Welcome to the Otaku Collection haul for the month of May 2022. This update features 5 anime releases, 23 manga volumes & 1 box set, 9 physical video games & 1 accessory, and 4 live-action Asian cinema releases.
This month’s haul brings back Eureka’s Master of Cinema series, Kodansha Comics and VIZ SIGNATURE brand with more titles joining the collection, as well as another batch of Japanese import games for both PlayStation 3 & 4.
Everybody’s Golf 6 & Samurai Warriors 3 Z
With the PlayStation Plus service revamped in May for Southeast Asia and the rest in June, there’s been a bit of a resurgence of interest for PlayStation 3 physical games so I decided to do another look on any titles I wanted to own. Most of the games that I wanted are actually Japanese imports, and I found two already in the UK and for decent price-points. I did try to get more from Japan but I was unable to due to Solaris Japan not allowing international shipping at this current time.
That said, the eBay order was a good way to grab a few of these games. The first is Everybody’s Golf 6 (みんなのGOLF 6) which is actually my third copy of the game, because I own both the digital and physical versions of the Vita game. The PlayStation 3 release actually came after and has some extra content not included in the original, however only Japan and Asia received a physical release.
Next we have Samurai Warriors 3 Z (戦国無双3 Z) which is technically another way of saying it’s the Xtreme Legends version of the game. The game was released in the west on Nintendo Wii but the updated versions (Z and Empires) on PlayStation were Japan and Asia only. I went for Z as I felt the language barrier would probably cause issues if I went for Empires.
Having both of these games does mean I now own a total of 125 physical games for the PlayStation 3 which is neat, and there’s about 10 or so more imports left to go.
Super Neptunia RPG
So for some reason Super Neptunia RPG is either out of stock or just not in print anymore compared to the other games in the franchise (on current platforms at least). I figured I should get the game sooner than later while the pre-owned prices are decent, so I picked it up via CeX.
Also for those curious, this game is not developed in Japan but rather Artisan Studios, aka the folks who recently made Astria Ascending, though Idea Factory did assist them. I have heard this game is actually pretty good so I decided to look into it after all of these years.
Gleipnir
With HMV discounting a couple of anime earlier in May, though its not exactly the best deals, they did at least discount Gleipnir for £15 which Amazon eventually price-matched. I did enjoy Gleipnir and was happy that the SRP wasn’t ridiculous like the other new anime releases are for Funimation UK.
TERRA FORMARS Vol. 3-6
Back in 2014 I remember buying the first two volumes for TERRA FORMARS which I really enjoyed, but manga collecting after that was a mess on the UK front, so I didn’t manage to get any at decent prices. This month’s haul I had finally revisited the series by ordering Volumes 3, 4, 5 & 6 which got split across different shipping times.
Volumes 4 & 6 came first, followed by 5 then 3. Now Volume 3 is a second print version which has the newer VIZ SIG and Viz logos, but this is a good indication to show that the series did well enough to get a new print run. The series in general is also on hiatus so I want to try and catch up as soon as I can, especially considering these volumes were released years ago.
Black Clover Vol. 4-7
We have another batch of volumes for another manga that I bought volumes for a few years ago (January 2019 to be exact). That’s right I bought more volumes of Black Clover with Volumes 4, 5, 6 & 7.
Because Travelling Man barely had volumes for the series, I decided to get them online while they were in stock. Volume 4 took a while to go back to regular pricing which is why I waited until now to get them. The series is pretty long with about 30+ volumes already but I reckon I can catch up thanks to the smaller price point that Viz’s Shonen Jump range has (£7.99 SRP) compared to other titles like Seven Seas (£11.99 SRP). The series is also entering its final arc so now was a good time to catch up.
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories
There was an offer on eBay where if you bought an item above £10 you can get 1000 points on your Nectar account, so I used that opportunity to grab Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories for the PlayStation 4.
From the developers of Kyoei Toshi and R-Type Final 2, this one has a notable development history as it was originally planned for the PlayStation 3 but had to be postponed due to the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. Eventually the game came back for PlayStation 4 with some pretty poor performance issues like 15-30fps, but if you play the game on PlayStation 5 it will run at a solid 60fps so that’s handy.
Eureka Masters of Cinema Haul
Eureka Entertainment every now and then would often promote their ‘low stock’ warnings on social media and used the online retailer Deff as a reference on where to find a copy of those items. I had a look and I noticed they had the out of print first print edition release for Johnnie To’s Throw Down (柔道龙虎榜) so I took a gamble and picked it up alongside two other first print editions (that are still in print currently) Fruit Chan’s Made in Hong Kong (香港製造) and Johnnie To’s PTU.
The package arrived and was not only in pretty good condition on the bubble wraps, they were indeed accurate on the listings as they were the first print editions. All three are also part of the Masters of Cinema series line. Now I wanted to get these to have consistency with another upcoming Johnnie To release Running Out of Time, and I felt it made sense to either get them now or just wait many months for a non-slipcase version, and I felt I should go for the former.
Mini Nintendo Switch Haul
As it’s been a couple months since I last acquired any Nintendo Switch stuff so I decided to order another batch. It was a pretty pricey order but it does get one of the accessory items out of the way!
First we have New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe, which is a remaster of the Wii U game and has that same gameplay style as New Super Mario Bros on DS and the classic games. As I loved the DS game I am looking forward to checking this one out.
Next we have Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, which is another Wii U remaster but also includes a new mini campaign called Bowser’s Fury. I am curious about this game as it’s basically 3D Mario in a NSMB style campaign.
And the accessory that basically made the order was a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, because I wanted to own a proper controller for the console and a lot of people enjoyed using the Pro controller so I figured I’ll follow suit.
Full Dive: This Ultimate Next-Gen Full Dive RPG Is Even Shittier than Real Life!
With the Funimation branding ending soon in favour of Crunchyroll, one of the last limited editions under its name is Full Dive: This Ultimate Next-Gen Full Dive RPG Is Even Shittier than Real Life! and it’s an anime that has an acquired taste. It’s a nice limited edition set and has an amusing disc menu music.
What surprises me is that this series is not coming to the UK which is baffling considering these sorts of shows are the ones that tend to get some attention from the UK branch, but I suppose the transition period from Funimation UK to Crunchyroll UK probably forced their hand and skipped some titles along the way.
Blackwells Manga Haul
Keeping the trend going with VIZ SIGNATURE, I placed a bunch of manga volumes through Blackwells and they ended up shipping all of them together which was unexpected!
First up, we have a brand new Viz Media release with Haro Aso’s Alice in Borderland Omnibus 1 which compiles Volumes 1-2. I really loved the Japanese live-action series (which has a second season coming this December) so when Viz announced they were going to be releasing the manga I pre-ordered it (not immediately but recently at least). There’s going to be at least 9 omnibus books so that’s neat.
Next we have the series that Tatsuki Fujimoto wrote before he made Chainsaw Man with Fire Punch Volumes 1-2. This series is actually quite hard to find due to stock issues, so I got lucky finding these two volumes on Blackwells. There’s 8 volumes in this series and each of them are in and out of stock.
And last but not least I decided to revisit another manga series that I bought a volume of from back in 2013-14 with Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto Volumes 2-4. Now get this, despite the spine having the older style, the volumes were reprinted back in August 2021! That is just random.
Travelling Man Manga Haul
I visited York once again, mainly to watch Everything Everywhere All at Once at the City Screen Picturehouse cinema, but I did go to Travelling Man for their Viz Media manga volumes. This time we have 9 larger-sized volumes for £86 because some of these have higher SRPs but more volume content. That said, all were part of the 3 for 2 deal.
Starting this batch we have Riku Sanjo’s Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai Volume 1, the Shonen Jump original series based on Square Enix’s Dragon Quest franchise that ran back in 1989 until 1996. Viz Media will be releasing the series based on the 2020 Japanese re-release so it will compile all 37 volumes into 25 omnibus type books (basically like JoJo so it’s 1.5-ish content).
Next we have Tetsuo Hara’s Fist of the North Star Volume 2, the 1983-88 classic series that Viz is releasing based on the 2013 Japanese re-release I believe so it will compile 37 volumes into 18 omnibus type books (also like JoJo).
It took a while but Hirohiko Araki’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders Volumes 1, 2 & 3 have finally been picked up. Another classic Shonen Jump series from 1989-1992. The English re-release (as Viz did release the individual volumes a decade ago) is based on the 2014 JoJonium Japanese release so it’ll compile 16 volumes into 10 omnibus type books.
Then we go back to more older manga volumes that I bought from years ago now finally being continued! First we have Naoki Urasawa’s Monster Omnibus 2 & 3, which compiles the individual Volumes 3-6. I first bought Volume 1 back in May 2015 so it has been a long time since, but now I’m trying to get this series completed!
And last but not least is Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto Volumes 5 & 6 which is pretty good timing if you just saw my last haul post. There’s now two volumes left to collect before it’s completed so I’m happy about that. Much like Volumes 2-4, these two were also reprinted in August 2021 so they have kept the old logos than use the new ones.
Overall a good haul! I did have to get less because there wasn’t much to choose from in terms of the volumes available and the prices for these books are higher than a regular £7.99 Shonen Jump title. While it’s always great to get more new series, it’s just as important to wrap up the ones you own already and especially now we’re in the current climate where volumes can go out of print at any point or go out of stock for a long time due to increased demand on physical manga (which is ironic considering digital is more preferred nowadays).
Half a Loaf of Kung Fu
88 Films just recently released their latest Jackie Chan release and it’s Chen Chi-hwa’s 1978 film Half a Loaf of Kung Fu (一招半式闖江湖). The set keeps consistency with the other titles in the 88 Asia collection and I think 88 pretty much has covered almost all of the films that feature the actor at this point, since the rest would be hit by licensing issues or other distributors have them already (like Eureka with Police Story Trilogy).
Buyee/Mercari Japan Import Haul
With the situation in Ukraine affecting international shipping, I was unable to use Solaris Japan for any Japanese imports. And because the value of the Yen was very good, I wanted to import some games from Japan, therefore I decided to revisit Buyee which I had last used back in September 2019.
Originally was going to be a 5 game haul, ended up only including 3 due to Buyee taking too long to get one of the games while the other was cancelled by the convenience of the seller. The games that I did manage to get were Crows: Burning Edge (クローズ BURNING EDGE), MELTY BLOOD: TYPE LUMINA (メルティブラッド：タイプルミナ), and Wing of Darkness (有翼のフロイライン).
There were payment issues with this, in a sense that they went to the wrong card but I also discovered you can’t buy the items in Yen which is just baffling. That said, I was able to merge the items together into one shipment and it arrived pretty fast through FedEx. Heck as of the time of this write-up, no customs notice either which is a surprise considering how much it was.
The big item I wanted out of this haul was MELTY BLOOD because for some reason the game has been hard to find, and whenever it’s available it’s priced well above SRP which is ridiculous. On the plus side, both MELTY BLOOD and Wing of Darkness have English support which is nice.
Killing Bites
Next is another anime from MVM’s Deal of the Week offering with Killing Bites on Blu-ray. This series is like watching a retro anime from the 90s to early 00s and I do think it’s a solid enough title to watch. It’s a surprise the manga still hasn’t been picked up yet, since the anime probably won’t get any more content. I watched the series on Amazon Prime when it was simulcasting.
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 1 Part 1
In a surprisingly rare move, Jujutsu Kaisen Part 1 was released in the UK before North America had a chance. Anime Limited handled the discs and packaging, so what we have is a pretty solid offering from the distributor as per usual.
VDMS, who have worked with Anime Limited on a few other releases like Cardcaptor Sakura and InuYasha, authored the discs which also use the same subtitles and font layout as the Crunchyroll streams. Considering Viz’s authored discs are dreadful these days the UK would have made their own regardless of the outcome.
The Quintessential Quintuplets Part 1 Manga Box Set
It took a couple of months to finally try to order one, but thanks to Blackwells I was able to get my hands on The Quintessential Quintuplets Part 1 Manga Box Set, which covers Volumes 1-7 of the series.
Part of the reason why this has taken so long is because the box set was barely made available in any of the UK retailers compared to the Viz Media sets. Amazon alone was only stocking what was available via AmazonGlobal shipping and I didn’t want to order through there due to potential shipping damage. Blackwells did such a great job with the packaging and the set has barely any damage whatsoever which is nuts.
The box set also includes two double-sided posters, focusing on four of the five sisters; Miku and Nino on one poster, and Ichika and Itsuki on the other. No Yotsuba but she could appear in Part 2’s box set.
HINAMATSURI
The final physical item of the month is a slightly old anime series that Funimation put out a couple of years ago, which finally made its way into the UK. I really enjoyed HINAMATSURI and to see that the UK branch provided a limited edition makes it worth the wait. This is also one of the last limited edition releases under Funimation’s branding, as going forward everything will be under Crunchyroll.
Bonus: More PlayStation 1 Classics on PSN
Last but not least is a digital haul. As mentioned, Sony have started their new PlayStation Plus service in Southeast Asia and they had a pretty decent selection of classic PlayStation games. Sony also confirmed that if a PS1 or PSP you bought previously on PS3 or Vita is included in the service, you are eligible to download the PS4/PS5 versions for free. In other words, this made the future of my original PlayStation purchases on PS3 worthwhile.
The catch here, is that not every game may carry over and there have been reports that select PS1 games on the service were actually using the PAL 50Hz versions rather than the NTSC 60Hz versions which is made even more baffling when some of these games don’t even have multiple languages. While I grab my games via the Japanese & North American stores, I will be holding my judgment on this until those stores have the new service.
In the meantime, I decided to revisit the PlayStation 3 store and spend $50 (£39 from a Play-Asia sale) to acquire 9 more classic PlayStation games. Those games are as follows:
- Alundra
- Bloody Roar
- Disney Pixar’s Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue
- Disney Pixar’s Toy Story Racer
- Jumping Flash! 2
- Tekken 2
- Tomba! 2
- Wild Arms
- Wild Arms 2
Each game costs about $5.99 to download, and so far Toy Story 2 and Wild Arms are available to purchase on PlayStation 4 & 5 when the service launches in the west, so I will be able to redownload those when that happens. Tekken 2 is also on the new service but it seems Bandai Namco is keeping them PlayStation Plus exclusive so I wanted to have a copy in case the game is short-lived.
And to recap, I buy my classic games from the North American store because they are using the NTSC versions. The UK store uses PAL and thanks to last year’s store closure attempt, a number of games did get delisted as well, so if you’re after Alundra, Arc the Lad, Klonoa, Tekken or Tomba for instance you’ll need to get them from the North American store.
Unboxing Links
You can view more photos & specs for the titles below:
- Full Dive: This Ultimate Next-Gen Full Dive RPG Is Even Shittier than Real Life! (LE Blu-ray & DVD)
- HINAMATSURI (LE Blu-ray)
- Jujutsu Kaisen Season 1 Part 1 (CE Blu-ray)
What’s to Come for the Hauls
June 2022
June is my Birthday month! So expect another batch of items to appear from that.
There’s also been some release date adjustments on the anime front. Future Boy Conan Part 1 got pushed back to the end of June from its original May date, while Cardcaptor Sakura is now set for July. That said, BELLE, In/Spectre Season 1 and Lupin the Third Part V are all still listed for June’s release window.
On the Asian Cinema front we have another 88 Films release planned with The Killer Meteors, and I plan to get the deluxe edition release for The Seventh Curse as well. The Eureka Martial Arts release of The Shaolin Plot is also set to be released in June.
July 2022
For July we have delays and pre-orders.
As mentioned, Cardcaptor Sakura is now due for this month which joins Emma: A Victorian Romance Season 1, Future Boy Conan Part 2, and HELLO WORLD as well as the North American releases of The Quintessential Quintuplets Season 2 and Violence Jack.
Also planned are the Asian Cinema Blu-ray releases of Running Out of Time 1 & 2 and the Tiger Cage Trilogy, the former from Eureka’s Masters of Cinema range and the latter from 88 Films’ deluxe edition line-up.
August & September 2022
Also pre-ordered but due later this Summer are more 88 Films releases with the 4K Ultra HD deluxe edition of Dragons Forever, and the Blu-ray deluxe editions for both On the Run and Righting Wrongs. Eureka are also releasing 4K Ultra HD limited edition for Police Story Trilogy which I also plan to pre-order.
Other Tidbits
Starting from April’s payday (which appears in May onwards), my pay is now getting taxed as we’re now in the new tax year. This will mean I’ll receive less money going forward but so far I have managed to cope with this change. As long as I don’t spend too much on bigger items, it shouldn’t cause an issue with the hauls.
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 Limited
So just as I write this up, the distributor revealed more Blu-ray early birds, and they are pretty interesting. Since I have the first season ordered, the second season for Emma: A Victorian Romance is incoming as well as other titles that Nozomi/Rightstuf have released like El-Hazard: The Alternative World and The Irresponsible Captain Tylor. Violet Evergarden the Movie in 4K Ultra HD is also coming soon.
More Gundam has been hinted once again, but it’s been suggested that the Bandai Namco & Sunrise merger in Japan being one of the factors on the slow progress in recent months. Either way, I aim to get all of the Blu-ray early birds planned for June so far.
Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll has been quite slow on their distribution front, but they are still going to be providing limited edition releases. I’ve not yet decided on whether to go UK or US for some of the titles, as it still seems they’re slacking on the Amaray artwork part of the LE sets in the UK. I do still plan to get Combatants Will Be Dispatched! and Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town in their limited edition sets, and they’re still a few months away so there’s still time to choose.
I do plan to explore more of the US release front over time as not many of them will be released in the UK.
Discotek Media
I managed to get some Discotek titles a few months back and I do still plan to do the same in the coming months. There was a hold-up on the idea due to the sudden drop in value for the British pound, but it seems to have slowly recovered a bit in recent weeks. I plan to get more pre-orders made, especially with some titles now entering the limited run treatment, like Aho-Girl and Holmes of Kyoto. I may also get Heart and Yummie as it looks like a nice little series to watch.
Sentai
Sentai is back in the discussion because they finally revealed their limited edition releases for DanMachi III and Rent-A-Girlfriend. They’re not cheap, but the former is definitely planned to be ordered as I have the US releases for the other seasons in the franchise. Rent-A-Girlfriend I’m still debating on mainly because it’s a Crunchyroll license, which could be brought over to the UK by Anime Limited. I’ll have to wait and see if that does happen to save some funds.
Games
In the video game side of things, Sony’s new PlayStation Plus service will be out in the rest of the regions pretty soon, and that does mean new ways to play classic PlayStation games. However, Sony has been using PAL versions for select games so I’m still hoping NTSC versions will be used on other regions.
For the physical releases, the PlayStation 5 is still slowly growing but I am hoping to get a good amount of games in the coming months. Examples like Klonoa: Phantom Reverie and Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. More PlayStation 4 games will be picked up, with the plan to get a majority of the ones in my wishlist sorted by the end of the year.
Switch games will be here and there, but I do want to keep that collection growing throughout the year. Heck I still don’t own The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or Super Mario Odyssey.
Asian Cinema
88 Films and Eureka Entertainment have a whole bunch of titles from Hong Kong arriving throughout this Summer, to early Autumn. One of the few that I don’t yet have on order is the Police Story Trilogy in 4K Ultra HD, which I plan to get the limited edition as I am a big fan of the first two films.
Third Window Films collection is going well, though I haven’t picked up or ordered any of their recent releases since March. I do want to get Zokki and Summertime Machine Blues as well as a number of their older releases. Currently there’s no out of print stock updates since the Kitano films, which is good so there’s still time to get these older releases.
Manga & Novels
I’ve been focusing a lot on Viz Media throughout the month of May, which for good reason as I’ve been vastly ignoring the SIGNATURE label for years. Now not only have I made some progress with Monster, Pluto and TERRA FORMARS, but we also have Alice in Borderland and Fire Punch joining the mix, with plans to get Golden Kamuy as well along the way.
Kodansha Comics is also another distributor I plan to explore more, with Grand Blue Dreaming and I’m Standing on a Million Lives planned as I enjoyed both of those anime adaptations for different reasons. I also plan to get Rent-A-Girlfriend but I’m waiting for the box sets to be available for order first.
Seven Seas titles will continue as per usual, and the light novels will be revisited if stock are available for specific titles. Meanwhile I am pretty much caught up with the Dark Horse omnibus releases for GANTZ with only a book or two left.
That’s it for the month of May 2022. Another great month of titles acquired, both the imports and manga front. Hopefully June continues the trend of good pickups.
The Normanic Vault 
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