The Normanic Vault

Otaku Collection Haul for May 2023

Welcome to the Otaku Collection haul for the month of May 2023. This update features 8 anime releases, 4 manga volumes, 7 physical video games, and 4 live-action Asian Cinema releases.

This month’s haul takes a step back to allow room for future sales, but we do manage to receive some newly released anime sets and sort out another US & Japan import haul for Blu-rays & video games.

Goodbye, Don Glees! & Jujutsu Kaisen Season 1 Part 2

The first items of the month are two Anime Limited releases that arrived together! Starting off with Jujutsu Kaisen Season 1 Part 2 which also includes the AllTheAnime Shop Exclusive storage box that houses both parts. It’s a fun series and like the first part, the discs are using the Crunchyroll type font design which works. While we expect Crunchyroll to handle Season 2 onwards, what we got from Anime Limited was worth the money spent.

And the other new arrival was the 2022 film Goodbye, Don Glees!, from the director of the anime series that had four girls travelling south to meet penguins, which was very good. I missed out on the theatrical release due to work (and location) so here we are with a slightly more expensive collector’s film set because of the storyboard book and original soundtrack. This is also using the GKIDS master so it does feature English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles.

GrimGrimoire OnceMore & MONARK

Next I wanted to catch up on some of the NIS America releases available for the PlayStation 5 and so I ordered two games that arrived back to back. The first one that arrived is MONARK, a tactical RPG by developer Lancarse who previously worked on Lost Dimension back in the PS3/Vita era. What interested me in this game was the fact that a few Shin Megami Tensei developers were involved and the OVERLORD artist so-bin provided some illustrations too. I found a copy from Reef’s eBay store which went on offer at random for only £10.

The next day, GrimGrimoire OnceMore arrived. This is a remaster of the cult classic real-time strategy PlayStation 2 game developed by Vanillaware who worked on Dragon’s Crown and 13 Sentinels. This was one of the games I was originally going to download on PlayStation 3, as it was available as part of the Classics line-up which NIS America did support a lot, but given the developer’s other works and NIS America themselves both remastering their catalogue titles I figured this one would get the same treatment. Despite being released in early April, NIS America included it in their April Gold sale so I got it for around £30.

Travelling Man Manga Haul

For context I attempted to watch Guardians Volume 3 at the cinema on a bank holiday and that backfired due to heavy traffic so I missed the screening, so a few days later I had the day off work and decided to play it safe and head to town before the screening. I didn’t get much in the end and the Travelling Man store didn’t have enough of the variety that I was interested in, so I picked up Fist of the North Star Volume 4 and Monster Omnibus Volumes 8-9.

They did have volumes for other series that I pickup, but the next volume I needed weren’t there so I didn’t want to go into that direction, though Monster was an exception because the series is almost complete with only Volume 7 left to get because it’s currently out of stock in most places, so I got the later volumes while they were there.

The Street Fighter Trilogy

After successfully receiving a copy of The Executioner with the slipcase, I decided to finally look into Arrow Video’s new release of The Street Fighter Trilogy which I bought through retailer Rarewaves who had a decent price for the set.

This trilogy set covers three films in the franchise; The Street Fighter (激突! 殺人拳), Return of the Street Fighter (殺人拳2), and The Street Fighter’s Last Revenge (逆襲! 殺人拳). Much like many of Arrow’s releases, the first print edition includes a slipcase and booklet. It’s a nice package and it does feel weird to receive this despite not owning its spin-off title Sister Street Fighter which came out a few years ago, but either way at least I managed to get this recent release, before it started to go into its second print run.

Levius

Anime Limited continues the trend of surprise releases and one of those was their license for Levius. This is a Netflix exclusive anime series for streaming, and is also presented in CG by Polygon Pictures which will make or break it for many people. I personally enjoyed their works on Knights of Sidonia and Ajin so seeing them tackle a series like this is pretty cool. It’s also making me want to get the manga sooner than later since Viz put it out in one omnibus around the time the show started streaming. The collector’s set includes the show’s original soundtrack CDs as well as a booklet and poster, and the discs do include French & German subtitles.

Restaurant to Another World Season 2 & Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches

Next we have a Rightstuf order, which comes with just two items. Now the original plan was going to be a fairly large Funimation haul, but I’m going to save that until either the weekly special appears first or the incoming Summer sale, so what we have instead is a pre-order and a title that was on offer and in stock.

First up we have Restaurant to Another World Season 2, the restaurant isekai series which somehow managed to get a special package and it turned out pretty well with a nice textured box and a slot to house the first season release. There’s also an art style change between the two seasons but that’s fine as its still faithful to the source material. I’m surprised that I never watched both seasons of the series when they first aired, so at least I picked it up for Blu-ray.

And the other item is Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, which was re-released as part of the Essentials range from Funimation. This set had been out of stock every time the distributor’s titles were on sale so it was nice to finally see it appear so that I can get it before it would discontinue like other titles have. This is a series that I’ve known about for a while and I shrugged off the idea of owning it for a while, and it was because of the author’s other work A Couple of Cuckoos where I decided to look into picking up the series.

Yakuza Graveyard

Radiance Films started distributing films earlier in the year and since then they have been on a roll with their range of world cinema. Recently they just released their second Japanese title and that was Kinji Fukasaku’s 1976 film Yakuza Graveyard (やくざの墓場 くちなしの花). Now my copy’s Scanavo case feels slightly off, because bits of the artwork is damaged on the spine due to the positioning, but other than that it’s another great release from the distributor. I dig both the main artwork and the reversible but we’ll see how the later releases do on which is better for the shelf.

Monster Omnibus 7

Despite being out of stock in many retail places, I managed to find a copy of Monster Omnibus 7 from Blackwells, though the book is slightly damaged due to the retailer adding free tea samples in the packaging which clearly caused issues. This was the last volume that I needed to complete the series, which for context the first time I bought the first volume was back in May 2015, so it’s taken 8 years for me to finally get the series sorted. With Pluto also completed earlier on, the next one I want to look into finishing up is Master Keaton.

Attack on Titan: The Final Season Part 2

So despite the North American version has been available for a while, and at one point pretty cheap, I decided to stick with the UK variation for Attack on Titan: The Final Season Part 2 and its limited edition release. The annoying part about this release is that the UK branch overpriced the SRP for this set and it’s frustrating. At least Part 3 should be cheaper, but knowing them they’ll overprice that too. In fact you can tell with this release that there wasn’t much in terms of assets available so I am also curious to see how Part 3 is going to be designed, other than the obvious inclusion of the storage box to be consistent with the previous seasons.

Demon Slayer -Kimetsu No Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles

With the recent season currently airing in Japan, I decided to finally pick up Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba-: The Hinokami Chronicles for the PlayStation 5, thanks to Amazon offering the game for £19.99. SEGA published the game for the west on behalf of Aniplex, and it mainly covers the earlier arcs but does have additional DLC for the characters who appear later in the series. I can jump in now if I wanted to but I am going to wait due to other backlog going on.

Burning Paradise & GO

A last minute order as I didn’t pre-order this early like I had done with other titles from our Asian Cinema distributors. There were a number of delays from 88 Films so what was left for May were two releases, which I ordered through Terracotta.

From Eureka Entertainment we have Ringo Lam’s 1994 film Burning Paradise (火燒紅蓮寺) which is apparently uncut despite the animal scenes which had a bit of a debate earlier on. I bought Ringo Lam & Eureka’s earlier releases (Full Alert, Wild Search) to keep consistency with this release in terms of the first print offerings.

And from Third Window Films we have Isao Yukisada’s 2001 film GO, which is a notable one as it was Japan’s nomination for the 74th Academy Awards. It’s nice to see Third Window delve into more niche or overlooked Japanese films that aren’t completely focused on action or adaptations that we often see these days.

Looking for Magical Doremi

Next we have another Anime Limited release and one that surprises me given it’s a Toei Animation title. Looking for Magical Doremi is a film that celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Ojamajo Doremi franchise, but you don’t need to know about the main franchise before jumping in. Now I do want to point out that this release is a questionable one because not only was the disc authored by Com’on Screen who already have a poor reputation, but both the English dub and subtitles seem to be worked on by Front Row Filmed so the quality is not up to the standards that you would expect. Despite this, it’s nice to see this film have a release.

Princess Jellyfish

Next we have a surprise arrival, because as soon as they started pre-orders they already had stock which was mostly likely because of MCM Comic Con in London. Not long ago, Anime Limited had rescued Princess Jellyfish and its now back on home video, this time on Blu-ray though it does use the old 2012 Funimation disc (that said, they added the Crunchyroll logos instead which is weird).

This is a pretty cool pickup because this was one of the shows that I had wanted to own on Blu-ray back when I first started buying anime back in 2013. Around that time, the series was only available in Funimation’s limited edition packaging (with the rigid box and two slim Amaray cases) and eventually it was re-released as a DVD only S.A.V.E. title so it took many years later for the series to be available in HD on home video once again, but now for Region B territories.

Buyee/Mercari Japan Import Haul

Last but not least we have another Japanese import haul, as it’s been a year since I had last done one of these. If you’ve followed my hauls I’ve been using Buyee and Mercari for my imports and they have a good selection available for the video games. Here I wanted to continue progress on the import collection so I ordered two PlayStation 3 games and two PlayStation 4 games.

For PlayStation 3 we have Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting! (はじめの一歩 THE FIGHTING!) and Sakigake!! Otoko Juku: Nihonyo Korega Otoko Dearu (魁!! 男塾 ～日本よ、これが男である!～). Hajime no Ippo is a boxing game based on the popular anime & manga series, while Sakigake!! Otoko Juku is a fighting game based on a classic Weekly Shonen Jump manga. The main character you may recognise for his appearance in J-Stars Victory Vs. There are still many more imports left to get for this console but these two were higher up on my list to focus on the most.

And for PlayStation 4 we have Toaru Majutsu no Den’nō Senki (とある魔術の電脳戦機), also known as A Certain Magical Virtual-On, and Kyoei Toshi (巨影都市), also known as City Shrouded in Shadow. A Certain Magical Virtual-On is a collaboration between A Certain Magical Index and SEGA’s Virtual-On game, while City Shrouded in Shadow takes the Disaster Report formula (which is also from the same developers) and swaps natural disasters with Godzilla, Evangelion, Patlabor, Gamera & Ultraman. What’s interesting about these two is that they were originally supposed to have been included in last year’s haul but either Buyee missed out on the offering or the seller cancelled it for whatever reason.

Unboxing Links

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

In addition I have also posted some bonus unboxings for titles that I picked up in the past and had only managed to sort out throughout this month. You can view more photos & specs for the titles below:

What’s to Come for the Hauls

June 2023

June marks the half-way point of the year and that also means my 28th Birthday haul will also appear. I have not yet decided on the items but stay tuned on that. In addition we have some pre-orders incoming from various distributors.

Currently what should be released in this month are the following:

  • Final Fantasy XVI (PS5)
  • The Game Trilogy (LE Blu-ray)
  • The House of the Lost on the Cape (CE Blu-ray & DVD)
  • JUNK HEAD (CE Blu-ray)
  • The Lady Reporter (LE Blu-ray)
  • Pompo: The Cinephile (CE Blu-ray)
  • Revenge (LE Blu-ray)
  • Samurai Reincarnation (LE Blu-ray)

July 2023

We have some titles making their way into July.

Currently what should be released in this month are the following:

  • Bruce Lee at Golden Harvest (LE 4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray)
  • Golgo 13 (FP Blu-ray)
  • Katsuhito Ishii Collection (LE Blu-ray)
  • Magic Cop (LE Blu-ray)
  • Rich and Famous & Tragic Hero (FP Blu-ray)
  • Samurai Reincarnation (LE Blu-ray)

August 2023

In August we currently have one title, and that is Taxi Hunter from 88 Films.

Other Tidbits

I caught COVID for a second time, literally not long after recovering from my unusual cold from April. It wasn’t fun, as it stalled my progress on one of my games but I am pulling through. Work has a new update going forward so I will be able to leave 30 mins early which is great and there’s another mini salary rise which is also good, though the morale at work is still relatively low with one person leaving and another wanting to work from home completely due to some members in the office staring for the wrong reasons.

Anime

Anime Limited’s early bird line-up for May ended up being The House of the Lost on the Cape, JUNK HEAD and Princess Jellyfish which I pre-ordered all of them (and one arrived as shown earlier), and today they also added Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko so I have ordered that as well. Their next batch of early birds will be revealed the next day once this post goes up. They also held a panel at MCM London Comic Con where they also revealed Great Pretender, Gundam Build Fighters and Gundam Movie Trilogy in 4K Ultra HD as well as a theatrical release for Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time. They also have plans to bring One Piece Film: Red to 4K Ultra HD as well which is cool, given that Crunchyroll only planned a Blu-ray release.

Crunchyroll revealed their next limited edition plans with Ranking of Kings and The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2, while Re:ZERO Season 2 was planned but then they cancelled the release (seems to be messier than you would expect). There’s still a fair bit of titles to get that were only given standard releases like Black Summoner, A Couple of Cuckoos and Parallel World Pharmacy. Sentai have some more new releases here and there like Call of the Night and Vermeil in Gold, with some more re-releases like Gatchaman and Girls und Panzer TV & OVA collection in their latest batch.

Discotek will have more new updates over at Otakon which is still a while away, but we should be seeing some more surprise releases for August slate and onwards as most of the titles they announced have been released or scheduled at this point. What’s known and yet to be scheduled at the time of this post include the Fist of the North Star: The Legends of the True Savior sequels, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Reflection and Re: Cutie Honey.

Asian Cinema

88 Films revealed some more titles for their Summer slate, but also some pushbacks on a few of their Spring titles, with Magic Cop and Taxi Hunter moved to July and August respectively as well as Fight back to School, Twin Dragons and Untold Story also moved to July. That said, joining the 88 Asia collection are Hard Boiled 2: The Last Blood, The Long Arm of the Law Parts I & II, and The Postman Fights Back. Always good to see more and more releases make their way to Blu-ray in the UK especially if the previous release was either cut or only on VHS back in the day.

Eureka Entertainment has yet to reveal details on their last remaining known title they revealed months back (Jimmy Wang Yu’s Beach of the War Gods) but they did schedule Jeong Chang-Hwa’s The Skyhawk which also shares the same packaging design as a few other martial art films Eureka released in the past few years like Dreadnaught and One Armed Boxer.

Meanwhile Third Window Films has a few Japanese horror films on the way. We knew that they had some early Kiyoshi Kurosawa titles incoming but one of them was rated by the BBFC earlier in the year and that was The Guard from Underground. And then recently we got another BBFC rating, this time for Banmei Takahashi’s Door. I had never heard of this before but apparently Kurosawa directed the third film in the series so it’s possible the distributor may have picked up the trilogy altogether. Also somewhat known is Reiki Tsuno’s Mad Cats which was released in the past year.

And that’s a wrap for the Otaku Collection update for May 2023. It’s a smaller month due to a change of plans but June is expected to a fairly large one due to the arrival of pre-orders, the Birthday haul and maybe some sales so stay tuned for that.

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