Erufailon4

It's been a long time coming, but over 2 years after it was announced, 7 months after I pre-ordered it, and 3 months after it was originally supposed to be released, Sound Horizon's 7.5th or 8.5th Story BD Ema ni Negai wo! Full Edition  is finally here. I originally wasn't sure if I was even going to buy it, but then decided to support Revo and get it... for as cheap as possible. Luckily Amazon Japan was selling it without any store bonuses for 17000 yen (19164 yen with Finnish VAT) plus 2651 yen shipping, so at the end I only paid a bit less than 150 euros - with the downside that I indeed didn't get those bonuses. Would they have been worth 5000 yen? Maybe... but probably not. Also worth mentioning is that this was my first experience with DHL as a courier and I'd say it was a positive one. I wasn't home on Monday to sign it when it arrived so I authorized them to leave it in the mailbox. The package arrived completely unharmed.  Ema Full's packaging is mi...

It's been a while since I've last updated this blog, so, now that Ema Full is almost around the corner, I thought I'd share what I've been up to recently and what I will/might be up to in Near Future™.  First things first: I graduated high school! (Well, the Finnish equivalent of high school. It's not exactly the same but close enough.) It's nice, getting a fun little hat and a fancy certificate and a shit ton of presents (mostly money) from relatives. Also it means that I'm now free from societal expectations for a while, probably for the last time in my life. I did get accepted into university directly based on my matriculation exam grades, but I'm not planning to start my studies there yet this fall. Why? Well, about that...  Now might be a good time to mention that I'll be doing my military service next year, starting in January. Nothing extraordinary about that for us Finns, but those of you who don't have mandatory military service in your...

So. Revo and Pony Canyon have just  announced  that Ema ni Negai Wo! Full Edition  will be delayed by three months to June 14. Yeah. That, uh, came out of nowhere. Or, I mean, you could say there were signs, since there had been very little marketing of any kind recently despite the original release date quickly approaching. But I was still surprised that it ended up being delayed by that much. It's understandable though, as you can't really add bug fixes to an already released Blu-ray (I mean,  apparently you can  but I've never once heard of that actually happening) so naturally Revo & team would want the disc to be released in a state as polished as possible.  As one would expect, the delay complicates things for me (and likely many other Laurants as well). I pre-ordered Ema Full  in November on Amazon Japan, which charges on release date - meaning that I now have to keep EF in mind when making money decisions for three more months. The currency...

While I did know it was coming thanks to the ever-so-reliable sakuga community hyping it up, I couldn't expect just how great Bocchi the Rock!  would be. There are many aspects that aided its rise to the top of my - and many others' - top 10 list of last year, and one of them was its music. The anime's in-universe Kessoku Band played many memorable songs throughout the series, in addition to the excellent OP & EDs, so when Aniplex released all of them, in addition to a few completely new songs, on a limited-time CD with some extras, I just had to get it. Amazon Japan didn't want to ship it overseas, but luckily CDJapan was there to save the day. They didn't have any store bonus available, not even the general one, so I did miss out on that, but I'm not too bothered by that. I could also use a 500 yen off coupon since it was my first time ordering from them, which essentially got me free tracking&insurance and a little off the base shipping cost too. Japa...

You'd think that in a country where One Piece  has a beloved translation and is the longest manga ever published and still ongoing after 17 years and 101 volumes, it'd be easy to get the franchise's new anime film in theaters, especially in an anime boom like this where more Japanese cinema is seeing wide theatrical releases in Finland than ever before. But, as it turns out, fans have had to fight tooth and nail to convince concerned parties that yes, it actually does have an audience that wants to see it. No such problems with Jujutsu Kaisen , Dragon Ball Super  or Sword Art Online  though!  Well, all's end that ends well - One Piece Film: Red  will open in theaters on the 20th, distributed by the ever-so-trusty Cinema Mondo for the film's European licensor Piece of Magic Entertainment. Interesting arrangement, by the way - CM's deals with Aniplex/Wakanim/Crunchyroll have not included any home media rights, only theatrical, so I wonder how it is with Piece of ...

2022 was the year I really started expanding my "Japan Collection" (for the lack of a better name), as I essentially doubled the amount of manga and light novels I have, and went from two blu-ray releases to fourteen. This hasn't exactly been the cheapest possible hobby, but still living with my parents means I don't really have to worry about budgeting my life all that much yet, so I've been taking advantage of the situation with my many purchases during the year. As a consequence of them, I've assembled myself quite a collection, the current state of which I'll be going over in this post.  Manga & Light Novels  I've categorized my manga by trim size, meaning the largest volumes are first. That of course means starting with English volumes from Viz Media, mainly the deluxe box set of Nausicaä  which I bought in 2021 and unboxed on this blog. At the start of 2022, I only had it and three other Viz releases, but since then, I've bought three mo...

While not the biggest fan of isekai, I hold Re:Zero  in high regard due to its writing, characters, and music, and have wanted to own season 1 on blu-ray for a while. The opportunity presented itself during All the Anime's Christmas Sale last month, where the standard editions were part of the "buy one get one free" offer at £19.99, and the limited edition complete box set was at the same price. I went for the latter since why not get more for the same price, buying it on day 2 of the sale just before it was sold out. It's worth noting that this edition is different from the original collector's edition releases Anime Limited did for the series (which have been unboxed on NormanicGrav's blog ), and is essentially the standard editions in a box with a bonus booklet, similarly to what AL is doing for Revolutionary Girl Utena  this year. Subtracting UK tax and adding shipping costs, I bought this for £28.16 in total, then paying the sales tax in Finland during t...