2019 Holiday Haul #1 – Black Friday Sales || RightStuf & Sentai

Hello all!

Apologies for dropping off suddenly for another two weeks, I was ridiculously busy with finals (and pretty much everything else since Thanksgiving). But finals are OFFICIALLY behind me as of last Wednesday. I took a couple more days off to relax with family, and now I’m back. Glad to be here in this space once again!

As the title of this post implies, this is the first part of MANY a holiday haul posts, some being orders made during the sales, others being orders that were placed months ago and are now slowly trickling in. I hope you stick around with me as this month of holiday sale shenanigans goes on.

With part one, I’m taking us back nearly three weeks now to the Black Friday sales of our favorite online retailers for anime goodness: RightStuf and Sentai Filmworks!

First up from the epic Sentai sale this year is the Princess Principal LTD ED set. This thing is absolutely stunning, with gorgeous gold foil printing layered over a soft matte box. The spine alone speaks volumes about the quality of this set.

Peeking inside, we’ve got the Blu-ray, the signature Sentai box-of-stuff, and not one, not two, but THREE art books. WOW. The first is a storyboard collection for the first episode, while volume two contains character art, scenery, the goods etc. The third is loaded with staff and cast interviews, which is perfect for fans of the sub. Personally, I have no idea what this show is even about, aside from the fact that it’s got steampunk vibes and it was dubbed in English with ACCENTS. I’m shook.

Gosh, there’s so much to love about this set. I originally told myself that I’m holding off on Sentai LTD EDs due to space, but I couldn’t resist this one for just $40 (although it did go even cheaper the next sale :/).

Also, ALSO, the box isn’t full of nicknack stuff that I wouldn’t care about. Instead, it’s got a lovely cloth poster (with unique art!) and a metal steampunk coaster set, which I am legit currently using. Nice one, Sentai!

I picked up some other Blu-rays from the sale for other’s gifts, but they won’t go in my collection so I won’t bother showing them off. Instead, you can indulge in Love Stage!! with me—and yes, it’s got the new dub! I haven’t actually seen this series, so this’ll be a fun one for me to dive headfirst into, heh heh.

Onto the books, we’ve got the two newest volumes of my favorite LN series, SAO volume 17, “Alicization Awakening,” and A Sister’s All You Need. volume 5. Really hyped to continue reading the War of Underworld story!

Next is the third volume of Our Dreams at Dusk, another series that I’m waiting to have the volumes of before starting, as well as some VOFAN stuff. Here’s the novelization of Makoto Shinkai’s 5 Centimeters per Second: one more side and VOFAN’s art/storybook Colorful Dreams. I bought it thinking it’d be your typical art book, but instead it ended up being an anthology of 1-4 paged short stories with full art spreads. Hopefully it’s a good one.

Last for this haul is the long-awaited Millennium Actress Blu-ray release by Shout Factory! Continuing with the rescue of Satoshi Kon’s masterpiece films, I’m stoked to see what the buzz has been about this one. Since this one is technically a pre-order from the Shout Factory store itself, it came with an exclusive lithograph/poster of the release’s cover. Not sure what I’ll do with it yet, but it’s nice to have!

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And there you go, the first haul of many for this holiday season! I didn’t realize it until I had all of the items together, but there’s a beautiful blue-green theme going on here. It’s certainly nice when odd stuff works out like that, isn’t it? Anyway, let me know your thoughts on any of these pick-ups down in the comments. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you tomorrow!

– Takuto, your host