Otaku Collection 2016: March/April/May Update | More Alchemists, More Parts, More Games

he second instalment of my Otaku Collection 2016 update! Well it's a month late than originally planned but I like to keep consistent with the first day of each month so here it is finally. I will try and bring out the next update within 2 months hopefully this time around. For this update I continue to pickup more Funiplex sets (that's Aniplex titles licensed by Funimation), finally more Anime Limited sets and also some games!

So here's the items I picked up during March, April and May 2016.

While I've been slow in terms of picking titles up, the good news is that there really hasn't been anything major going on in terms of publishers putting out special editions or losing titles lately. Yes there have been a couple Aniplex of America titles going out of print but at least two of them are getting re-releases (Madoka Magica TV and Sword Art Online: Extra Edition).

Also I received word on the funds I'll have for my 3rd Year at Uni. It's pretty much the same as 2nd Year but without the third payment. In a way that's less but it shouldn't affect the items I plan to pickup during Q4 2016 and Q1 2017.

March 2016 | #1 | Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa

The first pickup of the month was one of the last titles I needed to acquire before the rights expired. In February I received the Blu-ray versions of Brotherhood and now I have the film for the original series. At this point I haven't seen the original series so I couldn't watch it, but I did like the re-release package. This version is the same on-disc content as the original version but the package design looks much better in my opinion. It was also cheap to acquire.

March 2016 | #2 | Mobile Suit Gundam: Part 2

The second pickup of the month was the second half of Gundam '79. I was originally going to get this when it just got released but the price at the time was still around the SRP (£59.99) so I was hoping it would go down to around the £35 level. Around a month later Anime Limited announced the 1000 print only booklet was going to sell out and I went for it when it was got to £40. Sure it's still high but to be fair there's 22 episodes in this set so it pays off. I did go through all of the '79 series with the English dub (as I liked the cast who returned for their respective roles in Dynasty Warriors Gundam) and I really enjoyed it, and the booklet was pretty cool too.

March 2016 | #3 | PlayStation Network Downloads

Not necessarily a physical pick-up, I downloaded some games from the PlayStation store. The first and most importantly is Yakuza 5. This game was very important for western fans as it would help determine whether the series would continue in the west or be dropped completely. Thanks to Dead Souls the Yakuza franchise was pretty much on hiatus for the west as a result. Now the series can continue as it appears Yakuza 5 has gotten enough attention to even bring Yakuza 0 to the west, this time in physical form. For me I was glad and I decided to wait until a sale happened. Yakuza 5 did go on sale and I picked it up when it was £19.99 which was a great price for a long game. I put it on-hold to catch up with my other games but I enjoyed the gameplay in the prologue so far (there's even a bunch of Kodansha manga on there).

The other games I picked up were only $0.99 each, yep that's right it was on sale for this price. And those games were the first three Fatal Frame games. Now I picked this up solely for the fact that I couldn't pass on the price but I do expect the games to re-appear on PS4 so I'll wait until then to play them. I also downloaded some more songs for Rock Band Blitz in preparation for Rock Band 4.

April 2016 | #1 | Sword Art Online II: Part 1

A few weeks prior to this I decided to change the way I pick up Aniplex sets. One of the reasons why I pickup Aniplex sets is because they have the original soundtrack which is something I consider to be really cool to own. Anohana, Fate and Madoka Magica all have OSTs and I really enjoyed them, and so does Sword Art Online (which I have all four Season 1 LEs for). So back in January Aniplex Japan announced they're releasing Sword Art Online's OSTs together in one set (yep all 4 OSTs plus 20 unreleased tracks), which changed my interest on getting the Season 2 LEs a lot. And after taking another look at the contents I decided that I felt it wasn't worth picking up. I even asked my Twitter followers whether I should get the US set or the UK set, and a majority voted for the UK set.

And so I have decided to pickup the Anime Limited version of Sword Art Online II. Now the only downside with the UK version is that because it's authored by Madman the discs do have some incorrect brightness similar to Fate/Zero but the good news is that there are standard edition sets for Season 2 so if I feel like double-dipping (I do think Season 2 was better than Season 1 in most aspects) then the option is there. Plus the artbox is amazing and each set comes with a booklet which is neat. 

April 2016 | #2 | Fullmetal Alchemist

While the Brotherhood series has expired, the original series is still around until around the end of July (based on estimates from various people). And out of nowhere Amazon Canada did a deal of the day on the standard edition for about £12. What a steal! Of course with shipping the cost was £20 but still it was an offer I couldn't refuse. It's also worth noting that my copy has the fixed back info which was noted as 'Tentative' when it got released.

May 2016 | #1 | Senran Kagura: Estival Versus

The first pickup of May was a rather complex one. Before going on holiday at the end of April I noticed that Senran Kagura Estival Versus PS4 Endless Summer edition was exclusive to Prime on Amazon. Now usually you would think, "Oh not to worry I'll just use the marketplace then", but the problem with that argument is that as I'm a UK customer the sellers don't support my country and it will get hit by customs, so the option is not there at all. I then turned to VideoGamesPlus as I heard they have a good reputation (it's later confirmed they do reduce the value for importers) and so I ordered the game there, especially as it's free shipping promotion. After a few weeks my game arrived and I was happy... except they sent me the Vita version instead.

After going through the stages of shock, anger and annoyance, I decided there was no point in returning it as I will have to pay the shipping and decided to keep my copy even though I contacted their Twitter page and website support. I got a CAN$10 refund and CAN$10 equivalent points added to my account which was nice of them. Honestly I don't blame them for making this mistake as both the PS4 and Vita sets look exactly the same. Haven't played the game yet due to my backlog though.

May 2016 | #2 | Tales of Xillia

Much like Tales of Graces f back in January, the game was still on Amazon for a solid price but it's not UK friendly so I was lucky enough to find a sealed copy on eBay for only £16 within the UK. There's no manual because it was exclusive to the collector's sets but still happy to own the game.

May 2016 | #3 | Robotics;Notes: Part 2

Robert's Anime Corner Store were doing another clearance sale and I spotted Robotics;Notes on there for a very good price of $19.99 so I went and picked it up. This now means I only have two Part 2 sets left to acquire (Eureka Seven and Eureka Seven AO).

And that's it for my latest pickups.

Overall I acquired some cool additions to my collection though I haven't picked up anything relatively new lately aside from Senran Kagura and Gundam Part 2. I have decided to order the first arc in the Monogatari Second Season series as I felt getting them sooner than later would be more wise especially as more and more sets are getting released. I would like to pickup Seraph of the End from Universal at some point as I like what they have done to the release overall.

June is also the month in which my Birthday is set so I'll have to see what I can do for that.