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This Neon Genesis Evangelion smartphone is purple, green, and glorious

This Neon Genesis Evangelion smartphone is purple, green, and glorious

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For the 20th anniversary of seminal anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, Japan has already produced a themed bullet train. Now, there's an Android smartphone too: Sharp's SH-M02-EVA20. (The SH-M02 here refers to the original Sharp handset, while the EVA20 designates it as a custom Evangelion device.) Only 30,000 units are going to be available, with the phone going on sale via various promotional offers for ¥84,240 yen or around $704.

giant robot mech outside, ordinary smartphone inside

Although the outside of the SH-M02 is certainly striking — with its green and purple livery, orange side buttons, and stylized outline of Shinji's Evangelion Unit 01 robot on the rear — the technical specs are quite ordinary. There's a 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor, 2GB of RAM, and only 16GB of internal storage (expandable via a microSDHC slot).

Thankfully there's lots of flair available including a case, wallpapers for every day of the year, and custom sound effects from the TV series and its original voice actors. We're not sure if we prefer the SH-M02-EVA20 over 2012's similarly Evangelion-themed SH-06D (after all, that had a 3D screen and an intense custom skin), but there's no denying the new device is striking. You can watch a promo video with more shots of the handset below: