I have ever had eye mech troubles with (eyes not closing).

(Asuka has a 3-part head, by the way. Kirsche is the only Type 3 exception I know of to have a 2-part head.)

[Kanrabat]

OH, Kanrabat, don't get me started on GROOVE's lack of quality control.

Nat, I just remembered something.

Byul Rhiannon is a Groove release.