2024 HAUL - SEPTEMBER CHAPTER: BATCH #2.1
This batch covers a few items that I have picked up over the past few weeks. There's a lot to cover so once again I've split the post into two parts.
The Legend of Hei did arrive yesterday as well, but that's not included due to damage but a replacement is incoming.
These three titles all arrived back on Thursday 12th but essentially I wanted to order a few classic Japanese films as it had been a while and I figured these three would be good to order altogether.
So first up we have Akira Kurosawa's 1952 film
Ikiru (生きる) which had been recently re-released on home video by British Film Institute for Blu-ray. It is a 4K scan I believe but they felt it wasn't worth the 4K UHD format which is fair. This is the first print edition so it comes included with a booklet. Admittedly I had missed out on the recent Ozu collection sets but they're not as a priority as Kurosawa in my opinion.
Next we have three films in this collection released by Eureka Entertainment back in June and that's
The Valiant Red Peony aka Red Peony Gambler. This includes Kosaku Yamashita's 1968 film
Red Peony Gambler (緋牡丹博徒), Norifumi Suzuki's 1968 film
Red Peony Gambler 2: Gambler’s Obligation (緋牡丹博徒 一宿一飯) and Tai Kato's
Red Peony Gambler 3: The Flower Cards Game (緋牡丹博徒 花札勝負). The gambling theme has always intrigued me so I'm interested to see how these turn out given they're more historical Japan compared to others.
And then comes the latest big box release from Radiance Films with
World Noir Vol. 2, which contains three more international non-English films set during the early 60s. In this volume we have Helmut Käutner's
Black Gravel (Schwarzer Kies) released in 1961 from Germany, Jacques Deray's
Symphony for a Massacre (Symphonie pour un massacre) released in 1963 from France, and Takumi Furukawa's
Cruel Gun Story (拳銃残酷物語) released in 1964 from Japan.
The first volume I've only watched
The Facts of Murder which was excellent so I'm looking forward to more of the European noir genre. Noir was never my thing and that's probably because Hollywood oversaturated it to death so it felt unappealing to me, but considering how it originated from Europe to begin with, seeing their own take on it combined with these newer restorations felt like a fresh change of pace.
Fast-forward to last Sunday, after finishing the
Secret of Mana remake I finally picked up
Astro Bot for the PlayStation 5. I have started it and already completed the first two worlds 100%. It's the type of game that brings you back to the classic platforming experience from the early 3D era and I enjoyed the challenge of trying to find those bots throughout each level, a couple very surprising cameo appearances.
I went to watch
The Substance at the cinema which is a really good body horror film and one of the better films of the year if you need a recommendation, but to make sure I arrive on time I go to town first. I visited the HMV first and spent way more time in there than I should have done but I wanted to get something and they had a restock for a whole bunch of Radiance Films titles which included their newer releases like Seijun Suzuki's 1965 film
Tattooed Life (刺青一代) which I felt would sell out faster than the rest so I picked that one.
Also bought in two are two more video games for the collection. In CeX they had a copy for
Another Code: Recollection that I've been meaning to pickup for a while and for £35 which was cheaper than Amazon and The Game Collection I decided to grab it now. This is a remaster of two games released years back; the 2005 Nintendo DS game
Another Code: Two Memories and 2009 Nintendo Wii game
Another Code: R – A Journey into Lost Memories which North America didn't receive the latter so having both of these come back for the Switch is neat.
Then I visited the GAME which to my surprise is actually closing down in York. The staff mentioned the park area is forcing them out and they are expecting the branch to merge inside the Sports Direct like other locations have done. It's a shame to see GAME devolve into this mess but I would rather they survive even if its a smaller game selection than be dead completely. Anyway they were having a 20% off stock sale and they had
Like a Dragon: Ishin! which was actually there when I last visited the branch but miraculously they had a sealed copy for £12.99 so I got it for £10, neat. This game is a remake of the 2013 PS4 launch title Ryu ga Gotoku: Ishin! with updated visuals and tweaks to be more in-line with the newer instalments in terms of presentation and such.
When I got back home, HMV delivered
The Boy and the Heron. This is their HMV Exclusive version which featured better artwork than the regular edition, and also comes with art cards. Now despite the Radiance style packaging, they didn't bother to clean up the artwork so it was pretty pointless to include the mini-sleeve in the first place, because the purpose of those is to keep that type of information (BBFC, Ratings info, plot synopsis, extras etc) on there, allowing the main artwork to be look nicer. The texture of the sleeve used does make the spine look pretty good on the shelf but you get the point.
Now I'll be completely honest. I haven't been watching as much anime for the past year and the reason is because my job has had so much going on to which I've spent extra time to make sure I am up to speed on a number of tasks, this results in me being too exhausted or feeling like there's not enough time each evening to watch an anime or two. Now arguably I could manage but I don't want to force myself for the sake of it which is why I stopped taking part in Anime Planet's simulcast challenges. There is light at the end of the tunnel but will take a few more months before it can fix itself unfortunately.
Watching
The Boy and the Heron at the cinema in IMAX during this ordeal felt like I was back in that excitement again for watching anime and I'm glad to own it on home video, especially in 4K Ultra HD which does include Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision on top of Elysium using GKIDS's assets so at least the disc is in good shape. I watched the film in Japanese but I have heard the English dub is very solid.