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AVIREX’s MA-1 REMODEL takes on the colors of Unit-01, Unit-02 and Mark.06 in a ¥77,000 RADIO EVA collide that already shows sold out at RADIO EVA’s own store.
The MA-1 was designed to be found. Official versions of the Air Force flight jacket carried a safety-orange interior and could be worn inside out, so an airman who went down could flip it and show the color to the people searching for him. AVIREX has kept that rescue idea alive in its own MA-1 REMODEL MARK II, a hooded, cowhide-patched update of the sil whose signature details include orange lining and reflector tape. Now the jacket is carrying a different set of tincture, because RADIO EVA, the official apparel project of the Evangelion franchise, has refit it for three of the series’ machines.
The Evangelion Armor: A Study in Mecha Couture
The collide is one entry in RADIO EVA’s THE 30 series, a run of thirty tie-ups marking the franchise’s thirtieth anniversary, and its essentials fit in one place.
Signal. What happened: AVIREX and RADIO EVA rel a three-colorway flight jacket built on AVIREX’s MA-1 REMODEL MARK II, part of RADIO EVA’s THE 30 series. Exact object: EVANGELION MA-1 REMODEL by AVIREX in Black (EVA-01), Red (EVA-02) and Navy (Mark.06), ¥77,000 with tax, sizes M to XXL. When and where: RADIO EVA’s online store posted the jackets on September 12 and now lists all three as sold out, while a Japan market rel notice dates a rel to September 26 through mix.tokyo, the TSI-run online store that carries AVIREX. Source: RADIO EVA’s official item, category and news pages, plus its August 11 magazine announcement. Why it matters: it pairs a jet-age rescue design with a 1995 anime’s hardware, at roughly 1.8 times the price of the standard MA-1 REMODEL MARK II.
RADIO EVA’s own product copy frames the jacket as a meeting of two vocabs. It says the design fuses the world of Evangelion with details that evoke rescue, and that stencil prints applied across the body preserve the rugged military feel the MA-1 brings with it.
The jacket’s lineage explains why a rescue theme fits. According to Klaxon’s MA-1 guide, development began in the early 1950s and the design was adopted in the mid-1950s, replacing the B-15, whose mouton fur collar got in the way of the hard helmets used in jet aircraft. The MA-1 swapped it for a knit collar. The orange lining came later: Creases Like Knives dates the reversible version to the 1960 to 1961 revision of the military specification, when surviving aircrew were told to wear it orange side out so rescuers could find them.
stir
The base jacket has a following of its own. AVIREX’s retail copy dates the MA-1 REMODEL to 2009 and credits it with the highest praise among the brand’s custom flight jacket designs, and it has stayed on sale as a long-running seller. AVIREX’s official Rakuten store flagged a restock of the standard MA-1 REMODEL for fall and winter 2026, too. An AVIREX shop listing on Mitsui Shopping Park’s &mall shows the MARK II at ¥42,900 with tax in black, khaki, sage and royal blue. The signature moves are a cowhide patch on the hood, a hood that detaches, orange lining and reflector tape, and stencil prints, while the sage version reproduces the original color scheme and the royal blue swaps in an ivory patch.
RADIO EVA keeps that architecture and changes the palette. Its Unit-01 product page says black follows Unit-01, red follows Unit-02 and navy follows Mark.06, with the lining and reflector tape matched to each machine’s tints where AVIREX’s standard listing highlights orange. The hood patch is cowhide, the hood comes off, and the stencil prints stay. According to the material list, the shell is 100 percent nylon over a polyester lining and polyester fill, the hood is lined with an acrylic and polyester blend, the ribbing is acrylic, and some decorative trim is synthetic leather.
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The size chart runs from M to XXL, with bust measurements of 118 to 136 centimeters and body lengths of 66 to 75 centimeters. Through XL those numbers match AVIREX’s standard MARK II listing, which gives half-chest widths that double to the same bust figures, so the union appears to use the same pattern. The standard jacket also comes in a free size described as women’s-compatible, which the RADIO EVA version does not list. The two models pictured stand 184 and 165 centimeters tall and both wear an XL. RADIO EVA adds a caution that the photo show prototypes and may differ from the finished jackets.
flow
Two of the three units come from the 1995 television series, directed by Hideaki Anno and broadcast on TV Tokyo from October 1995 to March 1996: Unit-01, Shinji’s machine, in black, and Unit-02, Asuka’s, in red. Unit-02’s pilot, Asuka Langley, carries the surname Soryu in the television series and Shikinami in the Rebuild films. The story follows Shinji Ikari, a teenager recruited by his father Gendo into the organization NERV. Khara, the studio Anno founded in 2006 to make the Rebuild films, now owns the franchise, and those four films arrived between 2007 and 2021.
Mark.06 is the odd unit out because it exists only in the Rebuild films. According to Evangelion Wiki, it first appears unfinished at a moon base at the end of the first film, then sorties in the climax of Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance with Kaworu Nagisa at the controls, hurling the Spear of Cassius to halt a near Third Impact, and it returns in Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo as an autonomous unit. The same wiki describes its finished, armored form as deep blue with yellow trim, which makes the navy colorway a fairly direct match to the unit.
Kaworu turns up in the campaign as well. Toy People’s coverage says the official promotional illustrations show Kaworu Nagisa wearing the jackets, and RADIO EVA’s store carries a Kaworu category in its “Fashion’s Carnival” section alongside Shinji, Rei, Asuka and Mari.
Around the collaboration the franchise has stayed busy. A three-day thirtieth anniversary festival ran from February 21 to 23, 2026, and its final day brought the first announcement of an all-new Evangelion series. The anniversary year also included revival screenings of six theatrical films and the EVANGELION 30th Anniversary Movie Collection Blu-ray box, dated December 10, 2025. The anniversary exhibition ALL OF EVANGELION opened its Nagoya leg on September 4 at PARCO HALL, and a Taipei show, Lines of EVANGELION, runs from August 14 to October 4, according to the franchise’s official X account.
avail
RADIO EVA announced the collision in its magazine on August 11, and its own store got there first with sales. Its news post introducing the jackets is dated September 12, and its AVIREX category now lists all three as sold out. Toy People’s report the same day described them as on sale at the official store and other retailers. A Japan market release notice puts the collection’s release at September 26 and points to mix.tokyo, the online store TSI runs for AVIREX’s full range, as the sales link. AVIREX’s own site did not surface a page for the link in searches for this story, and the latest post on TSI Holdings’ AVIREX news page is dated July 24, so the September 26 date rests on the notice alone.
The Unit-01 page shows every size from M to XXL sold out and offers a restock notification, with shipping listed at a flat ¥880 nationwide. For scale, the store’s front page lists the ¥46,200 PRODUCTION MODEL-02 Monster Parka and the ¥27,500 Longinus Jacket, so ¥77,000 sits well above the other jackets shown there. Against the ¥42,900 standard MARK II, the merge adds ¥34,100.
The Lilac Collar: A Study in Tactical Detail
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AVIREX began in New York in 1975 under founder Jeff Clyman, according to Wikipedia, which adds that the brand was not a World War II military supplier but did equip the Air Force in the 1980s by reissuing the A-2 jacket. The brand’s own account is grander. TSI Holdings’ brand interview describes AVIREX as an official Air Force contractor whose flight jackets met military specifications, and explains the name as a phrase for king of the sky, a tribute to aviators.
Japan is where the brand became a fixture. Ueno Shokai, the importer that TSI Holdings bought a 79 percent stake in for about ¥15 billion in 2018, secured exclusive Japanese rights in 1986 after its chairman spotted the AVIREX booth at the MAGIC trade show in Las Vegas, the interview says. Awareness was low until Tom Cruise wore the brand in Top Gun that same year, which set off a boom. The first directly operated store opened in Honmoku, Kanagawa, in 1991, and a 1994 license let the Japanese side design its own outerwear, inner wear and pants. For the brand’s 35th anniversary in 2010, the campaign centered on 35 versions of the MA-1. When TSI’s interview ran in 2019, the brand counted 30 directly operated stores in Japan and 20 in China.
TSI Holdings now runs AVIREX in Japan, including the mix.tokyo store named in the release notice. The brand’s fiftieth anniversary year fell in 2025, the same year Evangelion turned thirty, and its Japanese collide record includes Chainsaw Man in 2022, My Hero Academia in 2023 and Final Fantasy VII Remake in December 2025, alongside a Top Gun: Maverick line in 2022. Its 2026 calendar has run through Universal Overall in April, Disney later that month and Island Slipper sandals in July.
The Palace Skateboards sportswear collide reached Japan on September 19, exactly a week before the September 26 date attached to the RADIO EVA jackets. It was not the two brands’ first meeting. Palace’s range archive lists a Pure Palace Avirex Jacket from Autumn 2019, and Hypebeast covered another AVIREX leather jacket in Palace’s winter 2024 delivery.
hint
RADIO EVA began in 2008. evangelion.jp announced it on August 1 of that year as an adult-oriented EVA project aimed at making things that fit naturally into daily life, and its operating company, PLUGinc, still describes the concept as Evangelion woven into everyday life. The project’s magazine says it has produced more than 1,000 items, from clothing and bags to interiors, and dates its first physical store, RADIO EVA STORE, to 2019. That flagship now sits in Shibuya PARCO.
mmer campaign that began July 10, and denim caps and hats carrying a Unit-01 patch on June 5. PLUGinc also runs EVANGELION:95, a label launched on January 24, 2025 around the 1995 television series, and the RADIO EVA magazine says its third delivery was scheduled to go on sale September 11. DIME reports that Tomohiro Kato, RADIO EVA’s creative director since 2012, directs that label as well.
The THE 30 series promises thirty collision across fashion, food and lifestyle within a single year. Its roster runs from AVIREX to SEIKO, KANGOL, FILA, FRUIT OF THE LOOM, EAST GREEN MATCHA and COFFEE SUPREME. The KANGOL entry, a Circle Lance bucket hat, is listed at ¥24,200 with tax.
The jacket closest in spirit to the AVIREX rel is the JAM HOME MADE MONSTAR riders jacket that went on sale February 27, 2026, according to the label’s press rel. Its liner and sleeve-cuff leather carry hue that recall Unit-01, its back bears a bold print in hand-drawn-style lettering that spells out the unit’s official designation in Japanese, and it is made in Japan from chrome-tanned cowhide. A SEIKO diver’s watch themed on Unit-02 follow on July 3 as a second model, RADIO EVA’s news page says, and the project’s magazine describes it as arriving about half a year after the first, Unit-01 watch.
RADIO EVA’s roster page still shows two of the thirty slots marked as coming soon.
