Otaku Collection Haul for September 2023

Welcome to the Otaku Collection haul for the month of September 2023. This update features 3 anime releases, 10 manga volumes, 15 physical video games, and 6 live-action Asian Cinema releases.

For this month’s batch we continue the Limited Run Games pickups and also catch up on more Viz Media manga and a few big Asian box sets.

Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko & Junk Head

Starting off the month we have two more Anime Limited collector’s edition Blu-ray releases, both of which were supposed to have been released throughout the summer but delays in production had pushed it back. One of them is Ayumu Watanabe & Studio 4°C’s Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko. The two worked together on Children of the Sea which I really enjoyed so I am curious to see how this one fares as it’s more family focused and lighthearted compared to the fantasy and darker tone of the previous one.

Also arrived is Junk Head, a stop-motion anime film by Takahide Hori. This is a film that he’s spent seven years working on even as early as 2013 with his short film that this is based on. The Blu-ray by Anime Limited also features a 1 hour making of featurette and the booklet has an article written by Jonathan Clements.

Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition & Mushihimesama

And here we have something completely different, well depending on how you see it. Last month I started to buy a few games from Limited Run Games through VideoGamesPlus because it was a second chance to get a lot of the games that were either something that I was interested in or would be one that I would like to own one day. Since then I have gone a bit overboard with roughly over a dozen Limited Run Games either arrived, purchased or shipped out already.

The first to arrive in this month’s haul is Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition, a 1997 point and click adventure game that originated on PC by Westwood Studios and was remastered by Nightdive Studios for Nintendo Switch as well as other platforms. Due to the title being retro and worked on by Nightdive (known for their efforts on remastering DOOM 64, Quake, Turok and developed the well-received System Shock remake), I decided this would be a great suit for this platform. Now the game does have some issues in its remaster but from what I have read the original code was lost but the original style is available as an option.

This game did appear in the August batch on Video Games Plus but I didn’t decide on looking into this game until the past two weeks, and the game had sold out fairly early on which is fair play. I was rather fortunate to find a copy on eBay which was expensive but nowhere near as bad as Turok and other LRG titles.

The second to arrive is Mushihimesama, a 2004 shoot ’em up game by Cave which has since been brought over to the Nintendo Switch by Live Wire (who also released DoDonPachi Resurrection and Espgaluda II). Back in August when I made my first few Limited Run Games orders from Video Games Plus, this one was once available but then sold out by the time I started sorting out these hauls (and then re-appeared on VGP’s September batch).

So I had to order the game from Rarewaves as they were the only ones who had copies available that wasn’t super expensive. Granted I should have waited for VGP but this is just unpredictable at the end of the day. Rarewaves dispatched the item but there was no tracking and from the looks of it, it took about 3 weeks to finally arrive and was delivered by Whistl and Royal Mail last Friday. At least it was a legit copy and sealed.

Enter the Dragon 50th Anniversary Edition

When Arrow Video announced their Bruce Lee at Golden Harvest box set, it had almost everything you had wanted. The problem was that they weren’t allowed to include a 4K version for Enter the Dragon because Warner Bros wanted to release it themselves, which they eventually did a month later with the 50th Anniversary Edition.

They released a few editions, with the standard being released first and the collector’s another month later. When I started looking into this, the regular collector’s edition had sold out but I was able to place an order for the HMV Cine Edition variation with the difference being the steelbook artwork. This is a pretty nice release and comes with both the theatrical and special edition cuts on the 4K Ultra HD disc which is neat.

Castlevania & Contra Anniversary Editions

Continuing the Limited Run Games haul, we finally have the second VideoGamesPlus order from August making its appearance (which was held up due to stock issues) and that’s Castlevania Anniversary Collection and Contra Anniversary Collection from Konami for the Nintendo Switch. Both games feature English & Japanese versions of those retro titles and it’s a large collection consisting of NES/Famicom, SNES/Super Famicom, Game Boy, Mega Drive and more. The big omissions for the Castlevania package is Symphony of the Night and Rondo of Blood as those two were released in their own double-pack before this one.

The Castlevania Anniversary Collection includes:

• Castlevania / Akumajō Dracula (NES / Famicom, 1987 / 1993)
• Castlevania II Simon’s Quest (NES, 1988)
• Castlevania III Dracula’s Curse / Akumajō Densetsu (NES / Famicom, 1990 / 1989)
• Super Castlevania IV / Akumajō Dracula (SNES / Super Famicom, 1991)
• Castlevania The Adventure / Dracula Densetsu (Game Boy, 1989)
• Castlevania II Belmont’s Revenge / Dracula Densetsu II (Game Boy, 1991)
• Castlevania Bloodlines / Vampire Killer (Mega Drive, 1994)
• Kid Dracula / Akumajō Special: Boku Dracula-kun (Famicom, 1990)

The Contra Anniversary Collection includes:

• Contra (Arcade, 1987)
• Super Contra / Super Contra: Alien no Gyakushu (Arcade, 1988)
• Contra (NES / Famicom, 1988)
• Super C / Super Contra (NES / Famicom, 1990)
• Contra III: The Alien Wars / Contra Spirits (SNES / Super Famicom, 1992)
• Super Probotector: Alien Rebels (SNES Europe, 1992)
• Operation C / Contra (Game Boy, 1991)
• Contra: Hard Corps / Contra: The Hard Corps (Genesis / Mega Drive, 1994)
• Probotector (Mega Drive Europe, 1994)

Travelling Man Manga Haul

I took some time off work and took a trip to town, with one of the stores that I visited being Travelling Man which I hadn’t checked out since July, and bought some more manga books. Got more volumes for Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead Volumes 3, 4 & 5 which has an anime airing right now, though there are production issues.

But I also picked up JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable Volumes 1, 2 & 3 to keep that franchise going. I had been putting off buying more JoJo primarily down to space on the shelf as these are hardcover but I want to get the franchise up-to-date if I can.

Burnout Paradise, Ghostwire: Tokyo & Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2

And then to wrap up the trip I went to GAME and found three more to join the collection from their 3 for 2 pre-owned deal. I have a small list of PlayStation 4 games left to pick up and one of those is Burnout Paradise Remastered, because I wanted to give this game a second chance given that I didn’t play much of it on Xbox 360.

For the PlayStation 5 collection, I bought Tango Gameworks’ Ghostwire: Tokyo and I miraculously found a copy of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 which is rather uncommon in Europe compared to the PS4 version and North American ones.

Execution in Autumn

Eureka Entertainment in the past few weeks recently revealed another batch of films that have had limited edition offerings would be going out of print (and replaced by standard editions). One of those was Lee Hsing’s 1972 film Execution in Autumn (秋決) which is also from Taiwan. The film’s been out for a year now and it’s only until recently that I started to look into it as it’s one of the very few I didn’t pickup last year. As the film is part of the Masters of Cinema range only the slipcase is limited.

Collection of Mana

Collection of Mana for some reason had been going up in value and availability is low for its European release, so I decided to pick up a cheaper copy via eBay which is the North American release. The bad news is that despite being new and sealed, the case is a bit bent so I want to amend this so that it doesn’t further damage the artwork by ordering some replacement cases (which I’ve also ordered some for PS3 & PS4).

For those wondering it’s a compilation of Action RPG games from the early parts of the Mana franchise and not remakes/ports of other versions. The collection includes Final Fantasy Adventure (also known as Adventure of Mana), Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana, the latter of which wasn’t released in the west prior to this point so the Switch is the first English debut for the original game.

DOOM, Quake & Shadow Man Remastered

At the start of the month, VideoGamesPlus revealed another batch of Limited Run Games now in stock which included more stock for titles like Mushihimesama, and also newer additions. I once again missed out on The House in Fata Morgana because of timing but it is what it is. That said I did place an order for three more games across two packages. Both pretty much shipped out and arrived at the same time.

The first package focused on id Software games that we all know about. Starting with DOOM: The Classic Collection, which is a collection of classic games from the franchise that were released decades ago. It’s an interesting collection as it comes with the original DOOM, DOOM II: Hell on Earth, and also DOOM 3: BFG Edition.

Now I own the former two multiple times at this point across Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. The difference is that each platform had different versions of the port, and it’s the modern ones that are on PS4 and Switch that are considered the best for consumers who aren’t on PC (that is unless you patch it of course). Limited Run Games did release the game with the Bethesda account requirement but only replacement copies that were very limited have this sorted.

The second item with the first package is Quake. Now I do own this one digitally on PlayStation 5 but I did want to own a physical copy. After some thinking I decided the Nintendo Switch version would be more suited to own physically because its a retro title and was remastered by Nightdive Studios so it’s optimised well for the device. I have played a bit and it does run really well portably.

In the second package is another game that was remastered by Nightdive Studios and that’s Shadow Man Remastered, a 1999 action adventure game developed by Acclai Studio Teesside. I remember first hearing about this game via a Caddicarus review of the PlayStation version but it was the other versions that had a better following and reception. It’s cool to see this game receive a modern remaster and like the other ones Nightdive have worked on, this one is also optimised well thanks to the custom settings you can set up to give it a solid experience. Despite the physical media treatment, each of them do have updates.

Black Clover Manga Volumes

An Amazon discount code had been going around in the past day and I decided to use that opportunity to order Black Clover Volumes 11, 12, 13 & 14. I hadn’t been picking up any more from this series in town because they were missing one of the volumes so this was a good opportunity make more progress. These are the Italian prints like many others are in my Shonen Jump shelf.

One Piece: Odyssey

So in case you haven’t noticed my posts on Discord, BSky or Twitter, I have been re-reading One Piece from the very beginning because I wanted to start fresh before reading the Box Set 4 volumes and you can also thank the live-action series for convincing me to read them. I managed to re-read the first 60 volumes which covers up to the end of the first half of the storyline (just before New World) but it’s been a very enjoyable read throughout.

The point is that I do have a good amount of One Piece games in the backlog but earlier in the year they released One Piece: Odyssey for PlayStation 5, which was included in The Game Collection’s £10 bonus reward points deal so I decided to get that now. The plan is to get to Volume 90 before playing most of the PS4/PS5 One Piece games as they cover up to that point (except for Pirate Warriors 4 which has half of Wano’s arc so that’ll be on-hold).

Ringu

This was a last minute (literally a “oh I forgot about this”) pickup, but it’s a good one as we now have Hideo Nakata’s 1998 film Ring (リング) on 4K Ultra HD from Arrow Video. Surprisingly it’s a regular slipcase and not rigid but I’m fine with that. The release is 4K UHD only but that’s okay as I own the box set on Blu-ray. There are two versions of this release by Arrow, with the other using the original theatrical artwork as its front cover but I wasn’t a big fan of it so I opted for the main one which they did use for their limited edition collection box set and standard Blu-ray of the main film.

The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails

Considering the many games released by Falcom that NIS America have licensed have had limited stock every single time, I decided to pre-order The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails through The Game Collection, which was priced reasonably well for a new release, especially for the Nintendo Switch.

Now this is available on PlayStation 4 and doesn’t have the issues which Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure have had, I decided Nintendo Switch was a better suit for this type of game, especially considering it is a remaster of the Japan-only PSP game. This is also a spin-off of The Legend of Heroes franchise, but the main difference here is that instead of a turn-based system like the mainline games, we have action real-time combat like Falcom’s Ys. Deluxe Edition includes a booklet and digital soundtrack copy.

DOOM 64 & PowerSlave Exhumed (Stackry Haul #2)

Back in August I placed my first order through the US forwarding service Stackry for some Blu-ray available on Sentai’s store. This time we have two packages ordered through eBay’s US sellers. To explain the context of this haul, we need to go back to the start of the month where VideoGamesPlus revealed their next batch of Limited Run Games titles.

Because of the new stock it must have caused a resurgence of demand which resulted in more games selling out than usual, and as such some games went in and out of stock. One of the games I wanted to bundle with Shadow Man had sold out, and I panicked because I had wanted to hold out until payday and these are not reprints but rather any remaining stock left around – the worst part about this whole ordeal was they did get more in and I made an error by not being patient enough to at least wait a few more hours before jumping the gun.

Now I was at least smart enough to choose Stackry for its destination rather than international shipping which eased the blow. That said, to remedy the situation I also used this opportunity to try out Stackry’s consolidation and after some debating I decided to go for another eBay order located in the US for another Limited Run Games title but was not included in VideoGamesPlus’ batch of restocks, plus the price was rather decent.

The Haul:

Before going over the Stackry journey I wanted to summarise these two games. The one that I panic bought was PowerSlave Exhumed, a 1996 first-person shooter with a metroidvania style gameplay developed by Lobotomy Software and was released on SEGA Saturn as well as PlayStation and PC, but each version had a lot of differences plus the European release was renamed to avoid conflict with Iron Maiden’s album. The remaster was done once again by Nightdive Studios and what they did was take the best parts of each version and merged them all together into one unique release. It also runs well on Switch.

The other game that was sold out and not part of the Video Games Plus batch was DOOM 64, a 1997 first-person shooter developed by Midway Studios and was originally exclusive to the Nintendo 64 until a few years ago where they remastered it to modern platforms thanks to Nightdive Studios (you’ve noticed a trend here). I have finished this game on PlayStation 4 and it’s probably my favourite classic DOOM experience as it has the weapon selection of the later games but takes out some of the annoying enemies that I disliked which were introduced in those sequels. The lighting can be a pain but the atmosphere was great.

Ordering from eBay:

As mentioned before, I had ordered both of these games through eBay who were US sellers. Now international shipping was an option but Stackry was much cheaper and better for the protection of the games. Adding the address and shipping cost wasn’t an issue and the seller shipped it out without issue. Both games arrived at Stackry using USPS which from my perspective seems to be the US equivalent of Royal Mail at this point in terms of usage for postal work.

Stackry’s service:

The Stackry journey was very much similar to the first phase back in August (see this post for context) but the main difference here is that this is just two expensive Switch games that were paired together into a single order. Shipping was $19.99 followed by $4 for consolidation and $5 for bubble wrap and fragile stickers (basically packaging protection). When you consolidate orders together you do have the option to keep the invoices if needed but its default unticked so those will be removed if there was any.

Journey & Arrival:

• 2nd Sept: Placed an order on eBay for PowerSlave, shipped a few hours later
• 5th Sept: Placed an order on eBay for DOOM 64
• 6th Sept: Second order dispatched from eBay
• 7th Sept: Stackry received the first eBay package, provided photos of its arrival and weight details.
• 9th Sept: Second eBay package arrives at Stackry but this makes it clear that they’re not active during the weekends and the package will sit here until the staff review it on Monday.
• 11th Sept: Stackry officially confirms arrival of the second eBay package, provided photos of its arrival and weight details.
• 12th Sept: I request consolidation ($4) on both of these packages as well as extra packaging protection ($5).
• 13th Sept: Stackry confirms completion of consolidation. I also filled in the VAT form and requested it to be shipped out using Global Mail Direct (DHL) for $19.99. Total cost was $28.99.
• 14th Sept: Stackry order shipped
• 16th Sept: Packaged finished processing in the US to go to the UK.
• 19th Sept: Package arrives in the UK and clears customs.
• 20th Sept: Evri now receives the package.
• 21st Sept: Package is delivered.

Conclusion/Overall Thoughts:

Again, my overall thoughts are pretty much similar to the first one. The package arrived safely via Evri, there’s tracking to see how it’s doing (which was DHL then Evri like before for Global Mail) and the bubble wrap work was very good. They chose the right box considering the original two packages for both games could have easily been damaged – that said, similar to Collection of Mana, my PowerSlave copy had the same problem with the slightly bent case affecting the artwork but I was fortunate to have a spare case to fix that. Good timing on that.

So yeah, stay tuned for Stackry Phase 3+ for the October haul which focuses on multiple Rightstuf orders.

The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2

Another Crunchyroll release, and this time it’s from the UK branch, yes shocker but if I see something that is actually done properly then I will put my support on it. What we have here is The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2, the limited edition release by Crunchyroll UK.

This release is a perfect example of how to actually manage its UK version. Not only was the price done correctly and way cheaper than the US release which was $94.98 SRP, they didn’t fuck around with the artwork and packaging that they have done with previous variations of their limited editions, like cheapening out on the artwork for a rehash of the spine’s cover etc. The spine is pretty much consistent with Season 1.

Hard Boiled II: The Last Blood & Twin Dragons

Next we have our latest 88 Films haul which was held back due to waiting on both items to be available together. Here we have Wong Jing’s Hard Boiled II: The Last Blood (驚天十二小時) and Ringo Lam & Tsui Hark’s Twin Dragons (雙龍會) featuring Jackie Chan, with the latter presented in a deluxe collector’s edition box set.

The Long Arm of the Law was originally going to be included in this haul but unfortunately it had been pushed back.

Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman

I noticed on the Blu-ray forum there had been some more discounts at the usual prices for a few of Criterion’s big boxsets and for Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman I had noticed something unusual, a retailer offering the price for far lower than Amazon’s discount. Now this price isn’t as low as what others have gotten through the first batch super discount of 2018 or via the Zoom store, but given the circumstances of various Criterion titles going out of stock/print I decided now was a good time more than never.

And it was genuine! This is a 25 film box set across 9 Blu-ray discs collecting various films directed by Kenji Misumi, Kazuo Mori, Tokuzo Tanaka, Kimiyoshi Yasuda, Kazuo Ikehiro, Akira Inoue, Satsuo Yamamoto, Kihachi Okamoto, and Shintaro Katsu. The box set is presented similarly to the Shawscope box sets which use a digibook to house the discs.

Both the digibook and book are hardcover and honestly for the price this is a pretty nice offering. The artwork is really nice and while the main box spine doesn’t have the title on it, the digibook side does. It’s also smaller than I had estimated.

Bonus: 4K Ultra HD Films

A bonus addition to this haul is a visit to HMV during my town trip in York. We have two newer releases with Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse for 4K Ultra HD. I don’t normally buy at full price but these two in particular are a special exception to the rule. I’ve watched the latter and very much enjoyed it, while the former I missed out on but heard very good things about it.

Bonus: Replacement Cases

I mentioned it before but it was finally time that I received some replacement cases for my PS3, PS4 & Switch games. This is mainly due to some damage on the cases or the sticker residue was too much over the years. PS4 had more issues than the rest but at least Collection of Mana and PowerSlave Exhumed on Switch are both now sorted with a better case.

Unboxing Links

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

• Enter the Dragon (HMV Cine 4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray)
• Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko (CE Blu-ray)
• Junk Head (CE Blu-ray)
• The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2 (LE Blu-ray & DVD)

What’s to Come for the Hauls

October 2023

This October is going to be one massive haul because of the recent unfortunate news that Rightstuf will be closing down and be mitigated into Crunchyroll’s store, because the former was bought last year. There are concerns about accessibility and packaging protections as well as the unknown status for live-action titles like Discotek’s new labels at this point but we won’t know until 10th October.

Before that happens I have a few orders planned with the assistance of the Stackry service to balance out the funds via consolidation. Sentai won’t be part of this (outside of one pre-order) as their own store will be the new alternative on their titles at this point, so this is mainly geared towards the other distributors. Currently I have two orders placed (with more planned) with an additional two that were sorted prior to the news but are also expected to be part of the October haul.

Rightstuf Final Hauls line-up:

• Battery the Animation (Blu-ray)
• The Duke of Death and His Maid Season 1 (Blu-ray)
• The Eminence in Shadow Season 1 (Blu-ray)
• The Genius Prince’s Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt (Blu-ray)
• Getter Robo Armageddon (Blu-ray)
• The Great Passage (Blu-ray)
• The Heike Story (Blu-ray)
• Hells (Blu-ray)
• Hi-sCool! Seha Girls (Blu-ray & DVD)
• Isuca (Blu-ray)
• Kimagure Orange Road Collection 2 (Blu-ray)
• Lupin the Third: The Columbus Files (Blu-ray)
• Lupin the Third: The Elusiveness of the Fog (Blu-ray)
• Lupin the Third: Missed By a Dollar (Blu-ray)
• Lupin the Third: The Pursuit of Harimao’s Treasure (Blu-ray)
• Lupin the Third: The Secret of Twilight Gemini (Blu-ray)
• Lupin the Third: Tokyo Crisis (Blu-ray)
• Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles (Blu-ray)
• Ms. Vampire Who Lives in My Neighborhood (Blu-ray)
• OVERLORD IV (LE Blu-ray & DVD)
• Planet With (Blu-ray)
• Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Season 2 (LE Blu-ray)
• Skeleton Knight in Another World (Blu-ray)
• Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san (Blu-ray)
• Tekkaman Blade II (Blu-ray)
• Trapped in a Dating Sim The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs Season 1 (Blu-ray)
• True Tears (Blu-ray)
• Yowamushi Pedal: New Generation (Blu-ray)

Also arriving in October:

• Beach of the War Gods (Blu-ray)
• Black Clover Season 3 (Blu-ray)
• Black Clover Season 4 (Blu-ray)
• Burn the Witch (CE Blu-ray)
• Evangelion: 3.0+1.11 Thrice Upon a Time (DE 4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray)
• From Beijing With Love (Blu-ray)
• Visible Secret (Blu-ray)

November 2023

A few anime had to be pushed back into November, but more Asian films have joined the list.

• Ascendance of a Bookworm Seasons 1 & 2 (CE Blu-ray)
• DOOR & DOOR 2 (Blu-ray)
• The Guard from Underground (Blu-ray)
• Gundam Build Fighters Part 1 (CE Blu-ray)
• Heroes & Villains: Three Films Starring Jet Li (Blu-ray)
• Mobile Fighter G Gundam Part 1 (CE Blu-ray)
• Royal Tramp Collection (Blu-ray)
• Typhoon Club (Blu-ray)

Other Tidbits

So an update to the situation with my laptop that I had mentioned in the previous haul. After some thorough testing and updates, the battery has randomly decided to recover so it could have been software causing it to bug out for a while. Either way, it’s fine for now but I’ll keep an eye on it in case it happens again. At least I have a backup drive now for the files I have on my laptops.

Meanwhile in terms of work I have been rather busy which is unfortunate because it has gotten in the way of my personal time. The 25 hours of overtime will be paid, which will support the Rightstuf hauls, and I don’t exactly hate the work involved but I do wish there was enough time to get it done without having to resort to overtime. October will unfortunately be a similar case but it should improve in the latter half of the month.

Also, in terms of the blog news, we are now approaching the time of year where the days are getting shorter in terms of lighting so if you have been following my blog you will notice unboxing posts have been saved for the weekend and that will soon commence from October. Now some days may be shown off in the middle of the week because I had time off, but do expect most of the new items to be revealed during the weekends. The Otaku collection monthly updates will continue to be posted at the start of each month.

Anime

As mentioned earlier, the big topic that has been going around is the future of importing anime from the US because of Rightstuf closing down and mitigating into Crunchyroll’s store. This is concerning because the quality of the packaging won’t be the same and in their FAQs they mentioned international shipping won’t apply to home video releases. Though some folks have mentioned they were still able to do so, it does seem to imply that the rule is in place solely on their US branch Crunchyroll releases and potentially Aniplex as well.

This limits a lot of importers as well, and the only solution is to either use an alternative site like Amazon or rely on forwarding services. As I have been using forwarding services more often, I will likely use that approach going forward on the Crunchyroll store and then apply extra packaging protection when it arrives at the service.

Meanwhile Anime Limited during their September early bird line-up, only revealed Re:cycle of the Penguindrum as the newest addition to order, which I have yet to sort out but October is probably going to be a bigger batch unless the production issues that have been affecting various distributors including MVM and 88 Films are going to push back these early birds. We’ll see how it goes but they do have a fair bit of backlog to go through under their catalogue line-up including Cardcaptor Sakura: Sealed Card, Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna and Lupin the Third Part 6. Also worth noting they did lose the licence for Konosuba the Movie: Legend of Crimson as Crunchyroll UK will now be releasing that for the UK & Australia.

Speaking of Crunchyroll UK, I am still not happy with their current model which does bring back the slipcases but they took the same approach as the US to AU releases by setting up UK releases for France & Germany which means they are modifying the packaging to fit for those markets which is a shame (replacing artwork for a repeat that is in another language is annoying and I can see German fans feeling the same with the English artwork taking over). It also doesn’t help that the prices aren’t great either. So that said, when they release a title properly like with Shield Hero, I will support it. There’s a sale going on for some of the older releases so I will also look into that.

Sentai has continued their slow pace of new and catalogue, but I plan to pick up more of their releases during the holiday sale now that I have found a solution on how to get their titles at a better pace.

Discotek will be revealing more of their December line-up pretty soon, but there is uncertainty regarding the future of their distribution because they relied a lot on Rightstuf. While the Crunchyroll store will probably be fine, it might not feel right for them especially if packaging protection is out of the window and rumours of live-action being excluded from the mitigation. Diabolik and BuyAnime (the Critical Mass Video store that wants to expand to non-hentai anime titles) both have expressed interest in stocking their titles so there’s room to grow.

Asian Cinema

Eureka revealed their next batch of Asian films, which I plan to order from their bundle in the next week or so. The first is The Fall of Ako Castle which is another film by Kinji Fukasaku for their Masters of Cinema range, and an interesting pick with Casino Raiders which from what I have read is a spin-off of the God of Gamblers series so that’s gotten my curiosity.

Speaking of Eureka, the one title that I didn’t bother to pre-order just so happens to go out of stock pretty quickly and that was She Shoots Straight. I have placed an order but I don’t know if I managed to get the first print edition. It’s a bit weird for this to sell out fast given I didn’t think it would be as popular as the others like In the Line of Duty were but I suppose either way it’s good to see it sells.

There’s still no exact release window for The Long Arm of the Law Parts I & II which is a shame as I was hoping to have included it with the haul from this month’s batch. But there are still other Hong Kong releases still worth picking up like the Battle Creek Brawl re-release, Magic Crystal and the limited release of The Medallion. In November they also have Jet Li’s Last Hero in China which is neat and then in December there’s The Blue Jean Monster and Inspector Wears Skirts.

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And that concludes this month’s haul. It actually feels smaller which is partly due to the lack of anime that had been either bought or arrived in time. Again October will be a massive one because of Rightstuf so I am hoping to sort it out with as few packages as possible to make it easier.