Welcome to the Hobby Haven, everyone! Today's entry is a review of the recently-released collector's edition of one of my new favorite shows, Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun! I'm pretty stoked to share this with you guys, I'm so excited.
For those unfamiliar with the show, Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun is a loving parody of the shoujo manga genre. It's full of warm fuzzies, gut-busting laughs, and some of the most engaging characters I've ever watched. We follow the exploits of a high schooler named Chiyo who is crushing majorly hard on the tall, dark, and handsome Nozaki. She screws up her courage to confess her love, only to receive in return...his autograph. Turns out the stoic and manly Nozaki is secretly a popular manga artist who draws Chiyo's favorite shoujo romance series, "Let's Fall in Love." She winds up getting roped into becoming his assistant, and things just devolve from there in the most hilarious way possible. It's also surprisingly informative about the process of creating manga.
Sentai Filmworks, the NA licensor, has been putting out more and more collector's editions over the past few years, which I'm very grateful for. There's nothing quite like getting a deluxe edition of a favorite show! They also made it clear how highly requested this was from their customers, so it's also good to see that fans are willing to put their money where their mouth is. It's been a long time waiting for this; they announced that the show would be getting a CE all the way back in November, and I've been on pins and needles ever since seeing the details of the set.
Now, for the initial details. I pre-ordered this from The Right Stuf during a sale they held on all anime published by Sentai Filmworks. This will retail for $84.49 normally, but between the sale and my Right Stuf "Got Anime" club membership, I snagged it for $70. Now, this does not "officially" release until the 29th. But if you pre-order something from Right Stuf, they will ship it to you as soon as it arrives at their warehouse. In my case, that was over two weeks early. Shipping was free since my order was over $49, and the turnaround was very quick, about 5 days.
You do get an awful lot for that amount, though! Let's go through it piece by piece, after the jump.
First of all, your delightful collector's edition will come housed in a sturdy chipboard box just crammed with glorious art from the show. (Psst, Viz? Are you listening? THIS is how you make an attractive collector's edition box!)
The front features Nozaki and his crack team of assistants. From left to right, Wakamatsu (who applies screentones, etc), Chiyo (who does beta), Nozaki (the artist himself), Mikoshiba (who draws hearts and flowers and sparkles and all the frilly embellishments a shoujo manga needs), and Hori (who draws backgrounds).
The spine has all of the main cast, minus Wakamatsu (really, Sentai, you needed two tanuki? Couldn't Waka be squeezed in there somewhere?)
The back features Nozaki's fellow manga artist and neighbor, Miyako, her editor Maeno, and Nozaki's editor Ken. I guess the overarching theme for the box is "people involved in creating manga"? They're relatively minor characters, so I'm a little surprised they made it onto the box.
This art book is amazing. Hardbound, and absolutely crammed with everything you could want. Character art, character profiles (with lots of fun details you won't get in the show), episodes guides and summaries, song lyrics, creator interviews...it goes on. This is basically my gold standard for pack-in art books, so I am giving this the rating of "Gold Star Plus Plus." Which isn't a thing, but now it is.
As a preview, here's Nozaki's profile. I love the bright, colorful layout of the pages!
Next up is the 3-disc (?!) soundtrack! Gracing the cover is Yuzuki, the Glee Club's best singer, and our pal Wakamatsu. Pretty good choice for the cover; Yuzuki is the best singer in school, compared to the Lorelai of myth, and Wakamatsu is her biggest fan...only he thinks that Lorelai is a completely different person, and...well, just watch the show to find out. ;)
The soundtrack contains all the background music of the show, plus "character songs" sung by the voice actors themselves. The opening and ending songs from the anime are not included, though. I am assuming Sentai couldn't get the rights to those, which is unfortunate.
Next are the show discs themselves, available on DVD and Blu-ray. The Limited Edition gives you all 12 episodes of Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun, plus 6 short mini-episodes that weren't shown during the initial broadcast. The Blu-ray contains all of this on 2 discs. There's a really great graphic of Chiyo and Mikoshiba on the front. Everything plays great, and the Blu-ray really makes the colors pop.
The one thing that bugs me is that the graphic with Nozaki and Chiyo that you see above isn't used anywhere else!
And Kashima and Hori are on the cover of the DVD version. Not much to say besides that I love that they're teasing Hori about his height again.
It's pretty clear that Sentai is recycling the art assets they got throughout the set. I mean, it's great art, and I like that they're jazzing it up a bit with some flowers, but it's pretty noticeable.
STICKERS! Or rather, a very blurry picture of stickers, but stickers nonetheless.
Aaaaaaaaaand, a poster! I really, really love this graphic, and I'm stoked that they chose this for the poster. It's an 11'' x 17'' poster, and comes folded up. The creases are super sharp, so it doesn't look really nice, which is annoying. So a positive and a negative.
I'm very pleased with this, overall! It's got all the things that I specifically look for in a collector's edition. Chipboard box, check. Soundtrack, check. Art book, check. Poster, check. Everything is attractively presented and well-designed, and you really do get quite a lot for your money (especially compared to collector's editions from other companies, like Aniplex). If you like manga, and shows about manga, this is up your alley; and if you end up liking it as much as I do, I strongly urge you to pick this up! (But there's plain BD and DVD versions of the show available as well that are more budget-friendly, if that's a concern.
Miss Scarlett suggests: Fans of the show really should consider picking this up, as this is an excellent collector's edition!
