I had quite the mystery box experience today. So there arrives this big package, whose cardbox is clearly a used one, slightly sliced on the side, which got taped up with a very generous amount of tape. On top is an invoice bag attached to it.
Luna scratching her head, because she totally is expecting nothing on this day.
Neighbour package? Checks the name. No, Luna's name. But the address is in English. Huh? My three Hyoukas? But those only got sent on 24th. Your Name took 10 days after the shipping notice. It's been just three days. And AL packages never had these invoice bags outside. And this box is way too huge for that. Gaze trails to the corner.
Return address: MVM
Luna: HUUH?
Used box from somebody else?? No wait, the sticker is over the tape, it must have been added after packing it up. It also says parcelforce on the address paper. So it's definitely from the UK. Wha----
Now, Luna did want to place an order on the Bonfire Sale, but she was sure to have been an idiot and have missed the sales end date by a few hours so it fell flat. That's not a Ghost Package, is it? Or did Hyouka show up after all? It can't be, it can't be, or can it? There is only one thing to be expected from the UK.
KI NI NARIMASU!
So Luna slowly opens the box. Inside the box is....!
Another box.
Also a used cardbox box and padded with shredded cardbox as padding and some sliced cardbox pieces.
This totally looked like the work of an overzealous ebay seller. Shops sually don't pack like that, it takes too much time, they usually don't have that time. This gets more mystifying by the second.
So Luna pulls out this box in the box and slowly opens it. And---
THEY'RE THERE!
They're there, they're there, they're there!!!!
The Hyoukas are there~!
So finally I get to line that up against my Japanese box and the the Funi one:
I still think this blue "BD Box" cube on the Japanese release is a design disaster. Funi's parts both have the same green Oreki silhouette background, which makes both parts almost indistinguishable, unless you lean close and read the quite small print.
Hence the cleaner AL one is totally more my thing, just by going by the spine even with the unavoidable rating logo. Going by overall package design the AL one totally beats them all by hundreds of miles. In hand and in real it looks a lot more georgeous than the unboxing post already promised. So artwork rich~
Really curious what's going to be in the booklet. Obviously it can't be as thick as the Japanese one going by the placeholder. Still rooting for all the Japanese release covers to be in there, because those aren't even in the JP booklet~ (Though I'd realistically am more betting on the "Christmas is in the box" manga chapter. If I'm on the mark it would mean I'd end up having it three times, because it's also included in the 11th volume of the manga. Still would be a nice treat to anybody else, since the Manga is not being released in English.)
But even with all the bubbles, flowers and glitter around my head at the moment - Some flies
in the ointment still happened unfortunately.
The first of the three Hyoukas has a very minor production error:
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Hard to capture on an image. Kind of looks like as if the package had a little goose egg. Some sort of little particle must have gone in, when glueing the art layer to the chipbox. Pretty minor, but once I noticed it I could not stop the reflex of wanting to straighten it down, but that's just impossible without damaging it. That kind of causes an entirely other k
i ni narimasu
The second one got ever so slightly damaged on the transport. Because the box had this big
cardbox-staple it got a pressure line:
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Which... really is a bit of a downer, because it totally feels like it could have been easily avoidable. I can see that quite a deal of care has been put into the package to have enough cushioning against hits etc. and the box in the box sure gives double protection. All that was missing to make it perfect was moving one piece of the sliced cardbox pieces over the staple and below the box. ;___;
But on the other hand. This is just kind of what I was prepared of. Since I already had a history of damaged Hyouka parts with my Funi copies (among other things), I simply got three this time. Even with the worst of my luck at least one would hopefully survive brilliantly enough for my hype and the third did indeed.
(And after everything I come here and I read this note for ASV which would have prevented the mystery from happening in the first place. The irony.)
