Hello to anyone who follows this blog over the past two years or so, I figured I would provide a brief update on how things have been going so far ever since I first moved to this site.
Back in September 2018 I moved my blog, dubbed “The Normanic Vault”, from Blogspot/Blogger to WordPress and since then I had been doing my best to offer tons of posts on the unboxing and industry news side of things. I know in the past I had offered more than that but these past two years had been a lot busier due to my first job and eventually going back to University for a Masters degree qualification.
Now we fast-forward to present time – August 2020, almost two years since. Here’s a general idea on what is going to happen from here on out.
The Hauls
So as you all probably had guessed, because I do not have a job and I had almost finished my degree, that means I don’t have as much funds as I used to. This reason is also why I moved back home earlier than the actual conclusion of my flat’s tenancy agreement, though I still have to pay the bills until that agreement is over.
This will mean that because I am back to unemployed mode, I won’t be able to get as much anime, manga, games, or films that I would. Though that being said, this can in fact change. The degree has paid off in terms of the results, as the outcome is so far looking pretty good with a 90% guarantee that I will earn a 1st, also known as a distinction, which for a Masters is fucking insane. My parents will probably celebrate me with something but all I want to do really is keep my hobby of supporting the anime industry, manga, games and Asian cinema distributors going for as long as I can. There’s also the support that I have gotten from many individuals through my affiliation program with Amazon, which I cannot thank enough. This is currently the best way to support me so if you are someone who was going to buy something now or pre-order, I basically earn a small commission percentage if you order through my links and have those items shipped (which varies on the type of product). This helps keep the hobby and any small bills sorted over time.
Let’s talk about how things are going to lay out. First, we have a Screen Anime premium membership which will help me out a lot when it comes to the Anime Limited titles and hopefully the Christmas sale as well which is going to be an interesting turn-out. I have a good idea on what to expect for the rest of 2020 when it comes to Manga thanks to their releases being similar to Funimation in terms of the bigger noteworthy titles, so that has greatly helped me out on the planning and preparations.
Ideally I want to put more focus on Anime Limited and Manga limited editions because they often sell out but it comes down to how big the demand is for the titles. Anime Limited not only have Gundam, but there’s also Konosuba, Tamako Market & Love Story, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Sword Art Online Alicization, Violet Evergarden and many more that could crop up between now and the end of the year. It’s not going to be fun if they all come out at the same time. Fortunately at least some big titles like Evangelion and Cardcaptor Sakura are not going to arrive until next year due to how big those projects will be.
Then we have the imports. Now fortunately I have been shifting more towards UK releases which allows for money being saved and catching up to the current status of anime a lot faster than I could imagine. The only real hurdle is with Aniplex of America as I still want to acquire the remaining two volumes of Monogatari and the four Fate box sets under their distribution whenever possible. The addition of Monzo I am hopeful will support the money spending in the future, but it all comes down to whether I have the money and most importantly whether the currency rate is stable.
Anything else is completely up in the air. Video games collecting is at a decent point where I can relax a bit more, though I am interested in XSEED’s special editions for Granblue Fantasy Versus, Kandagawa Jet Girls and Ys: Memories of Celceta. Asian cinema is at a very strong spot compared to before, and it’s basically being careful with both 88 Films and Eureka Entertainment as they have first print edition items that are interesting to own.
The Unboxings
With the real-life stuff out of the way, let’s quickly go over the unboxing posts. I have changed the structure of the unboxing posts over the past few months as I wanted to have a better layout for the title’s background, photos, specs and anything that I wanted to say. That way it makes it easier for some to jump straight to a section, such as photos, if they only want to take a look at that.
Because I moved back home, the new arrivals starting with Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans will have a different photo background to them but going over what I have taken, they look just as good as they were at the flat so that’s a relief.
This also means I can work on more Unboxing Redux posts. For those who didn’t know, the Unboxing Redux section is basically a remaster of older unboxings that I have done through Blogger between 2013 to 2018. A lot of the unboxings need updating, from photos to additional spec and info. I have all of the items intact so I can go over and update them whenever possible. Not every anime unboxing will get this treatment, but the ones that will I reckon will please some fans if they wanted more coverage of their favourites. I should clarify though that this WordPress blog is currently under the Free plan so there is a limited amount of storage space, and I was only able to tackle it by optimising the images down to a specific resolution (as my phone takes them in 4K and High Dynamic Range).
The reason why you didn’t see that much ever since December 2019 was because I didn’t have any catalog anime sets that were with me at the time and the lockdown did not help either. But now that I am back home, I can offer a few sets here and there to keep the blog fresh with some content.
The Complete Otaku Collection
Back in December 2019 I provided my first complete otaku collection update in a long time and it was fun, though the problem was that it didn’t cover my gaming collection due to having them in another place. Combine that and now that I have more anime, manga, novels, Asian films and video games can mean that I might offer another update. Ideally I would like to make the complete otaku collections a yearly thing (i.e. once a year).
The biggest change for the next update is that I will have another shelf for my room coming soon, which I believe I had mentioned before that there was one in the works, but basically because my family relocated last year, we basically underestimated the amount of space that was left for my room so I was able to request an extra shelf and some more rows to allow for more future-proofing. This should sort out my collection for as long as possible.
The Industry News
Each month I go over the release slates for Funimation, Sentai and recently Discotek Media, which has been great fun as it helps me and probably a few others take note of what’s been unreleased. This will continue as per usual.
The question that I know a few have asked is what about the coverage of the UK release schedule. The problem with this is that the UK’s release schedules from the distributors is not very consistent and they often delay them constantly due to circumstances beyond their control. That being said, I do have an entire page dedicated to the UK Anime & Asian Cinema schedule as a sort of replacement for it, so you can check out the line-up there to get a rough idea on what’s coming soon.
Final Notes
And that’s basically it for the rambling. I might offer some random discussion posts here and there if I am in the right mood to do them. This month’s haul should be solid enough as we have 2 Jackie Chan films, 2 manga volumes, and at least 4 anime sets to round up the month.
If you are new to this blog, feel free to follow me on Twitter as I am quite active on there and keep an eye on Anime UK News for any future news articles that I will post, such as Manga’s Q4 2020 line-up, streaming news and many new updates from other UK distributors.
The Normanic Vault 
Been following your blog for some years now. Keep up the good work!
/A random swede
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