Otaku Collection 2017: April Update | Operation PS3 haul and a new Blu-ray player?!

It's nearly the end of my time at University but this month was split between myself focusing on my assignments and bit of a last week haul.

Evangelion: 1.11 You Are (Forever) Alone

The April 2017 haul includes 15 items.

#1 | Persona 5

The first item of the month is the long awaited Persona 5. I initially ordered the Take Your Heart edition but I decided it wasn't for me so I switched to the Steelbook Launch edition instead. Due to Uni I haven't spent much time but I have finished the April segment of the game, so far very positive impressions but I do have issues with Morgana (the cat) blocking you from leaving your bedroom.

You can view the unboxing here.

#2 | The Silver Case (Limited Run Games PC Version)

Next up we have Suda51's The Silver Case. Limited Run Games released this set in early March but my copy was at home so I had to wait until early April before taking a look. Overall it's a nice set but personally I feel betrayed because NIS America acquired the PS4 licenses and are putting out the exact same release for around the same price. Nevertheless the PC version has the better box art at least.

You can view the unboxing here.

#3 | Amagami SS, Amagami SS+ & Final Fantasy X|X-2 HD Remaster

A day after I returned home I was woken with a silver card from Royal Mail, lol. I had to pay off customs to acquire the Amagami SS series which I bought in the Sentai flash sale. It is coming to the UK but my preference was always with the Sentai sets. There will be a late unboxing of these two sets later in June because I was occupied by Uni work. Same will apply to Final Fantasy X|X-2 HD Remaster since I was lucky enough to find this game pre-owned in excellent condition at a very good price.

#4 | Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?

This one arrived. It was handled through three different phases; the first was originally with Amazon US for £80, then it was WOWHD for £67 but then I realised that there was a chance that no one would be able to pick up the package so I had to cancel the order and switch to UP1 to get it asap. It arrived, but another person I know who also ordered from WOWHD got theirs on the same day as me, which kinda pisses me off. Either way I like the set as a whole though I wish the booklet was much bigger.

You can view the unboxing here.

#5 | Evangelion: 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone

When I returned to University the package from Anime Limited's shop had arrived. Evangelion 1.11's 2017 release is a set that not many would go after if they weren't a fan of the films or had already picked up the previous UK release. I got it for £20 and it was worth it because I missed out on the collector's edition released a long time ago.

You can view the unboxing here.

#6 | Killer is Dead and Shadows of the Damned

So after getting my finances for the last part of my Uni venture I wanted to build up my PlayStation 3 collection, because the cycle is literally getting closer and closer to out of print zones. I placed a number of orders but the first two that arrived were Killer is Dead and Shadows of the Damned. These two are from Suda51 and both were relatively cheap to acquire. Shadows of the Damned ended up being the US version which took me by surprise because the US version looked like it was out of print.

#7 | Berserk, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth & Tales of the Abyss

On the day that I finally handed in my final year report I ventured into town with a friend. I picked up a few games from the local games store. Berserk and the Band of the Hawk was one that I wanted to own but it never went down in price, and the shop had one for £34 which was an okay price point for a new title. They also had Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth going for £20 and Tales of the Abyss for £22; both are Bandai Namco titles that have a risk of going out of print pretty fast because they do pretty low print runs on the Japanese games.

#8 | Under Defeat HD: Deluxe Edition

The next day another PS3 game arrived as part of Operation PS3 haul. Under Defeat HD is a game I had already played on the Xbox 360 but never owned because I rented it instead. The arcade game is pretty good and I figured I'll get it now before it starts going up in price.

#9 | Superbeat XONIC

I wanted to own more Vita games but for now I decided to stick with one and that was Superbeat XONIC, a South Korean music/rhythm game. It's pretty challenging as well and one worth picking up if you like a music game with a high difficulty or even a fan of the DJMAX games.

#10 | Seiki U-Vision Blu-ray player

And the last arrival of the month is in fact not a disc or a game, but a Blu-ray player! So let's start from the beginning. A few folks on the forum were discussing about selling Overlord's US release, and one of them brought up this Blu-ray player of course we were all debating on whether it was worth going for it. I waited for the results and it turns out that the player does work well for accessing regions from different zones (like Region A and 1). I ordered mine and it arrived a few days later. The player is set to A|1 after pressing 8520 in the setup menu and currently works with A|B discs and Geolocked discs.

#Extra | Music CDs

On the same day that I bought the PS4 and 3DS games, I also went into HMV and acquired a few CDs because I wanted to own them. Nowadays I use Spotify to listen to music but I also have my iPod for whenever I want to go somewhere like a trip or during a nap, and I decided owning CDs is better than digital downloads. So I picked Avenged Sevenfold's The Stage album, Daft Punk's Random Access Memories album, and Mastodon's Emperor of Sand album.

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And that's it for the April haul. There is a fair amount of titles incoming but some may take a while to arrive.

For anime we have Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam Part 2 and Your Lie in April Part 2 from the All the Anime shop ordered and paid off, since I already have the first half of both shows. These two are due 8th May so I should expect them both on that date.

Next up we have more Monogatari arcs; Hanamonogatari and Koimonogatari, to conclude the Second Season part of the franchise. I don't know when exactly they'll arrive but chances are that they could appear this week.

One Punch Man has also been ordered, this time through WOWHD to test out the service again. I did receive confirmation that the set has been dispatched I could receive it as early as either Wednesday or Thursday in the latest. One of the reasons for ordering this title is to test out the new Blu-ray player also.

For video games we have a couple titles as part of Operation PS3 haul. Localised games include Catherine, Dragon Ball Z Budokai HD Collection and Zone of the Enders HD Collection. These three averaged around £15-18 each so pricing wise it was pretty reasonable. I had to split the Catherine and ZOTE order because they didn't dispatch as one package, so Catherine got through while ZOTE took a few days after. Dragon Ball Z Budokai was actually through eBay because the new copies went up in price and were pretty much too expensive, but the seller said his condition was pretty much like new which is fine by me.

There are also two Japan-only PS3 games ordered as well. Shining Resonance was ordered through eBay because the stock for the game also went up in price as well, I don't know whether the version I picked up is the one I'm after since folks on eBay tend to confuse themselves between Region 2 and Region 3. In addition I have also placed an order for Macross 30 on Play Asia, however I'm currently going through some issues because my payment got messed up with the first order and I did a new one thinking the first one didn't get through. I'm hoping customer services can resolve this issue. UPDATE: Issue seems to be resolved and the game has managed to dispatch.