Mysteria Friends (Collector’s Edition Blu-ray) Unboxing

Mysteria Friends (マナリアフレンズ, Manaria Furenzu), originally known as Rage of Bahamut: Manaria Friends (神撃のバハムートマナリアフレンズ, Shingeki no Bahamūto Manaria Furenzu), is a 2019 television anime series and spin-off to the mobile social game Rage of Bahamut. It was adapted by CygamesPictures, director Hideki Okamoto, and writer Satoko Sekine, and was also published by Happinet Co., Ltd.. The short form series aired during the Winter 2019 anime season in January.

Background:

“Welcome to Mysteria Academy, where the secrets of magic are taught to an eager student body composed of humans, gods and demons. Of course, it takes an unusual degree of tolerance for these groups to mingle freely, but thanks to this unusually diverse and inclusive educational experience, the most unlikely friendships are bound to spring up. Which is how Anne, a human honor student who happens to be a Princess, finds herself growing increasingly close to Grea, a half-human/half-dragon who also happens to be a Princess.

Sure, fairy tales would have you believe that relationships between Princesses and Dragons are bound to end up badly, but that doesn’t take bonding while shopping and trips to the beach into account, let alone the fact that what they’re feeling may be a little more than just friendship!”
Plot Synopsis via MVM Entertainment, August 2020.

You probably couldn’t tell by the promotional artwork and its presentation, but Mysteria Friends is indeed part of the Rage of Bahamut franchise, the same franchise that provided Rage of Bahamut: Genesis and Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul in the past half-decade. Mysteria Friends was originally titled Rage of Bahamut: Manaria Friends with a scheduled date for April 2016, but out of nowhere it got delayed to the point where many assumed it was cancelled.

Eventually the series came back without the Rage of Bahamut tag in the title and overseas it was renamed Mysteria Friends, but the series itself is still part of the franchise and was even animated by Cygames themselves under CygamesPictures.

While Funimation picked up the rights to Rage of Bahamut: Genesis, Amazon acquired the streaming rights for Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul while Mysteria Friends was acquired by Sentai. Sentai simulcasted and later down the line provided an English dub for the series. MVM Entertainment on behalf of Sentai released the series in the UK, bringing over their limited edition release also.

I should also clarify that the reason this unboxing managed to happen is because I was able to win a copy of the collector’s edition from MVM Entertainment, so I would like to give my thanks to the distributor for choosing me. It’s the first competition I managed to win in seven years as well.

Collector’s Edition Contents:

MVM Entertainment first released Mysteria Friends in a collector’s edition package that resembles the Sentai release. Contained inside the rigid box is an Amaray case for the single disc as well as a set of art cards and a booklet.

Unit count is never known for MVM titles but I believe their collector’s editions are 1000 units. The SRP is £49.99 but there is a standard edition coming soon.

Physical Contents:

Rigid Box with Amaray case and clean artwork
4 Art Cards
40-page Booklet

On-Disc Contents:

Distributor: MVM Entertainment
Released: 17th August 2020

The collector’s edition release for Mysteria Friends is a short form anime series, and therefore the release contains all 10 episodes on a single Blu-ray disc using the Sentai encode. The audio options available include the main Japanese language with English subtitles and the Sentai Studios English dub.

As this is a Sentai authored title, we have yellow subtitles for the dialogue. The subtitles are locked during playback, but considering the Sentai discs are geo-locked, this UK release can also play on Regions A & B.

Blu-ray Specs:

Languages	English, Japanese
Audio	English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
Video	1080p High Definition Native format 16:9 aspect ratio
Region	A B
Subtitles	English
Locked Subtitles	Yes
Discs	1 BD-50