Steve and Chris find a whole underwear drawer’s worth of special extras that make collecting physical media cool.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.
My very first Otakon is in the books! It was honestly an incredible time down in DC. The panels were delightful, the company was good, and I even got some shopping in! I escaped the Discotek booth relatively unscathed, only grabbing their Blu-ray set of IGPX I’d been procrastinating on. It’s nice, and I appreciate having the show in this hi-def, complete form.
Though I will say, the smooth, slim BD box of the new release does miss something of that chonky form factor of the previous DVD release. That was a weird package, but it was a charming weird, as some releases are wont to be.
Glad to hear you had a fun and productive Otakon! Now, you may have missed this news, considering you were busy over the weekend, but according to Rolling Stone, physical media is finally cool again.
I’m sure you, like me, have been singing physical media’s praises throughout the streaming age. However, I also think it’s important to teach these big media publications not to deal in absolutes. And if they’re suddenly going to hop on this anti-digital train, I think we need to inform them, and the whole world, of just what they’re getting into.
The only flaw I can see in this release strategy is that they didn’t refer to the panties-less regular version as the “Commando” edition.
One of the joys of collecting is the vaunted “collector’s edition.” Or limited edition. Or super special ultimate early bird 24-karat gold Labubu edition. Whatever the publisher wants to call it. And occasionally, those do indeed get a bit too creative for their britches. Some fade into obscurity. Some become legends. And we’re going to talk about a handful of them.
Big Boobs Buster!
The positive, campy, and fun movie with the titillating title is back!
The movie is being remastered & will include both the Japanese audio & the vintage punched-up English dub.
— AnimEigo (@animeigo.com) August 9, 2025 at 11:27 AM
There’s some disc art that designs itself.
Panties are a recurring theme in the realm of bodacious bonus materials, for obvious reasons, I guess. But I can appreciate when a company goes further. Your and Lucas’s extremely effective discussion of SHIMONETA a few weeks back reminded me of just how depressingly relevant that series has become, sure. But it also reminded me of the bold collector’s edition that Funimation produced for it here, which included…a tube sock. Just one.
Outstandingly in line with the messaging of the series, as well as one hell of a way to make people more hesitant to buy this one used on the aftermarket.
I did obtain Funimation‘s Prison School set from around the same time. While it’s not as fun as a dubious sock, it did come with a big fabric poster of Meiko.
It makes sense with series that are at least on some level wank material, to include actual, physical wank material. And lord knows I’m not going to judge or get precious about that. As we’ve discussed, pervy material needs all the support it can get these days.
I wonder if there’s anybody whose entire underwear drawer consists of panties they picked up in collector’s edition anime releases…
I didn’t think that could be possible before researching for this column, but now I believe we need to seriously consider it. I’m dead certain there’s a trove of licensed underwear out there that I just wouldn’t even know to look for. Tangentially, I think it’s interesting (and more than a little sad) how many of these collector’s editions exist on the internet, foremost as eBay listings now. If you Google “Najica Blitz Tactics limited edition,” it takes you to an auction. It makes sense, considering companies like Funimation and ADV no longer exist, and many of these sets are out of print, so there’s no “official” resource to fall back on. Maybe a news site like ANN will have the press release archived, or a review handy. If you don’t already own the discs, it can be difficult to find legitimate info on them. Which, again, is why I was so genuinely excited to see that ad.
A small thing, I know, but I continue to be just a bit salty over it. At least, on the subject of creative packaging itself, that bullet-tin-shaped box is a pretty clever way to house the series.
This leads to the subject of more general things that get packed in with anime releases. I joked about the panties, but you absolutely could fill your whole closet with bonus T-shirts included with these releases! Some of them, like the Lucky Star ones, even camouflage as different kinds of clothes!
I feel like there was also a time when every box set came with a collectible coin if you ordered it online. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but it was more than one. I remember the Spice & Wolf ones the best, though, since those were at least thematically relevant (and because I still know where mine are lol).
I wonder how much Holos are worth on Forex now, due to inflation.
By the way, here’s another cool research find: one of the people who worked on those Spice & Wolf sets, Cate Ferman, has a website that talks about these and other anime she worked on. It’s a nice reminder that the disciplines of art and design go into all of these examples, even/especially the most ridiculous ones.
And it’s neat to see how those kinds of extras can hold staying power for a series beyond the discs themselves up on our shelves. I don’t have any spare Holos in my change jar, but I do still have, and still occasionally wear, the shirt that came with my old original IGPX Volume One collector’s edition!
Faded but not forgotten. What other IGPX merch am I ever gonna get?
This was one of a couple of reasons I brought up T-shirt sets like this and the Lucky Star releases. The other was to spotlight how they were a regular recurrence in those often-odd “Limited Edition” first-volume DVD boxes of old. The IGPX one was…weirdly puffy.
I’m glad you brought that up, because there’s a whole category of weird anime packaging we’d be remiss not to mention. Maybe you have a different term for it, but I like to call it, “How the heck do I fit this on my shelf next to all the normal discs?”
The heckin chonkmeister.
The way-too-friggin’-big-box.
It can go by many names, and it’s always a headache. I didn’t get the Lucky Star one we mentioned a bit ago, but I do have the Haruhi Suzumiya set that seems based on the same model.
It looks kinda impressive splayed out for photos, sure. But getting both the DVD cases and the jewel-case soundtrack CDs out is a pain, and its dimensions are so out of sorts that the best place I’ve had for it for decades has just been slotting it into one of my open-top sets of shelving, then using it as standing room for a Dinobot.
I don’t mind big, impressive pieces. I got a full set of Gunbuster on LaserDisc over the weekend, after all. But there’s a limit even in this space, and I’d be screwed all over again had I gone in for something like, say, the infamous Legend of the Galactic Heroes coffin.
You know, maybe the answer is that I need to buy more LaserDiscs so the Eva set blends in better. Food for thought. But anyway, it seems like once you surpass a certain number of discs, you kinda have to get creative with the packaging. For example, while not explicitly anime, I just bought a full Twin Peaks set contained within a single very thick clamshell. But when you open it up, it’s kind of a mess with discs stacked on top of each other and two double-sided flaps flopping about in the middle. Maybe a giant coffin is the more elegant solution.
Admittedly, this one kind of solves its own space conundrum, in that you could use that package as a whole shelf unto itself to stack more normal-sized disc sets on top of.
I guess FMA is a magnet for weird outside packaging, considering Funimation stuffed theirs into a suitcase-styled box.
I feel like for years I heard that Giant Robo‘s Eye of Vogler was the gold standard of this concept, but many define the weird world of things that discs come in.
He grows even more beautiful every time I look at him.
lmao this rules pic.twitter.com/bkDz30G1Py
— Mike Toole (@MichaelToole) December 5, 2018
God bless Mike Toole for messing with this thing to give the full experience to anyone who wouldn’t want it in their own house. On account of the curses it would likely bring.
I love seeing these up close because you can tell they are hand painted. The helmet lines on mine are very slightly different!
— Mike Toole (@miketoole.com) June 21, 2025 at 11:01 PM
For all my sassing of Speed, I can genuinely appreciate the value seen in something as absurd as a release like this. It’s the apex of the value of physical media overall, and that kind of cosmic contemplation represents a key thesis alongside the point of that article you shared at the opening. That is, you look at these boxes and realize how, for a long time, anime companies used to think they had to use gimmicks to sell us on physical media. Nowadays, getting any release on physical at all feels like a gimmick!
Sentai, to their credit, can still bring the heat. They may have dragged their feet on that Call of the Night season 1 collector’s set (long enough for season 2 to have arrived), but they won me back with the glow-in-the-dark bits.
Failing that, maybe someone can put out a release with a spare sock to go along with the one I got with SHIMONETA.
What else am I gonna do with it?
No comment.
