Otaku Collection 2015: February Update | Everything is Limited these days

Continuing the trend from last month, I've been getting more Limited Edition sets this month. Some were unexpected, others were pre-ordered so here's a look at what I picked up across the month of February.

Pickup #1 | Ben-To and Senran Kagura: Ninja Flash

The first two pickups of February 2015 goes to my pre-orders from United Publications. I now finally own the Senran Kagura anime which I was initially going to get at release but other things got in the way (lack of cash and the opportunity to get the Madoka Magica films from Japan). It is a shame that not only was the front cover cropped from the original version but the OVA specials were not licensed (which is pretty much why the limited edition set is still in print). But at least it wasn't delayed to a dozen of months like Ben-To was, which is now here uncensored and uncut (aka the Blu-ray masters instead of the Broadcast Edit). I haven't had the chance to watch both of these shows unfortunately but I'm happy to own them.

Pickup #2 | Fate/Zero

The next pickup was just completely random. I check United Publications every now and then and decided to check what limited edition sets they had available in the UK since sometimes the one set you need would appear and arrive sooner than later. To my surprise I spotted the Aniplex version of Fate/Zero (the first half of the series) and was very tempted. I gave it a couple of days because I had ef on order as well and wasn't sure if that would arrive at the time. In the end I decided to get Fate/Zero and the set is really nice. The only primary complaint that a lot of people had (besides the pricing) was the audio for the English language, it's Dolby Digital 2.0 instead of LPCM or HD Audio. I know Sword Art Online had this issue also but to be fair I went with the Japanese audio anyway for Fate/Stay Night. In Japan they keep their consistency when it comes to voicing the characters across multiple seasons, for instance the voice actress Ayako Kawasumi voiced Saber across all Fate anime adaptations so far (Fate/Stay Night from 2006 and 2014, Fate/Zero and even Carnival Phantasm and Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya) in contrast to the English audio where Saber was voiced by multiple people. Shakugan no Shana also had this issue which was why I went for the original language.

Due to a fiasco with Sword Art Online my plans to get the second half has been pushed back to Q2.

Pickup #3 | ef ~ A Fairy Tale of the Two

It was that time again for me to get another visual novel added to my collection. However unlike last time where I ended up spending twice as much, this time I picked this one up from United Publications since they also sell visual novels. This took quite a while to arrive and I was convinced the set had sold out but nevertheless it came. The ef package contains both games in the series with small mosaics (meaning it's not uncensored but you can practically see what it is). The set also came with an artbook which to my surprise is not as bad as I expected in terms of mature content (it's basically ecchi rather than hentai). I've started a small portion of ef ~ the first tale and I'm enjoying it so far. Heck, no one told me that Makoto Shinkai was involved in this?!

Pickup #4 | Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji) live-action film

And the final pickup of the month was the home video release for the live-action Black Butler movie from Warner Bros. I pre-ordered the film (alongside Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno) the moment I saw it pop up on Amazon simply because it's a limited release and it's on Blu-ray! I did see the film at Cineworld Sheffield and despite not having any knowledge of the manga or the anime I somewhat really enjoyed the film. It's not perfect by all means but it's still quite entertaining. Who ever played Sebastian did a really good job at his role. Like the two previous Japanese films that Warner Bros have brought out as a steelbook, this will also work on Region A players so if you live in America and really want to own this film then go ahead and import the UK version.

And that's pretty much it for this month. I've mentioned a couple of times that I spent a lot of my spare cash on Sword Art Online so I'll be expecting them to appear very soon (Box Set 3 is in the UK but time of arrival is to be confirmed). There's also Space Dandy Season 1 and Unbreakable Machine Doll which should arrive at some point in the first week of March. Besides those lot I wouldn't expect much to appear in this month's update. I may get 1 more game but that's not entirely guaranteed.

If you want to know what's coming soon to my collection, you can check them out in the Collection section on my blog. At the top of the page there will be a schedule to when each set will arrive. If for what reason you can't view the link, here's what's expected for the coming few months:
03/2015 - Space Dandy - Season 1: Limited Edition [US]
03/2015 - Sword Art Online - Box Set 1: Limited Edition [US]
03/2015 - Sword Art Online - Box Set 2: Limited Edition [US]
03/2015 - Sword Art Online - Box Set 3: Limited Edition [US]
03/2015 - Sword Art Online - Box Set 4: Limited Edition [US]
03/2015 - Unbreakable Machine Doll - Complete Series: Limited Edition [US]
04/2015 - D-Frag! - Complete Series: Limited Edition [US]
04/2015 - the garden of sinners: recalled out summer - Film: Limited Edition [US]
04/2015 - Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno (live-action) - Film: Limited Edition Steelbook [UK]
05/2015 - Darker Than Black - Season 1: Premium Edition [US]
Q2/2015 - Mai Mai Miracle - Film: Collector's Edition (Kickstarter Exclusive) [UK]