We have reached the end of 2018. It’s been a long journey and there had been a lot of ups and downs along the way but in the end I’ve managed to keep myself going. December’s main focus are the anime sales with a couple items picked up here and there.
For this update we have 5 video games, 10 anime titles, 4 light novel volumes, and 7 live-action Asian Cinema titles.
Worth noting that due to different locations, the photos are in different groups due to some items left at the flat while others were at home for the Christmas season.
Note: This collection haul update has been updated on 3rd January 2024 to be consistent with the current layout of the write-ups but also amend some visual inconsistencies. Everything written has been preserved with some minor spelling corrections, so you can see the journey from back then to the present.
Fireworks
The first item of the month is a recent release from Anime Limited with Fireworks. This is a pretty controversial pick as the film is supposedly pretty bad despite being animated by SHAFT with a team of well-known members involved with the project. Haven’t watched the film yet but the main music theme song from DAOKO & Kenshi Yonezu called Uchiage Hanabi is pretty neat.
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (2012 series)
Next we have the first set from Viz Media’s releases for JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. The first set covers the 2012 series that adapts Part 1: Phantom Blood and Part 2: Battle Tendency. I picked this set from Amazon’s Black Friday sale and as you probably expect I do plan to get all of JoJo on Blu-ray as the months go by.
Muv Luv Alternative
Also picked up (and I forgot to mention it in the photo summary lol) is Muv Luv Alternative on the PlayStation Vita. So I now own the visual novel on the portable device! Haven’t read it just yet but I was able to get it for a good price.
The Asterisk War
From MVM’s Christmas sale comes The Asterisk War. Usually I go for the Aniplex of America release, however their model for this series is similar to Sword Art Online and going by the contents I decided it wasn’t worth the extra hassle to get all of the limited edition volumes including the already out of print first volume. Therefore I opted for MVM’s Blu-ray release which is doable. I never got the chance to watch the series during simulcast.
GOD EATER
Also from the same sale as The Asterisk War is the Ufotable anime adaptation of GOD EATER. I did watch this series during simulcast and it’s good though not by any means perfect. It does the job on advertising the game series at least which you can see later in this collection update. The Blu-ray version does provide fixes to the animation which I know the studio was struggling with during its broadcast run.
Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X
Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X had been on my to-buy list for years and it’s another one of those cases where I end up leaving it too late. Luckily I was able to find a copy at a decent price and I played it during the Christmas break. It’s a pretty fun selection of songs and they did change up the gameplay a little bit without ruining the pace. It is fairly short and requires a lot of replayability to finish the story campaign but overall it’s great fun.
Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend Season 1
From the Rightstuf Black Friday sale comes another Aniplex of America haul. Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend is a series that I relatively enjoyed watching and I am glad that it did well enough to get released on Blu-ray by the distributor (at the time it was a hit or miss case on whether or not a show would be released on home video). These two sets went on sale and I took that opportunity to pick them up. I saved myself a fair bit of cash though they did get hit by customs, but regardless I am happy to get these sooner than later considering they are now one of the older Aniplex sets left standing.
Ryū ga Gotoku 1&2 HD EDITION
The 100th game for the PlayStation 3 collection goes to Ryū ga Gotoku 1&2 HD Edition, the high definition remasters of Yakuza and Yakuza 2 from Japan. That’s right, I decided to make use of the Solaris Japan coupon that I still had for this game. I honestly did consider adding one more title but I decided to focus on one game to make sure that it arrived in time for Christmas.
Drifters
From the MVM Christmas sale was a surprise Universal discount day and Drifters was on there. I was not expecting the series to be put on sale this soon but I took that opportunity to pick it up as I really like the collector’s edition sets that Universal have done. I also never got the chance to watch this series during its simulcast so this is a good opportunity to watch it.
Mob Psycho 100
Mob Psycho 100 is a show that I wasn’t too sure about until a couple episodes in, and it became one of my favourite shows during that year. The series did see a release in the US but Funimation’s LE treatment was a disappointment to me, so when Manga announced plans to release it I went for their release instead. I would like to collect more Crunchyroll/Funimation sets from Manga whenever possible.
Tetsuo: The Iron Man / Tetsuo II: Body Hammer
Alongside Mob Psycho 100 I also acquired the Japanese cyberpunk films Tetsuo: The Iron Man & Tetsuo II: Body Hammer. This is a very weird set of films because the concept is kinda interesting but bizarre at the same time. I mean they literally pulled a Gurren Lagann with that drill piercing the heavens except that heaven was a person. Considering these films were released back in 1989 & 1992 the special effects were pretty good I would say.
Christmas Haul Part 1: Anime
Christmas Day eventually arrived and here’s the kicker – not all of the anime arrived in time. Anime Limited decided to use Sony DADC for their warehouse choice to get the anime out faster for the fans, and unfortunately it backfired hard. A majority of the anime did not arrive in time and they still haven’t. From the warehouse only Charlotte arrived and that came on Christmas Eve of all things. SHIMONETA on the other hand was ordered through Zavvi so I at least had something.
Christmas Haul Part 2: Books
To make up for the delay of anime I decided to acquire a couple more light novels. Those light novels are Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody Volume 1, Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Volume 1, KONOSUBA: God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World! Volume 1, and Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Volume 1. I’ve watched the anime adaptations for each of these so it was about time I check out the original source material.
Christmas Haul Part 3: Video Games
Over the past few months I have been catching up on the PlayStation 4 collection and there were two that I had been meaning to get for a while, so I took this opportunity to add them in – GOD EATER 2 Rage Burst (which also includes GOD EATER Resurrection) and Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization. To my surprise I also received Marvel’s Spider-Man which I just finished at the time of writing this, really good game and I highly recommend getting it.
HMV Haul Part 1: Evangelion: 3.33 You Can (Not) Redo
So. Just when I thought that I would stop buying anything until the new year, UK retailer HMV announced that they would be going into administration once again. For those who don’t know this means that the store may potentially close and thus any rewards or gift cards that you own would be useless if it happened. As such I immediately went to the store to use them up. Along the way I bought Evangelion: 3.33 You Can (Not) Redo because I still haven’t picked up that film yet even after watching 5 years ago.
HMV Haul Part 2: Japanese Live-Action Films
But in terms of what I used my £80 worth of store discount points towards, it was actually for more Japanese live-action films. If you have followed my collection hauls over the past few months I mentioned that I wanted to acquire more titles back in November, eventually I broke that promise but this makes up for it as I have a total of 10 films!
The films chosen were the following:
- Black Society Trilogy Collection – Shinjuku Triad Society (新宿 黒社会 チャイナ マフィア 戦争), Rainy Dog (極道 黒社会 RAINY DOG) and Ley Lines [日本 黒社会 LEY LINES), three Japanese films from 1995, 1997 & 1999 directed by Takashi Miike. Released via Arrow Video.
- Dangan Runner (弾丸ランナー), Japanese film from 1996 directed by Sabu. Released via Third Window Films.
- Dead or Alive Trilogy: Collection – Dead or Alive (デッドオアアライブ:犯罪者), Dead or Alive 2: Birds (デッドオアアライブ:逃亡者) and Dead or Alive: Final (デッドオアアライブ:FINAL), three Japanese films from 1999, 2000 & 2002 directed by Takashi Miike. Released via Arrow Video.
- Dreams (夢), Japanese film from 1990 directed by Akira Kurosawa. Released via Criterion UK.
- House (ハウス), Japanese film from 1977 directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi. Released via Eureka Entertainment.
- Street Mobster (現代やくざ 人斬り与太), Japanese film from 1972 directed by Kinji Fukasaku. Released via Arrow Video.
I haven’t watched any of these just yet as it was fairly recent, but regardless I am pretty happy to own more Japanese live-action films considering I haven’t bothered much over these past few years until recently. I hope to build up my collection including a select few that aren’t available in the UK on Blu-ray (most notably Ichi the Killer which is actually cut by the BBFC so a Blu-ray version is pointless over here).
Additional Notes
That’s every item I received during the month of December. Once again I did overspent, heck just as I received more funds I received another fraud situation which came out of nowhere. Anywho for January there are some things planned.
There’s finally an update surrounding Senran Kagura Burst Re:Newal which had been constantly delayed due to Sony’s new policy. Much like Your Name I’m still getting it because of the collector’s edition contents and just wanting to play the game for the sake of it.
Anime-wise there’s nothing planned at the moment though I do have some titles in talks to acquire as soon as possible. The UK currency rate is going to get much worse from here on so I will try my best to get as much anime as I can from the US and Japan.
The Normanic Vault 
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