The Normanic Vault

Otaku Collection Haul for January 2022

Welcome to the Otaku Collection haul for the month of January 2022. This update features 15 anime releases, 19 manga volumes, 8 physical video games, and 5 live-action Asian cinema releases.

For this month’s haul 2022 has begun and we have a combination of pre-orders from the previous year, another games console and more items for various parts of the collection.

Nintendo Switch OLED

Starting off the month and the year of 2022 is the Nintendo Switch OLED console. I have been meaning to go for this particular version ever since it was first released last October, however much like the PS5 and Xbox Series X there are also stock issues with the OLED version. Amazon had more stock throughout the first week of January and thanks to payday I was able to finally order it. This is one of the big items that I wanted to acquire sooner than later.

For the record, PlayStation will still be the main go-to for the games that I play for performance reasons, while the Switch is just for the exclusives or those that make sense to acquire for that platform.

Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out!

The next item to arrive is one that I was hoping would appear back in November 2021’s haul. The limited edition release for Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out! had sold out before it was released in North America, and somehow Madman of all distributors was able to secure some stock for their audience, and thankfully they accepted UK shipping so I was able to order it.

This took 2 months to arrive due to the global situation getting in the way for Australian shipment, but it arrived in pretty solid condition so that’s good. Honestly surprised I even managed to get my hands on this set.

Judgment & Lost Judgment

Next we have the PlayStation 5 releases of SEGA’s Judgment and Lost Judgment. While I do own Judgment for PS4, I didn’t start it due to the backlog so I’m jumping straight to the PS5 version instead. These are spin-offs of the Ryu ga Gotoku (Yakuza) franchise, and surprisingly both games were on offer for about £20 each on Base, so it was a no-brainer to order them.

GANTZ Omnibus 2, How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift Vol. 5-6 & Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs Vol. 15-16

A new batch of manga joins the collection and one of them is a Dark Horse volume for once. It’s taken me this long to actually order another GANTZ omnibus because I was undecided on whether to continue pursuing this format or wait for a huge deluxe edition. I decided for pricing and space reasons that I should stick with the current format. It does help that Amazon lowered the price to about £15.

In addition, I also acquired more manga volumes for How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift? with Volumes 5 & 6 and Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs with Volumes 15 & 16.

El-Hazard: The Magnificent World

The first of many Anime Limited pre-orders from the 12 Days of Christmas 2021 sale arrives with the 90s Isekai anime series El-Hazard: The Magnificent World. I was quite surprised that the distributor brought this over to the UK and I’m glad they did as I do like to own more of the older fantasy anime whenever possible.

Kotodama & Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy

Trying to get more games that were released years ago picked up sooner than later, so I went ahead and grabbed Kotodama: The 7 Mysteries of Fujisawa from PQube and Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy from Bandai Namco via the retailer Base. I have heard very good things about the Ultimate Ninja Storm series so I figured I would get them while the physical versions were still available.

Kaiba & Kakegurui: Compulsive Gambler

Two more Anime Limited releases from their 12 Days of Christmas 2021 sale arrived.

First up we have Masaaki Yuasa’s Kaiba, released in 2008 by studio Madhouse. Discotek released the series five years ago so it’s nice to finally have it here in the UK, and with collector’s packaging. As you can suspect, it’s the ‘D-D-D-DISCOTEK ON AL PACKAGING’ approach which is always welcome.

Next we have Saori Hayami being a gambler with Kakegurui: Compulsive Gambler from studio MAPPA. As we all know, Anime Ltd licensed the series back in 2018 but Netflix started to get greedy and made their dubs expensive to license, so the distributor had no choice but to use the Sentai discs (the plus side to this I would say is a better subtitled translation I suppose).

I did watch the first three episodes at my anime society a few years ago but I wanted to wait until I had owned the Blu-ray to finish off the season, which took longer than planned.

Black Clover: Quartet Knights, JUMP FORCE & One Piece Unlimited World Red

I decided to order some more anime video games, because honestly it’s been on my mind as of late for two reasons – one is that I’ve been interested in checking them out for a while, and the second reason is that they were released a couple of years ago (and the older the physical release is, the more likelihood of them going to sell out or increase in prices).

Starting off with Black Clover: Quartet Knights which is actually the one I was most interested in playing because I enjoyed reading the first three volumes of the manga (while I do own Season 1 on Blu-ray, my plan is to wait until I have all four seasons acquired before watching them). Weirdly this game isn’t available on most of the sites I often use, so I wonder if its got stock issues or is just straight going out of print, who knows.

Next we have Jump Force, the latest J-Stars fighting game that performed badly on various factors but it’s character roster is quite interesting. There is of course the sudden news that the game will be delisted on 7th February because of licensing, so if you want to own the game I suggest doing it as soon as possible, and I decided to act now to avoid the price-hike of the physical releases. There are characters released as DLC so I will have to purchase them if I want to get the complete roster (and it’s not going to be cheap because I missed their recent sale).

And to round-off the list we have One Piece Unlimited World Red, a remaster of the original Nintendo Wii U & PlayStation 3 game. I heard this was one of the better One Piece games in recent memory so I finally picked it up. I do enjoy One Piece so I also plan to get the rest of the PS4 games I don’t yet own (Burning Blood, Pirate Warriors 4, World Seeker).

Hunter x Hunter (2011 Series)

In a rather surprising move I would say, I managed to get all 148 episodes of Hunter x Hunter for the collection. This was split into three orders, two of which were through Amazon UK and the other with United Publications.

What happened was that HMV held a Shonen anime promotion that offered Parts 1 & 2 for £14.99 each, and Amazon price-matched them both. As I was working when I saw the price-discount I immediately ordered them because it was much better than any other discount in the past.

Because Part 3 wasn’t included in the offer, I decided to get Parts 3-5 through United Publications which were £21.99 each plus postage so it works out at a pretty decent deal as someone who wanted to own the whole series as soon as possible.

Goblin Slayer: Goblin’s Crown

Also included in the United Publications order I made with Hunter x Hunter was the film Goblin Slayer: Goblin’s Crown which I surprisingly had yet to watch on the streaming platforms. Since the main series sold out on its slipcase pretty quickly I decided to acquire the film sooner than later. I am looking forward to the second season that’s in the works as per usual.

Isekai Quartet Season 1

I pre-ordered a bunch of Funimation UK releases on United Publications that I was interested in owning that were scheduled for the first quarter of 2022, and the first one that was the only one planned to arrive in January had arrived early which was Isekai Quartet Season 1.

It’s a fun Isekai short series and nice to own it for a cheaper price. However, it is disappointing to see that they have dropped the slipcase for the UK release, and even more awkwardly using the Amaray artwork rather than the main artwork that was on the slipcase. It feels incomplete and rather weird to look at, so I don’t understand why they did that.

It’s also ironic considering when they were offering slipcases they were using the slipcase artwork on the Amaray rather than doing what the US was doing by having the main artwork and Amaray artwork be unique, and now it’s the reverse decision in a sense.

Senran Kagura Reflexions

So as many of you know if you’ve been following my hauls over the years, I have acquired a lot of Senran Kagura games. However I didn’t own a Nintendo Switch until just recently so I actually passed on Limited Run Games’ limited physical release of Senran Kagura Reflexions when it was first offered back in 2020, in fact I couldn’t afford it due to the shipping/customs involved.

Fast-forward to 2022, Limited Run Games held a sale earlier in the month that basically offered a bunch of out of print releases including this game, so I decided to use the opportunity to get it finally. This physical release wasn’t cheap to acquire, but it does include all of the downloadable content on the cartridge so essentially the price covers roughly the same as downloading all of the packs/characters.

Warriors Two & The Prodigal Son

Eureka Entertainment have been pushing more Hong Kong titles throughout the past year and there’s even more incoming in 2022. They’re starting off the year with a double-film pack called Warriors Two & The Prodigal Son, presented in a special edition Blu-ray set. I really like Sammo Hung’s work and wanted to pick up as many of his releases as I can, so this was a good opportunity to keep that trend going. The special edition release includes a slipcase, booklet and double-sided poster. I pre-ordered this collection from Amazon.​

Bullet Ballet, Hiruko the Goblin & Tokyo Fist

Third Window Films is starting off the year of 2022 with their new release of Hiruko the Goblin (Yokai Hunter: Hiruko) from director Shinya Tsukamoto, which is also released with a slipcase for the first print run. I have watched a fair amount of his works and I like them a lot, so I pre-ordered the film over at Terracotta Distribution.

Because the site offers free shipping at a specific price range, I took this opportunity to also acquire a few more of the director’s works that I don’t yet own and were in the Third Window Films backlog. As such Bullet Ballet and Tokyo Fist were both acquired. The latter is interesting as it was actually released in the UK before via Manga Entertainment.

World’s End Harem Vol. 10

World’s End Harem Volume 10 finally joins the collection. I have been waiting for this particular volume to be available for a decent price and in stock, as it kept going into SRP level range or out of stock for a while. I plan to get Volumes 11 & 12 sooner than later so that the first part of the story is complete.

Plunderer

After numerous pushbacks due to assets not arriving, the limited edition UK version of Plunderer has finally been released and because there was actually stock available for retailers I ordered the set alongside Part 2 through United Publications.

However, Funimation dun-goofed because this set does not include the Acrylic Diorama which was included in the US release and was advertised with the UK release. I have heard from one other user that they also didn’t receive one.

Travelling Man Manga Haul

I went to York on the last Saturday of the month to visit a friend and we went to the Travelling Man store to check out their manga selection. The difference between our last visit in August to now is that I have a job with more income, so I can get more than ever before and thus I was able to properly take advantage of the store’s 3 for 2 offer on Viz Media books. Therefore I spent £88 on 13 Shonen Jump volumes, SRP-wise the total cost would have been £112.

Starting this batch we have Tite Kubo’s Burn the Witch which is a series I’m curious to check out and has a nice slipcase to it. I actually haven’t read Bleach though I have watched Movies 2-4 many years ago when they were on TV.

Next we have Tatsuki Fujimoto’s CHAINSAW MAN, and finally I was able to get these volumes because the retailer had plenty of stock for most of them in contrast to online retailers who kept selling out for months. Saying that however, they didn’t have Volume 4, but in return I grabbed all of the available volumes that were released in English which were Volumes 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 & 8 (and apparently Amazon UK won’t get Volume 8 until end of March lol).

Last but not least we have Gege Akutami’s Jujutsu Kaisen 0 and Jujutsu Kaisen Volumes 1, 2, 3 & 5. Much like Chainsaw Man, they also didn’t have Volume 4 for this series so I’ll need to locate it online.

But overall I am pretty happy to grab these Shonen Jump titles, it’s actually been 3 years since I last acquired a SJ branded manga title from Viz Media and it’s an area that I want to grab more volumes for. Each volume’s price were £7.99, except for Burn the Witch which was £15.99, and all of them except for Chainsaw Man Volumes 1 & 8 and Jujutsu Kaisen 0 & Volume 1 were included in the 3 for 2 offer.

The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch

Also acquired in York via HMV was the 1968 Japanese horror film was The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (Hebimusume to Hakuhatsuma) by director Noriaki Yuasa who is known for directing the Gamera Showa era films. What also caught my attention about this film was that its based on the works from Japanese manga creator Kazuo Umezu, known for his horror manga The Drifting Classroom. This is the first print edition so it comes with a really nice slipcase and a booklet that Arrow Films is known for.​

Boogiepop Phantom & My-HiME

The final batch of items for the month are two more Anime Limited collector’s edition releases that were also pre-ordered during their 12 Days of Christmas 2021 sale.

The first one is Boogiepop Phantom, which is the series released back in 2000 by studio Madhouse. This is actually an anime original that I believe is a loose sequel to the Boogiepop & Others novel, so if you want to get into the series I would suggest checking out the second series Boogiepop & Others first. Either way I quite liked the Boogiepop & Others anime so I wanted to check out the first series for a while.

Next we have My-HiME, which aired in 2004 by studio Sunrise. The first time I actually heard of this series was one of Yuki Kajiura’s songs because at the time I was invested in her soundtrack for Madoka Magica so it’s nice to have this return to the UK on Blu-ray as it was out of print for a while.

Unboxing Links

You can view more photos & specs for the titles below:

What’s to Come for the Hauls

February 2022

There’s been some pushbacks and early arrivals so current the month of February has the following as of the time of this write-up:

  • Black Lagoon (UK CE Blu-ray)
  • Chainsaw Man Volume 4 (Manga)
  • Record of Lodoss War ~Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth~ (PlayStation 5)

March 2022

March is looking to be a pretty solid line-up assuming there’s no more delays that is. Here’s what’s currently scheduled to arrive as of the time of this write-up:

  • Attack on Titan: The Final Season Part 1 (UK LE Blu-ray & DVD)
  • Cardcaptor Sakura (UK CE Blu-ray)
  • Funky Forest & The Warped Forest (UK Blu-ray)
  • Isekai Quartet Season 2 (UK Blu-ray)
  • Josee, the Tiger & the Fish (UK CE Blu-ray)
  • Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle (UK Blu-ray)
  • Yona of the Dawn (UK LE Blu-ray)

Other Tidbits

Now back in the office as the work from home order has concluded, but I’m not too bothered by that. The role has been upgraded from a contract to full-time at least, but the goal is to gain enough commercial experience in the meantime.

Moving on to the discussion of hauls as I always do with each of these monthly round-ups, there’s been some progress at least.

Anime | Anime Limited

It wasn’t much of a surprise that the distributor would take a bit of a break for January in terms of new additions. We did get confirmation that In/Spectre is now scheduled for April and I have yet to pre-order it just yet (will likely sort that out before the week is over).

Besides that, there’s supposed to be an update on February’s 2022 early birds I believe in the coming days.

Anime | Discotek Media

It’s coming… eventually. I plan to do a big order for Discotek which would comprise of a dozen or so titles. It will depend on what’s going on for this month, but I would like to begin acquiring their titles sooner than later.

Anime | Funimation

So Funimation ended up revealing their second quarter of anime for the UK & Ireland already, which has some interesting additions. However, there’s a catch – the titles aren’t going to have slipcases now expect for specific releases, and Dr. STONE & Slime‘s limited editions aren’t coming to the UK, so I’ll have to import those two going forward.

Demon Slayer: Mugen Train is now scheduled which I’ll pickup to save costs, and WONDER EGG PRIORITY was brought over to the UK so that saves me a fair bit of cash. On a plus side, HINAMATSURI is coming and has a limited edition so that’s neat. For regular Blu-rays, the ones I’m interested in are Black Clover Season 4, Fruits Basket 1st Season, Fruits Basket 2nd Season, Kemono Jihen, and Knights of Sidonia: Love Woven in the Stars.

Light Novel & Manga

A quick status update on this part. Apparently ARIFURETA is going to conclude with Volume 13 so I should probably try and grab the remaining volumes sooner than later (I also heard the second season of the anime is only adapting Volumes 5-6 which is such a bizarre change of pace considering how the first season was treated).

In terms of new additions, we now have Burn the Witch, Chainsaw Man and Jujutsu Kaisen in the collection so I plan to get the volumes for those whenever possible. Other Shonen Jump titles I would like to acquire include JoJo Parts 3-5, My Hero Academia, and We Never Learn: BOKUBEN. Stock issues will be the big issue for the publisher but pricing shouldn’t too much of an issue.

That’s it for the month of January 2022. A pretty big start to the year, ironically like how January 2019 was, but hopefully February will be a big month to keep the trend going!

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