Today at NTT Docomo’s summer lineup event we finally saw the company take the wraps off a working version of its NERV edition SH–06D Android handset, inspired by (and designed alongside) the upcoming third film in the Rebuild of Evangelion franchise. After using it for a few minutes on the show floor today, we can safely assure you that there’s nothing on the market remotely like it.

It’s impossible to pick the phone up without noticing the crazy skinning going on. Everything is colored orange, green, red, and black to match the readouts from the Magi computer system in the films. It definitely takes a minute to get used to, but once you know where to look for everything you’ll find a ton of glanceable information; everything from the weather, to the amount of memory your phone has available, to your latitude and logitude. The only unfortunate part is how the illusion shatters when you open your app drawer and take a look at your everyday icons.

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The colors and design of the skin really pop off the screen

The SH–06D has only been on the market for two months, so the hardware isn’t outdated by any means, but we wish Sharp had been able to put together an Android 4.0 update for the device before its launch. Still, even running Gingerbread the 1.2GHz OMAP processor feels reasonably snappy. The 4.5-inch 3D 720p (1280 x 720) LCD display looks fantastic, and the colors and design of the skin really pop off the screen, as does the exclusive bundled video content.

The case design differs from a regular SH–06D in a couple of important ways: the hardware buttons have been redesigned to fit with the color scheme mentioned above, and the phone adds a textured back panel emblazoned with the NERV logo. The back panel is interchangeable with a separate mirrored one, but we can’t see why you’d ever want to switch it. Only a limited number of NERV edition SH–06Ds will be produced, so chances that you’ll be able to get hold of one are pretty slim, but for the determined, NTT Docomo is starting pre-orders on June 16th.