Welcome to the Otaku Collection haul for the month of September 2022. This update features 16 anime releases, 6 manga volumes, 6 physical video games, and 3 live-action Asian cinema releases.
This month’s haul was affected by more delays on the newer releases, but we do have another Discotek batch plus some more video games and manga to keep the pace running!
Dragon Quest Heroes II & Fairy Tail
It’s been a couple of weeks since I last received anything (due to saving up funds to tackle the Discotek hauls), and we start off the month of September with two games from retailer Base. The first that arrived was Gust & Koei Tecmo’s Fairy Tail for the PS4. Decided to get it sooner than later as the publisher’s titles can go up in value.
The second game that arrived is Square Enix’s Dragon Quest Heroes II also for the PS4. The first game was one of the first PS4 titles I had played so it’s surprising that it has taken me this long to eventually acquire the sequel. Curious to see how this one plays.
Fire Punch & Goodnight Punpun Vols
Next, we have a manga haul that I was able to get fairly quickly. Starting off with two more volumes of Fire Punch which is not yet completed as there’s still two more left to go, but I am hoping to get the rest before Chainsaw Man airs to avoid the stock being eaten up by newcomers. Volume 7 wasn’t in print while Volume 8 was so if I time it right it should be among the first items for October’s haul.
Also arrived is the remainder of Goodnight Punpun with Omnibus 4, 5 & 6 and Volume 7 to wrap up the series. Pretty lucky to get this sorted as the series is known to go out of stock in numerous occasions.
Gundam Breaker 3: BREAK EDITION & One Piece: Burning Blood
We have another batch of video games arrive today, from two different sources. I’m combining them into one section as they are both pre-owned copies. From eBay we have Gundam Breaker 3 BREAK EDITION which seems to be out of stock and considering the DLC is on the disc itself, going pre-owned is a reasonable option. The seller was also nice.
Then from CeX we have One Piece: Burning Blood, a pretty old PS4 game as it came out in 2016. I don’t know if its officially out of print or not, but stock was hard to find or the prices were going up in value, so I had to rely on this retailer to secure a copy.
Discotek Media Haul #3
Another month has passed, and we now have another Discotek Media haul! This haul was £287 ($330) worth of stuff, with a big emphasis on classics and cult hits. Like before, the goal is to acquire as many Discotek releases as possible before they discontinue.
A common theme with the Discotek items this month has been titles produced by Ashi Productions as a number of sets from them have been discontinuing here and there.
All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku, from Yuzo Takada and Ashi Productions. The Discotek set covers both the TV series, OVAs & DASH!!, plus a UK dub for 3 OVA eps. Looked like a hidden gem and came from the 90s so I picked it up!
Blue Seed, also written by Yuzo Takada and co-produced by Ashi Pro & Production I.G in the 90s. The Discotek set does include the OVAs as well. I was going to acquire this sci-fi series in the previous batch but now it’s here!
Captain Harlock: Arcadia of My Youth, the classic 1982 Toei film. Admittedly I’ve not watched the original series, but I did watch the Harlock: Space Pirate film many years ago and always wanted to revisit the franchise since.
Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight!, studio Ufotable’s cult classic 2007 series. While many people prefer Ufotable’s recent stuff (Demon Slayer, Tales of, Fate) I always found their older catalog interesting, so it was really cool that Discotek licensed this slice-of-life series.
Machine Robo: Revenge of Cronos, 1986 mecha series from Ashi Productions. I heard this was a fun series and worth owning so I picked it up, especially since Discotek is releasing Battle Hackers in the future. This release also includes the OVAs.
Ninja Senshi Tobikage (Ninja Robots), 1985 studio Pierrot series known for its infamous English dub. The dub alone was the reason why I was interested in owning the series, heck it took Discotek about 18+ months to search for all of the dub stuff so that’s an achievement alone.
Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer, the second film in the series and directed by Mamoru Oshii back in 1984. Pretty excited to own a film from this franchise and nice to finally check this one out.
Urusei Yatsura: Only You, the first film in the series and also directed by Mamoru Oshii in 1983. Yep, I also grabbed this one as well, so I now own the first two films so far. Will be picking up the rest.
And there we have it. 8 Discotek titles join the collection, and eventually a few more appear from different orders later in this post! That said there are still 150+ more to get but I have to start somewhere.
The Police Story Trilogy (4K Ultra HD)
Another Jackie Chan release and this time we go back to Eureka Entertainment because it’s The Police Story Trilogy in 4K Ultra HD! This includes Police Story (警察故事), Police Story 2 (警察故事續集), and Police Story 3: Supercop (警察故事3超級警察). While I already own the first two films, I missed out on the first print limited edition box set and this 4K release also includes the third film which makes its UK 4K debut. The 4K limited edition release was selling fast so I decided to pre-order directly from Eureka’s store.
51 Worldwide Games & The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero
Next, we have more Nintendo Switch games for the collection. It’s been a while but with these two they made sense for different reasons. 51 Worldwide Games, also known as Clubhouse Games, was pretty cheap and comes with a bunch of mini games which will be handy for my trip to Center Parcs this November.
Then we have the odd choice here with The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero. The reason this is an odd one because when it comes to multi-platform options I always go for the PlayStation version as it’s my preferred console for Japanese games and such. However, this is the rare occasion where the Nintendo Switch (& PC) are the better versions for various reasons.
Falcom brought the game from PSP to Vita to the PS4 which wasn’t well received compared to the Vita counterpart, and because of how old it was and Falcom being Falcom, NIS America’s only addition to that version was the translation. As there was no Nintendo Switch version in Japan, NISA brought in Durante (who helped bring the franchise onto PC with strong reception) to sort it out which ended up being better on the graphics and other tidbits. Sure, I lose out on trophies, but it would feel like FOMO if I went for the inferior release, so here we are with the Switch version. The game arrived early from Base, and I do have Trails from Azure pre-ordered as well from the same retailer. The PEGI rating is 18+ because the Crossbell games have gambling elements.
Memories
Back in April I made my first Discotek Media haul which included Katsuhiro Otomo’s Memories which I really enjoyed (mainly the Magnetic Rose segment of the anthology) but the English dub was very good overall.
Eventually Anime Limited announced they managed to rescue the UK & Ireland rights and released it on Blu-ray with a collector’s edition. Since I liked the film as a whole, I double-dipped so we got the usual Discotek disc in AL packaging treatment. If you do happen to miss out on the collector’s set, the booklet is basically the same as the booklet extras included on the disc itself.
NG (& VS) Knight Lamune & 40
Because the stock was taking too long, I decided to make use of Amazon UK’s Global shipping service (US stock that can be ordered from the UK store). Took a week to ship out and was more than what UP1 offered, but it was the only option to get NG Knight Lamune & 40 currently.
This, alongside the second collection VS Knight Lamune & 40 Fire (which also includes NG DX & EX OVAs as well as VS Fresh OVAs) arrived and there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that I have managed to get my hands on both of these shows, which were produced by Ashi Productions and will likely discontinue from Discotek Media’s catalogue in the coming months.
The bad news is that Amazon handled the packaging pretty badly (they got the box shape right, but there was little to no protection inside) so NG unfortunately was damaged through the slipcover onto the Amaray artwork itself. Amazon support also rejected any form of refund (heck even a partial refund would do) and only suggested return & re-order which meant having to pay even more for the same copy due to the exchange rate. Fuck them. The disc itself is fine though.
Black Clover Season 2 & My Hero Academia Season 4
So Crunchyroll started running some promotional sales across a couple UK retailers like MVM’s Anime-on-Line, Zavvi and HMV. Amazon then came along to price-match a bunch of these titles. The ones that had my interest were Black Clover Season 2 and My Hero Academia Season 4 as their prices were around the same range that MVM would have done if they held a 20% off sale across all items.
On the Run & Shaolin Mantis
For a while I had pre-ordered On the Run (亡命鴛鴦) through Amazon UK alongside a couple other upcoming releases, but I decided to move my order to Terracotta because I found them to be better on keeping packages safe during transit. But in order to get free shipping I bundled Shaolin Mantis (螳螂) with the order. This is one of the Shaw Brothers films that 88 Films released in recent months.
Now this does mean that all items won’t ship out until all are in stock at their warehouse which was fine by me as I was in no rush.
How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom Part 1
Alongside Combatants I also pre-ordered How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom from UP1 a while back, and then the exchange rate started to get pretty bad. Fortunately, the cost for the set stayed roughly the same as when I first ordered it so that’s nice, but Part 2 is up in the air between the UK & US versions for cost reasons.
Space Warrior Baldios & Baldios the Movie
The final items of the month were bundled with the Realist Hero order from UP1. On the day that I received the Discotek haul I was notified that UP1 were going to get the stock for the recently out of print releases of both Goshogun and Baldios, and while Rightstuf had the stock cost was a massive issue. Unfortunately UP1 took too long and failed to get their hands on the Goshogun sets, but they were able to get both Space Warrior Baldios and Space Warrior Baldios the Movie.
To provide context, back in August Discotek Media had to discontinue Dancouga, Goshogun, Goshogun: The Time Etranger, Space Warrior Baldios and Space Warrior Baldios the Movie which all sold out in a matter of hours. I couldn’t afford it at the time, so I had to pass on them and became a form of FOMO as a result. This was another chance but again there were tough decisions to make, but it was nice to be able to get my hands on Baldios even if it meant that I had to miss out on Goshogun.
Bonus: The Matrix Trilogy & Resurrections
Also arrived we have The Matrix Trilogy and The Matrix Resurrections on 4K Ultra HD. I own the trilogy on DVD in that special box set which is nice, but it needed a visual upgrade, so I skipped the BD format and went straight to 4K. I also didn’t get the chance to watch the new film at the cinema, which I knew is divisive, but I don’t really care as I wanted to judge it myself. I found it to be pretty decent, and I understand why it put people off from watching it and I didn’t mind what it was trying to do.
Unboxing Links
You can view more photos & specs for the titles below:
- How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom Part 1 (LE Blu-ray & DVD)
- Memories (CE Blu-ray)
What’s to Come for the Hauls
October 2022
So a lot of items ended up being delayed, therefore October is looking pretty stacked.
Anime Limited currently have Future Boy Conan Part 2, The Irresponsile Captain Tylor, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, The Relative Worlds and Violet Evergarden the Movie all scheduled to dispatch. We also have Discotek Media pre-orders of The Princess and the Pilot, and To Be Hero & To Be Heroine incoming.
Also planned to arrive in October is Dragons Forever (4K Ultra HD), Nobuhiko Obayashi 80’s Kadokawa Years, and Righting Wrongs, which I need to move the order over to Terracotta like what I did with On the Run.
For non pre-order items incoming, we have Goshogun and Goshogun: The Time Etranger in a pretty 3D chess style move, and Cinematic Vengeance from director Joseph Kuo thanks to Eureka’s recent sale.
November 2022
In November we have a few more pre-orders with The Dungeon of Black Company from Crunchyroll’s US branch, followed by Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Host Club Season 1, Love Me, Love Me Not, and Summer Ghost from Anime Limited.
2023
An early mention, but I have also pre-ordered The Quintessential Quintuplets Manga Box Set 2, but unfortunately it had been moved from its September release window into January 2023.
Other Tidbits
Anime
Anime Limited’s early birds I expect will continue to provide more Blu-rays into October, especially as The Irresponsible Captain Tylor OVA Series was hinted at to be available for pre-order sooner than later. Saying that, the distributor has suffered a number of delays caused by printing issues so I would not be surprised if they reduce the early birds to ensure the stock is closer to completion to avoid more delays.
Crunchyroll meanwhile are actually planning to release Mushoku Tensei Part 1 this December which is a surprise, and they have Banished from the Hero’s Party also planned in the US for December. Now despite my original stance on the handling of the UK LE versions, I will be going for the UK versions for Horimiya, Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 2 because of the exchange rate getting ridiculous and the handling of Combatants was better than expected. Mushoku Tensei is up in the air due to the BBFC potentially intervening so I will decide closer to release on what to do.
Progress on Discotek Media has been going pretty well but there’s still the uncertainty of which release will discontinue next. Since my previous blog post write-up, the next ones to have been discontinued were Fair, Then Partly Piggy (a children’s film) and Psycho Armor Govarian (another classic super robot series from Knack Productions but created by Go Nagai). Also listed as discontinued on their official website is Yowamushi Pedal the Movie, which is an odd one but I’m not rushing just yet until I see their December slate as I wonder if the film will be re-released as a Blu-ray only set like Kaiba was earlier in the year.
It doesn’t help that the currency exchange rate is getting worse in the UK which is just frustrating.
Manga / Light Novel
Been a while since I have talked about this section. Goodnight Punpun is now completed, and Fire Punch I am hoping will be wrapped up soon. I will probably shift back to Seven Seas as there’s still a number of newer volumes to acquire and while I am at it, I should continue getting the rest of Blue Giant. I also recently realised that Monster Girl Doctor is almost wrapping up and since ARIFURETA will be as well I should probably grab more of the light novel volumes for those titles whenever possible.
After watching the latest season of OVERLORD, I am definitely interested in getting more of the recent volumes for the series, but it seems it’s also been hit by stock issues.
Asian Cinema
Arrow finally revealed they have acquired the UK rights to the classic J-Horror film Ju-on with a six-film box set, and best of all Ju-on: The Grudge is presented in 4K Ultra HD. This is very exciting, and I hope to pre-order it as soon as possible, especially since it’s coming this December.
88 Films also have Ebola Syndrome, Gorgeous, The Iceman Cometh, and a re-release of Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin with a better authored disc coming this fourth quarter. I plan to get all four as per usual.
Eureka Entertainment have scheduled Yes Madam which features Michelle Yeoh which is great to see her works return in HD, and there’s more coming next year. Sammo Hung’s The Dead and the Deadly was also scheduled for later this year but I’m in no rush.
Third Window Films recently announced Adrift in Tokyo, another one of their previously released DVD titles, will be getting the Blu-ray treatment which is neat. They still have yet to release Suicide Club but it’s understandable why that’s not yet been scheduled.
That’s it for the month of September 2022. Expect another big month of Blu-rays for the month of October!
The Normanic Vault 
Leave a comment