Evangelion Unit-02 (Rebuild)

Known formally as Evangelion Production Model-02, this machine is the third Evangelion completed and the first of the Production Model line, engineered from the outset for war against the Angels. Crimson plating with white and yellow-orange accents covers the frame; the helmet mounts four small green sensors, clusters of nostril-like vents, and a crescent forehead piece whose ends form two short horns.

Several of its choices set the template later units follow, notably the slimmed shoulder pylons and a cleaner, simpler chest plate that also appear on the rebuilt Unit-00'. Buried in its systems is a secret code named the Beast, triggered by the pilot's voice. Invoking it releases banks of cylindrical restraints across the shoulders and back, fuses stretches of armor into the living body beneath, sets the eyes glowing, and opens a mouth lined with needle-like teeth, leaving the Eva prowling like an animal, its temperament closer to Unit-01 under the Dummy System than to any piloted machine.

Unit-02 fights conventionally but exceptionally well. It carries a matched pair of custom PKN-02.2C Progressive Knives where Unit-01 stores one, packs the six-shot Pencil Roc nail gun in its pylons, and accepts the standard arsenal, from the MM-99 assault rifle to the Thunder Spear discharge weapon and the MM-144 super-electromagnetic crossbow. In its Beast state the unit's strength climbs enough to shred the Tenth Angel's stacked A.T. Fields layer after layer even while grievously wounded, though the transformation still runs on the same five-minute internal battery.

Debuting in the second film, the Eva drops onto the Seventh Angel in S-Type equipment and dispatches it with balletic ease using the crossbow. Against the Eighth Angel it drives both knives into the core Rei holds steady, walking away with 2.07 percent damage, the lightest toll among the three NERV units. Politics then sideline it: the Vatican Treaty caps any nation at three active Evangelions, and with Production Model-03 arriving from NERV's American branch, Gendo chooses Unit-02 for mothballing, its core consigned to storage under IPEA supervision.

Mari hijacks the dormant machine to fight the Tenth Angel, unlocking the Beast when conventional tactics fail. Even so the Angel overwhelms her, tearing off the Eva's left arm and part of its head before the wreck is salvaged and repaired. Its final appearance comes in Thrice Upon a Time, destroyed with every other unit when Gendo drives the Spear of Gaius through Unit-01 and Evangelion 13.

Asuka Shikinami Langley is the designated pilot and takes it into every sanctioned battle; Mari Makinami Illustrious commandeers it exactly once. The unit serves NERV beside Unit-00 and Unit-01. Behind the scenes, designer Takeshi Honda reshaped its horns after the bow of Space Battleship Yamato, while Shinji Higuchi dreamed up the field-devouring Beast transformation, one of several metamorphosis concepts, fur-covered variants included, proposed for the second film's climax in its push to break with old preconceptions. The twin horns themselves nod back to the Unit-02 of the original series Proposal.