The tenth episode of Loot Anime x Crunchyroll, “Back to School”—which promised those who paid their Loot tuition a packed program comprised of Assassination Classroom, Danganronpa, Digimon Adventure, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Persona 3, and Fruits Basket—has arrived. This month, Loot Anime stuffed their crate with the “more is more” principle, immediately bringing to mind the crammed desks, backpacks, and lockers of school children.
The “Back to School” crate becomes a school desk
Now, I might be biased—my Assassination Classroom appreciation can be seen in reviews of volume 4 and volume 9—but my favorite this month was the Exclusive Assassination Classroom Whiteboard from Infinifan.
Not only can I make Koro Sensei embarrassed, angry, and green with envy or sickness with the three mood magnets, but I can feed him pithy remarks, or Liz Lemon or Charlie Brown quotes.
The exclusive Revolutionary Girl Utena Bento Box made by The Coop is an outstanding piece as well. While we already have a few bento boxes around here, and a few collectible lunchboxes, this is our first bento box with collectible character art on it. And it stacks up well compared to other bento boxes, with two food compartments as well as a utensil tray that, while it comes with two chopsticks, looks deep enough to hold a fork. On a side note, our interest in this item led my daughter and I to start the Revolutionary Girl Utena anime on Hulu, and we were mesmerized by the melodramatic storybook presentation. That’s quite a series of boxes in which the classic anime content was gift-wrapped, if you come to think of it: a bento box in a subscription box led us to the “box” in the living room to watch the first episode of Revolutionary Girl Utena, and the series of three boxes is, figuratively speaking, also a conceptual puzzle box. This is yet another example of the geniuses at Loot Crate carefully curating their content for the best possible subscriber experience.
More straightforward is this exclusive Danganronpa Cosplay Tie from Black Tie Geek with which you’ll be able to fit in with the well-dressed kids in the video game and anime adaptation. While it’s described as a cosplay tie, it’s not staunchly conservative like a solid black tie, and here in the United States you could probably wear it to school, work, or formal affairs with most not even giving the red symbol on its front a second thought, and the in-crowd of anime and gaming friends giving you a nod or a fist bump.
This exclusive Digimon Adventure Tri Print Set from Loot Anime Labs depicts the franchise’s digital monsters and human partners in three colorful scenes. It’s a nice set of prints on high quality card stock and color fade transitions between shades of blue on one card and pink on another.
Here’s this month’s Loot Anime Phone Charm, as well as the exclusive Fruits Basket Figure Keychain Set from A Crowded Coop. These are extremely nice anime bling items for you to adorn your phone or keys. The Fruits Basket Figures are sold in vending machines in Japan, where it can be hard to get the whole set, but Loot Anime subscribers are spared the disappointment of getting repeats and get them all at once. Can I just say that compared to the bric-a-brac that my kids get from U.S. vending machines, the paint jobs on these tiny figures is so much better?
The manga in this month’s box is Persona 3 Volume 1 in an exclusive soft cover edition from Udon Entertainment. As the Loot Anime will arrive prior to Udon’s North American mass market release of the Persona 3 manga, this is the true first edition. I’ve read the majority of this prior to writing this review, and it adheres to my manga preferences so far, letting the art speak for itself whenever possible through understated action, and not making the common mistake of using dialogue as a parallel commentary on the action. The characters are also more developed than I’ve come to expect from adaptations of video games, and instead of wasting valuable time arguing for its mythology, the series states its premises quickly as axiomatic and inarguable facts. Most Looters will enjoy the Persona 3 manga without any experience of its video game tie-in, and those that played the 2007 video game may also get the bonus of waxing nostalgiac while reminiscing of game play past.
Loot Anime’s tenth collection was not only a superb collection of exclusiive shelf candy, but some of it also has utility. I’ve already put the Assassination Classroom dry erase whiteboard on our refrigerator, and we’ll probably use the Revolutionary Girl Utena bento box in day trips to museums and parks. Registration for the “Back to School” Loot Anime has closed, but if you like what you see here and in our review of last month’s crate, “Squadron,” you can subscribe to Loot Anime through this hyperlink.
Loot Crate provided the review copy.
