2024 HAUL - FEBRUARY CHAPTER: BATCH #5
Three more packages arrived last Thursday and today. I have two more to wrap up the month assuming the latter will dispatch on time given its a pre-order.
Eureka Entertainment announced they had a few titles going out of print and available on their store for a decent discount before its too late. One of them was Harmonium which I thankfully got sorted last November, but the other which is what I needed was Early Hou Hsaio-hsien: Three Films 1980-1983 collection which features three Taiwanese films by the director - Cute Girl (就是溜溜的她), The Green, Green Grass of Home (在那河畔青草青), and The Boys from Fengkuei (風櫃來的人).
The Blu-ray collection was part of the Masters of Cinema range and did have a slipcover for its first print run but that was many years ago at that point. At least the range keeps the booklets which is neat.
It's a Stackry haul time and split into two parts because we have two different packages that I consolidated together.
First I want to talk about my small Sentai Filmworks Store haul which only covers three Blu-rays because the main focus was getting Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle which was going out of print due to licensing expiration. I made this order in mid-January so it's been at Stackry for a while. The series was released by MVM years back, however I've been focusing on the re-release versions whenever possible which this one was from 2020.
Alongside the series are two more re-releases with Rail Wars and Triage X. Now you can probably tell by the image, but yes my copy of Rail Wars was unfortunately damaged by what appears to have been a knife that was used to rip open the package at Stackry. I didn't want to risk being banned so I essentially asked them to be more careful going forward which they have responded by adding a permanent note for any of my packages going forward. I was able to rescue the artwork (Sentai don't provide inside artwork which helps in this case) and the discs survived the slice as the cut didn't go through the case other than a big scratch.
Anywho I have watched both of these shows. I am a big fan of Highschool of the Dead and the artist so I did enjoy Triage X. The manga is so out of print at this point so I wasn't able to collect those volumes but I am happy to own the anime now, especially as this re-release is now on 2 discs instead of 1. Animatsu released it in the UK but this re-release came out last year.
Rail Wars was never released in the UK on home video, which I believe is partly because Animax UK had exclusive streaming rights by TBS so it was one of those that got caught up in the mess for licensing. One of the first shows I also simulcasted and it delivers, especially with the disc art oh my goodness.
Next we have our Crunchyroll Store haul which consists of four more titles that were released throughout the past year. There was no sale so the prices were pretty much on par with the UK versions.
We have A Couple of Cuckoos, another romance harem series that I missed out on for simulcast watching but got both parts together. The series is from the creator of Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches as well which helped.
Next we have The Greatest Demon Lord is Reborn as a Typical Nobody, another fantasy harem series that managed to get released on home video so I decided to pick it up. Silver Link adapted the series so that's a good sign as I do like their work.
And of course we round it up with The Quintessential Quintuplets the Movie, the conclusion to your romance harem pouting saga. I haven't watched the film yet so I am very intrigued to see how it ends. This release also comes included with the art card. The harem adventure may have come to a close, but in return we got ourselves Sentai Daishikkaku to look forward to:
But yes I will recap what I said - these do have UK releases but I don't like Crunchyroll UK's current setup as it stands. I have no problem picking up some of their titles here and there, but I review each one on a case by case basis. I vote with my wallet on what I want to support at the end of the day.
Arriving today is our 88 Films February pre-orders which consists of one Hong Kong film and two Japanese films, the latter is part of their new Japanarchy line-up.
Because the artwork is a bit overkill I'm also spoiler-tagging them for this post.
First up we have the Hong Kong 2002 film by director Corey Yuen with So Close (夕陽天使). This got the same treatment as The Medallion in terms of packaging where it's a basic standard release with a reversible cover and slipcase. I did notice the Columbia Pictures logo on the back cover so I wonder if this one may have a shorter licensing window than the others.
Next we have the two Japanarchy films with Toshiharu Ikeda 1988's J-Horror film Evil Dead Trap (死霊の罠) and Izo Hashimoto's 1992 film Evil Dead Trap II: Hideki (死霊の罠2ヒデキ). Both of these are from the Director's Company production which Third Window Films, despite managing to find the original masters, missed out on licensing by a few days to my recollection which is a shame.
Three more packages arrived last Thursday and today. I have two more to wrap up the month assuming the latter will dispatch on time given its a pre-order.
Eureka Entertainment announced they had a few titles going out of print and available on their store for a decent discount before its too late. One of them was Harmonium which I thankfully got sorted last November, but the other which is what I needed was Early Hou Hsaio-hsien: Three Films 1980-1983 collection which features three Taiwanese films by the director - Cute Girl (就是溜溜的她), The Green, Green Grass of Home (在那河畔青草青), and The Boys from Fengkuei (風櫃來的人).
The Blu-ray collection was part of the Masters of Cinema range and did have a slipcover for its first print run but that was many years ago at that point. At least the range keeps the booklets which is neat.
It's a Stackry haul time and split into two parts because we have two different packages that I consolidated together.
First I want to talk about my small Sentai Filmworks Store haul which only covers three Blu-rays because the main focus was getting Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle which was going out of print due to licensing expiration. I made this order in mid-January so it's been at Stackry for a while. The series was released by MVM years back, however I've been focusing on the re-release versions whenever possible which this one was from 2020.
Alongside the series are two more re-releases with Rail Wars and Triage X. Now you can probably tell by the image, but yes my copy of Rail Wars was unfortunately damaged by what appears to have been a knife that was used to rip open the package at Stackry. I didn't want to risk being banned so I essentially asked them to be more careful going forward which they have responded by adding a permanent note for any of my packages going forward. I was able to rescue the artwork (Sentai don't provide inside artwork which helps in this case) and the discs survived the slice as the cut didn't go through the case other than a big scratch.
Anywho I have watched both of these shows. I am a big fan of Highschool of the Dead and the artist so I did enjoy Triage X. The manga is so out of print at this point so I wasn't able to collect those volumes but I am happy to own the anime now, especially as this re-release is now on 2 discs instead of 1. Animatsu released it in the UK but this re-release came out last year.
Rail Wars was never released in the UK on home video, which I believe is partly because Animax UK had exclusive streaming rights by TBS so it was one of those that got caught up in the mess for licensing. One of the first shows I also simulcasted and it delivers, especially with the disc art oh my goodness.
Next we have our Crunchyroll Store haul which consists of four more titles that were released throughout the past year. There was no sale so the prices were pretty much on par with the UK versions.
We have A Couple of Cuckoos, another romance harem series that I missed out on for simulcast watching but got both parts together. The series is from the creator of Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches as well which helped.
Next we have The Greatest Demon Lord is Reborn as a Typical Nobody, another fantasy harem series that managed to get released on home video so I decided to pick it up. Silver Link adapted the series so that's a good sign as I do like their work.
And of course we round it up with The Quintessential Quintuplets the Movie, the conclusion to your romance harem pouting saga. I haven't watched the film yet so I am very intrigued to see how it ends. This release also comes included with the art card. The harem adventure may have come to a close, but in return we got ourselves Sentai Daishikkaku to look forward to:
But yes I will recap what I said - these do have UK releases but I don't like Crunchyroll UK's current setup as it stands. I have no problem picking up some of their titles here and there, but I review each one on a case by case basis. I vote with my wallet on what I want to support at the end of the day.
Arriving today is our 88 Films February pre-orders which consists of one Hong Kong film and two Japanese films, the latter is part of their new Japanarchy line-up.
Because the artwork is a bit overkill I'm also spoiler-tagging them for this post.
First up we have the Hong Kong 2002 film by director Corey Yuen with So Close (夕陽天使). This got the same treatment as The Medallion in terms of packaging where it's a basic standard release with a reversible cover and slipcase. I did notice the Columbia Pictures logo on the back cover so I wonder if this one may have a shorter licensing window than the others.
Next we have the two Japanarchy films with Toshiharu Ikeda 1988's J-Horror film Evil Dead Trap (死霊の罠) and Izo Hashimoto's 1992 film Evil Dead Trap II: Hideki (死霊の罠2ヒデキ). Both of these are from the Director's Company production which Third Window Films, despite managing to find the original masters, missed out on licensing by a few days to my recollection which is a shame.
