Welcome to the Otaku Collection haul for the month of November 2022. This update features 15 anime releases, 1 book, 9 manga volumes, 2 physical video games, and 4 video game accessories.
This month’s haul offers a massive Discotek Media haul from Rightstuf, more Anime Limited releases and a couple of video game accessories while at the same time having to deal with more delays due to strikes or production issues.
The Dungeon of Black Company & The Relative Worlds
Starting off this month’s haul is the arrival of The Dungeon of Black Company limited edition Blu-ray & DVD from Crunchyroll. This shipped out in late October for early owners, but my package was delayed by another week, but that was fine by me as United Publications handles the packaging well. This is another anime that got the LE treatment from Crunchyroll which is no surprise considering it’s by Kadokawa and is also an isekai. Now I did enjoy the anime and I also own the manga volumes for the series, but I have yet to read them. There is a UK version that will be out by the time I post this collection update, but I wanted to own it sooner as I had the opportunity.
But alongside that was another new release, this time it’s The Relative Worlds collector’s edition Blu-ray & DVD from Anime Limited. Like HELLO WORLD, this is another subtitled only film getting a UK release before the US does, but this set is also Region A/1 compatible so the US anime fans can enjoy the film too. Now it is quite infamous within the community but being pretty bad and I’m baffled Anime Limited was charging more for its early bird than the other titles despite having the same SRP, so I went with United Publications instead.
God of War Ragnarok
Here we have a surprise pickup because I hadn’t thought about getting this game this soon. What happened was that before I went on a small break from work (as I had to use up my holiday slots), I decided to request a pay rise because I’ve worked with this company for over a year now. Long story short, not only did I receive that pay rise which will begin early next year, but I also received a bonus. The bonus was pretty large, and I placed half into my savings, while the other half was for more items to the collection.
And because of that, I went ahead and pre-ordered God of War Ragnarok for the PlayStation 5. I last played the previous instalment back in 2018 and coincidently that was exactly 4 years ago which back then was in my first job, now I’m here with my second job that is much better. Anywho, I got so invested in this game that I not only managed to finish the game before going on my weeklong holiday break to Center Parcs, but I also received the game’s Platinum trophy just in time after 45 hours playtime. I had a great time playing this game and I’m actually considering revisiting the previous game to give it the proper replay treatment as I felt my previous playthrough was hindered by my ridiculous work and sleep schedule.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild & Switch Accessories
As mentioned, I had a weeklong holiday trip that I wanted to prep for. Normally I would bring a Nintendo DS or a PlayStation Vita, but this time I decided to bring with me the Nintendo Switch for a change, but I needed a few things to prepare. I placed an order on Amazon and it ended up being split into two arrivals. The first arrival was The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is a launch title for the device and one that many love though when I was on holiday, I ended up playing Super Mario 64 from the 3D All-Stars collections instead.
I also acquired an SD Card to go into the device as I never really thought about it when I acquired the Switch earlier in the year. This one is 128GB as I mainly go for physical copies, and the OLED model has some more internal storage space which helps.
The rest of the Nintendo Switch bundle eventually arrived not long after. Those items were an Orzy Carrying Case, and an Ivoler Screen Protector. The carrying case works well, and the protector took about two attempts to get it right. Not much to say here other than I have the items ready for my holiday trip.
Travelling Man Manga Haul
After visiting the HMV store, I went to Travelling Man for another batch of manga volumes. To recap, the store holds a 3 for 2 offer on Viz Media books and that includes their Shonen Jump range. Admittedly they didn’t have much available in terms of what I want but I decided to go for two series due to the stock available.
The first is The Promised Neverland Volumes 5, 6, 7 & 8, which is one that I started buying volumes for back in early 2019 but never really bothered much apart from one volume earlier in the year. Since they had stock for the next few volumes I went for them.
Next, we have a new addition to the manga collection with One Punch Man Volumes 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6. Now this is an interesting one because as you can probably tell, I don’t own or had bought the first volume. This is because the series often goes out of stock due to popularity and that generally includes the first volumes. I figured if I acquire the later volumes I don’t have to worry about those ones once I get the first volume because I can make progress rather than wait again.
Bitmap Books’ I’m Too Young to Die
Bitmap Books recently released their latest book covering a piece of video game history, and this time focusing on first-person shooters from 1992 up until 2002 (the reason for this range is because they can cover 2003+ as separate books over time).
I’m Too Young to Die is a reference to one of the difficulty modes in the classic DOOM franchise and this book also features various games including id Software’s Quake, 3D Realms’ Duke Nuken 3D, iconic film franchises that had games like Alien and James Bond, Bungie’s Halo & Marathon, and more. It’s really good and it’s laid out in a different format to the other books because it looked better for the photos they have. You can order one over at Bitmap Books.
WD_BLACK SN850X M.2. 1TB SSD Drive
Next, we have a Black Friday item from Amazon. This is the WD_BLACK SN850X M.2 SSD 1TB drive for the PlayStation 5. I wanted more storage space, and I figured now was time so that I can get more backlog downloaded/installed.
Won’t lie, the PS5 faceplates are a lot more tedious than the video tutorials will make you think. The trick that I found with putting the plate back on was looking at the top corner where you can see the two circles (and where they’re supposed to be slotted). Once I noticed that, putting more pressure into slotting it back in (even if it looks like you’re going to break it) was the way to re-attach it.
Violet Evergarden the Movie
After returning from my holiday trip, Violet Evergarden the Movie arrived in the mail. This is another collector’s edition release from Anime Limited, but this time it’s a 4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray combo pack which also features Dolby Atmos & Vision support. Now this film was supposed to have been released as early as late August but for some reason it got pushed back by months beyond the distributor’s control. Not yet seen the film but it’s a pretty nice deluxe package despite the lack of on-disc bonus features.
Discotek Media Rightstuf Sale Haul
The monthly Discotek Media haul continues with our fifth major batch of titles!
So, the original plan was to focus on a small batch which I’ve ordered through United Publications (and was delayed into December’s haul for various factors), but then Rightstuf held a Discotek themed weekly sale about a week before their Black Friday & Holiday offers. The Discotek titles do make an appearance during the end of year sales but only as part of their ‘one day only’ offers which isn’t worth it because of the high shipping costs required, so this offering is pretty common for them.
Now I reviewed their selection and concluded that it was worth placing a big order from them because the total cost ended up being cheaper than United Publications. I suppose the cost being this way is likely due to the exchange rate slowly improving and UP1 updated their prices based on the rates from Sept/Oct time. The cost of the haul was pretty high (no real surprise there) at about $377.80 (£320, which by the way at today’s rate it would be £313), but that’s still about £30-40 cheaper than UP1 when I did the math.
While the United Publications Discotek package got delayed due to the postal strikes (it would have arrived at the same time as the FedEx order if that hadn’t happened and it didn’t help that UP1 took a week longer than usual to get it shipped out), the Rightstuf package came first.
This haul features 11 Discotek Blu-rays and is focused on two factors – a few readily available anime that are video game adaptations from the 90s, and the rest are older releases that needed to be picked up (with most of them being released over 5 years ago, which I consider to be in the amber zone of stock status i.e. they could go out of print between now and the next few months).
We’re going to start off with Babel II, 1992 OVA series from J.C. Staff and director Yoshihisa Matsumoto. Character designs actually reminded me of Saint Seiya and it turns out some of the members for this OVA series had also worked on a number of Saint Seiya projects. This was given a Blu-ray release in 2018 and apparently the licensor is Enoki Films who have had a few titles discontinue from Discotek Media in recent months, so I decided to pick this one up. Oddly enough I was originally going to order this with the UP1 batch, but I changed my mind at the last second.
Next, we have Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan, a 2005-07 OVA series from Hal Film Maker and director Tsutomu Mizushima. This collection includes both OVA seasons on the same set and is also a license rescue from Discotek in 2020 since Media Blasters originally had the series. I’ve been wanting to check out this randomly violent series for a while and I felt the BBFC may not get the context right, so I decided to go for the US release.
Another series that was also rescued by Discotek and given the Blu-ray upgrade later in 2018 was Tenjho Tenge, a 2004 series from Madhouse and director Toshifumi Kawase. I own the manga for this series (which I have yet to properly read) but wanted to own the anime as well. MVM in the UK did release the series but only on PAL DVD when they were sub-licensing titles from Geneon Entertainment.
Darkstalkers OVA Collection, also known as Night Warriors: Darkstalkers’ Revenge, is the newest Discotek release in this batch, having been released earlier this year. It’s a 1997 OVA series from Madhouse and director Masashi Ikeda and is a pretty niche fighting franchise from Capcom. Discotek gave this an upscale which is apparently done pretty well from the video masters they had, and there’s tons of bonus features included on the disc which is neat.
Next, we have two Blu-ray sets from one fighting franchise by SNK. The first is Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture, a 1994 film from Studio Comet and director Masami Ōbari. This was released after the two OVAs in Japan but got the Blu-ray treatment fairly early on by Discotek (2017 it came out!). I also acquired Fatal Fury: The OVA Collection, which includes 1992’s Fatal Fury: Legend of the Hungry Wolf by Hiroshi Fukutomi, and 1993’s Fatal Fury 2: The New Battle by Kazuhiro Furuhashi, both were also animated by Studio Comet and NAS. These OVAs were released on DVD years ago, but Discotek did a brand-new scan from the original negatives and offered a 1080p remaster of these two specials last year.
To wrap up the video game batch we have the iconic Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, a 1994 anime film by Group TAC and director Gisaburō Sugii. Based on Capcom’s Street Fighter II game, the film is considered by many to be the best video game anime adaptation to date. This Discotek release is one of their oldest Blu-rays released that’s still readily available, having been around since 2016. While KAZE UK released the film first on Blu-ray, the Discotek release is considered the definitive package because we have multiple versions of the film (UK English dub, US English dub, a PG-13 rated dub, English with the original score, Japanese audio and also subtitles with English and Japanese names).
Then we venture into a very niche series with Haruka Nogizaka’s Secret and its second season Haruka Nogizaka’s Secret: Purezza, a 2008 & 2009 series from Diomedéa (Studio Barcelona) and director Munenori Nawa. I’ve spotted this series on Crunchyroll before Discotek eventually picked it up, and considering it’s been available on Blu-ray since 2018 I wanted to check it out sooner than later. Picked up both seasons because I don’t want to risk losing out on missing half the series.
Last but not least we have another niche series with Sister Princess and its second season Sister Princess: RePure, a 2001 & 2022 series from Zexcs. Kiyotaka Ohata & Ikuji Inada directed the first season while Tsubame Shimodaya directed the second. Older anime + harem + Discotek = yes in my books. This one I could have sworn was on Crunchyroll before Discotek picked it up but either way early 2000s anime on Blu-ray is neat. Much like Haruka Nogizaka, I wanted to own both sets before it eventually goes out of print. There is an English dub for the first season because ADV released it back in the day.
Future Boy Conan (4K Ultra HD) Part 2
Now there were other packages that were supposed to have arrived much sooner, but while I was on holiday it didn’t occur to me that there were going to be Royal Mail postal strikes on multiple days throughout the past week and a half, so that meant multiple delays to the packages.
Therefore Future Boy Conan Part 2, which finally arrived the Monday before the month was over and would have technically arrived on the day that I came back from holiday so it’s unfortunate timing, will be the final item for this month’s haul. This series was split into two parts because Anime Limited released it on 4K Ultra HD since the restoration was done digitally in 4K, which made it possible.
Bonus: 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Haul
A bonus add-on to the monthly collection haul. Over the years I watch a fair number of films at the cinema and most of them will be Hollywood type or arthouse films. Before I went on a holiday break earlier in the month, I decided to order a few more films for the 4K collection from Amazon. I picked up JOKER from director Todd Philips and The Northman from director Robert Eggers. The former I watched at the cinema a few years back while the latter I had not seen before, and I was a pretty big fan of his previous work The Lighthouse so I’m looking forward to checking this out.
A few days later when I took a trip to York for the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever film (and I always go to town first to save on fuel costs), I decided to take a look at the 4K Ultra HD offers from retailer HMV, which at the time were doing 2 for £24. I spent a while thinking about what to get but I decided to go for AD ASTRA from director James Gray, Doctor Sleep from director Mike Flanagan, Don’t Look Now from director Nicolas Roeg, and Le Mans ’66 (Ford v Ferrari) from director James Mangold. I have seen all except for Don’t Look Now and I do plan to get a lot of older films especially from Arrow, Studio Canal and other distributors as long as the 4K remaster is worth the price.
Unboxing Links
You can view more photos & specs for the titles below:
- The Dungeon of Black Company (LE Blu-ray & DVD)
- Future Boy Conan Part 2 (CE 4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray)
- The Relative Worlds (CE Blu-ray & DVD)
- Violet Evergarden the Movie (CE 4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray)
What’s to Come for the Hauls
December 2022
So we have even more delays leading to the end of the year, and I would not be surprised if they get pushed back in 2023, especially when you now have the Christmas rush.
Currently what should be released in this month are the following:
- Battle Royale (4K Ultra HD)
- Discotek Media Haul from United Publications:
- Black Jack the Movie (Blu-ray)
- Fist of the North Star (Blu-ray)
- Genocyber (Blu-ray)
- Miss Machiko (Blu-ray)
- Dragons Forever (4K Ultra HD)
- Ebola Syndrome (Blu-ray)
- The Irresponsible Captain Tylor OVA Collection (Blu-ray)
- Ju-on: The Grudge Collection (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray)
- Legend of Mana (PlayStation 4)
- Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club (Blu-ray)
- Love Me, Love Me Not (Blu-ray)
- Machine Robo: Battle Hackers (Blu-ray)
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny (Blu-ray)
- Relayer (PlayStation 5)
- Summer Ghost (Blu-ray)
That is on top of what could appear from Anime Limited and Rightstuf’s Christmas sales as well as the annual Christmas Day haul.
2023
January to March is still tentative in terms of expected arrivals but so far we have Discotek’s The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar on Blu-ray, NIS America’s The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Azure on Nintendo Switch, and Kodansha Comics’ The Quintessential Quintuplets Box Set 2 covering manga volumes 8-14.
Other Tidbits
The end of the year is close, and December is expected to be a pretty huge haul. I also got confirmation of a pay rise in 2023 so that’s handy.
There’s not much to say in terms of other discussions at this point, but I’ll probably update this post in the coming days when I have time.
That wraps up the November 2022 haul. A solid number of titles but it’s a shame that a fair amount got delayed again.
The Normanic Vault 
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