Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend Volume 1 (Limited Edition Blu-ray) Unboxing

I finally picked up Saekano! Rightstuf’s Black Friday/Christmas sale offered a bunch of Aniplex sets at a discounted price and this series was among them. The first volume is among one of the oldest currently surviving sets from the distributor.

Note: The photos in this unboxing have been updated on 25th June 2019, but the content is identical.

Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend (Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata) is a 2015 anime series adapted by studio A-1 Pictures and publisher Aniplex. The anime is based on the light novel series written by Fumiaki Maruto and illustrated by Kurehito Misaki.

The show is pretty fun and in my opinion worth watching. It isn’t for everyone though and does have some fanservice that may put folks off (but it does have waifu girls). Despite doing well in Japan the show as far as I’m aware was fairly overlooked during its simulcast, especially its second season which got caught up by the Amazon NoitaminA partnership.

Aniplex of America released the series on Blu-ray across two volumes. Each volume is roughly half a cour worth of episodes but at least it did well enough to even receive a home video release. There is no English dub for this anime for those who wanted one.

Volume 1 contains episodes 0 to 5 across two Blu-ray discs in Japanese audio with English subtitles. Much like the other ‘Volume’ style releases, you also receive a cardboard box with illustrated artwork as well as a couple art cards. The disc is region free and the subtitles are unlockable during playback.

Blu-ray Specs:

Languages: Japanese
Audio: Japanese Linear PCM 2.0
Video: 1080p High Definition Native format with 16:9 ratio
Region: A B C
Subtitles: English
Locked Subtitles: No
Discs: 2

Plot Synopsis (via Aniplex):

“I’m gonna make you into a heroine that no one can resist!”

One day, an otaku high school student Tomoya Aki has a fateful encounter with a girl amidst the beautiful cherry blossom trees. This meeting inspires Tomoya to design his very own “gal-ge” (dating-simulation PC game) featuring a heroine modeled after the girl he saw. In order to make his desire a reality, Tomoya must persuade a few eccentric “creators” such as the ace member of the art club and his childhood friend, Eriri Spencer Sawamura and the school’s top student, Utaha Kasumigaoka to join his development team. Meanwhile, Tomoya is shocked to learn that the girl he idolized as his muse for this whole project was none other than Megumi Kato, who is a super low-profile girl who he doesn’t even notice that she is in the same class! But, this doesn’t dissuade Tomoya. He is determined to make Megumi an ultimate gal-ge heroine!