Loot Crate’s Loot Anime x Crunchyroll: Delicious (Review, Spoilers)

Loot Anime x Crunchyroll’s monthly goody box has arrived, this time themed Delicious: a to-go box of merchandising delicacies from franchises devoted to cooking, drinking and dining for collectors that savor the following gourmet anime and manga franchises: Food Wars!, Himouto! Umaru-chan, Gudetama, Naruto, and Sweetness and Lightning.

My favorite anime of all time, as well as my favorite 21st century manga, is Food Wars!, an excellent story which follows the adventures of young chef Soma Yukihira and his dormitory-in-crime in which live a baker’s dozen of memorable characters. Probably the most flamboyant and memorable supporting character of the initial story arcs is Satoshi Isshiki, and while he is noteworthy for his accomplishments, not the least of which is being in the Council of Ten most accomplished student chefs at the Totsuki Institute, we remember him for his sunny disposition and the panache to pull off wearing nothing but his birthday suit and a pink apron. As a matter of fact, it looks exactly like this exclusive Food Wars! Kumabear cosplay apron made by Yes Anime—nudity not included.

I’m absolutely thrilled to have my first Food Wars! collectible, to which I can only add my Food Wars! manga collection at present, and as I’m an amateur foodie, I wish I could use it in the kitchen. To set the right expectations for those among you that sometimes forget to read tags, however, I should stress that this apron is not practical kitchen wear; the shelf tag is marked cosplay only, and the care tag on the reverse says “do not iron” as well as hand wash and hang dry. What you can do with this excellent Food Wars! collectible is wear it to anime conventions and anime clubs, and you could also wear it when you watch or read Food Wars!, or when you post your recaps and Food Wars! related videos on YouTube.

It’s nice that Loot Anime gives you a manga every month, but one of the best things about Loot Anime is that they provide you with a really, really, good manga every month. It’s like they’re that one bookstore clerk that you look for, the one that provides you with excellent recommendations for what to read next. Of the manga that we’ve received from Loot Anime, Gido Amagakura’s Sweetness and Light vol. 1 is my favorite. It reminds me of Kiyohiko Azuma’s Yotsuba&! a little, while adding some of Food Wars!’ food lore without the competitiveness of shonen manga. Not only is this a humorous, satisfying read with a cinematic art style, but Kodansha’s production values on this variant edition are sumptuous as well, so that as I’m holding it in front of my face, I get the mixture of fine lines, pastel colors, modernist lettering, and the new book aroma as well. It’s a bit overwhelming to a book lover like myself.

Next out of the box we have more kitchen ware, except this item can sustain practical use: an exclusive replica of Naruto’s ramen bowl made by Just Funky. I suspect that anyone that can remember scooping ramen or Captain Crunch out of a bowl that had their favorite cartoon character printed on the bottom, looking up at them from under the last drops of soup or milk, will be just as thrilled at getting this bowl as I was, and I’m not even a big fan of Naruto. Themed kitchen ware is awesome to have. What better way to remind yourself that eating is not just a bodily act, but also cultural, than to make that daily act tangent to the fiction that we love as nerds or otaku? Eating granola out of a regular bowl is just grazing, but eating granola out of Naruto’s ramen bowl will not only make me less hungry, it will also make me want to read more Naruto.

This Himouto! Umaru-chan “I Love Cola” trading figure made by Good Smile Co. is a cute collectible whether it’s in or out of the box. It’s a great sculpt with precise coloring, and collectors will be happy to have this for their shelves.

Sanrio, whom you primarily know as the one behind Hello Kitty merchandise, made this exclusive plush of Gudetama the lazy egg wrapped in a bacon blanket. He’d make a nice table topper and conversation piece for your next brunch party.

The exclusive Delicious phone charm has two dangles, a parfait and spoon, and the imaging is good, so that anyone who sees it will be able to guess some of the ingredients, such as the pirouette cookie sticking out of it, the strawberry swirl in the bottom, and the vanilla ice cream on the top.

Overall, I was pretty enthusiastic about this month’s Loot Anime. I’ve been wanting Food Wars! to be included, and I was not disappointed with this perfect tie-in to the show. Additionally, I started reading Sweetness & Lightning Vol. 1 as soon as it came out of the box, and found it so enjoyable that I found it not only great merchandise to include, but a thoughtful recommendation on the part of Loot Anime. New themed kitchenware is always appreciated, and I imagine I’ll find ways to use the Naruto ramen bowl as much as I can until I’m enamored of the novelty of another kitchen item. And with the Umaru-chan figure, the Gudetama plush, and the Delicious phone charm, there was enough cute in the box to satisfy anyone.

Loot Anime will close orders on the Delicious menu within two hours, but in a few days you can subscribe to next month’s Loot Anime.  If you’re a core Loot Crate subscriber, and received this month’s Horror crate, you can find the theme to next month’s Loot Anime advertised in the Loot Crate Magazine (or just click this hyperlink).

Loot Crate sent the review copy.

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