Episode 26 Take care of yourself Keychain Figure

Product Information/Specifications

Introduction

I got to admit, I'm a sucker for classroom stuff.  I got all of my Episode 26 Take care of yourself keychain figures from Sakura Media at different times.  The first I got was Rei Ayanami, Hikari Horaki, then Asuka Langley Souryuu.  There are five keychain figures in this set   The missing two are Misato Katsuragi & Shinji Ikari.  I could have brought them as a set initially, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money at the time.  So far, I haven't been able to locate those two remaining keychains to complete this set & I think I will give up on it.  UFO prize catcher items aren't easy to find when they are old.

Some of the pictures aren't clear & good.  If I have time, I'll redo the bad ones & repost them.

The Review

Rei, Hikari, & Asuka out of the package

These are UFO prize catcher item in Japan & you can win this from those prize machine that has the lights flashing around the machine.  You make the light stop at a certain spot to win the prize.  It's kind of roulette in a way.

As you can see, all these keychain figures come with some classroom furniture from the original TV episode 26.  Rei comes with a blackboard with her name written on it, while Hikari & Asuka come with a chair & desk.  The chair is molded to the desk.  Each come with a mini base platform.  So if you feel like taking them with you, you can remove them from their bases.  Only the Rei only had some assembly to do since it had pegs.

All the poses are reenactments of the scene from original TV episode 26, where the new student Rei is introduced to the class for the first time.  These keychains capture that funny moment very well.  The happy look on Rei's face & the shock looks on Hikari & Asuka are well presented.

As for the paint job, not bad really.  Although there are some unevenness & paint bleeding, it's actually kept very minimal for UFO prize items.  Rei was actually nicely painted.  I actually used her as a keychain before several times before I decided to stop doing it.  The keys took off some of the paint job as you can see from the pic.

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The facial expressions of each keychain figure is priceless.  They really capture that scene in SD style.  As much as the facial expression is well presented, the paint job isn't too good.

Rei's eyes have some bleeding coming from the pupils & Asuka has some major bleeding from the mouth area.  Hikari was fine.  Funny thing is that Sega included her freckles as small dip holes.  I guess it looks better this way than painting dots.  Probably easier to do too.

Overall Conclusion

The Episode 26 Take care of yourself keychain figures are pretty good in capturing that scene where Rei introduces herself to the class.  Although these are simple UFO prize items, it's quite good.  With the exception of Rei, I have never used any of them as keychains & never will.  Currently, they are all on display on top of my dresser in a display case.

A scale of 8.5/10 is what the Episode 26 keychain figures gets.  The figures capture the scene very nicely.  If I got the full set, it would probably be better.  The paint job was much the area where the lost points came from.  However, this is pretty much excepted since these are UFO prize items.

If you do plan to get any of these Episode 26 keychain figures, I wish you luck.  UFO prize catcher items aren't easy to find when they get old since they are produced in one run only.  Hikari & Asuka were from luck.  Rei was brought when it first came out.

Photos were taken using Sony DSC-F828 digital still camera.

Last updated on February 19, 2008