Loot Crate Anime – April 2018

It’s been a minute since I’ve done one of these…Mostly because I haven’t received a crate in forever. To be perfectly honest with you all, I had forgotten that there was one crate left and it came as a complete surprise. I’m sort of glad I had forgotten about it since I probably would have canceled it otherwise.

This one arrived in mid May so I’m assuming it’s the April crate and the theme is Brave(?) As usual this is a very liberal, borderline esoteric interpretation of the theme but at this point, were you expecting anything else?

This was the last box of my subscription and I know there have been some changes in LootCrate’s subscription plan system. I’m not interested in next month’s box so I haven’t looked into it yet but I did end up enjoying quite a few items from my past boxes and I will still keep an eye on anything interesting that may come on sale.

First this I noticed is that the boxt was quite different then the ones I’m use to. The flat rectangular shape reminded me of getting books as gifts for Christmas when I was a kid. I like books a lot and often specifically requested them, but there’s still something rather anticlimactic about the shape…

The printed inside was nice enough. As you may know these boxes can be turned inside out and I’m thinking this will make a decent (if a little anticlimactic) gift box in the future so, score there. First time I’ve found use for the packaging.

There was no figure this time around, as you probably guessed, box ‘n all, but it was full of exclusive items.

Seven Deadly Sins Tote Bag

This is the second time I get an item from this franchise. A few months ago they had the piggie eraser that I use more as a figure. I’m not sure why this particular franchise is showing up more frequently. Maybe it’s more popular than I had realized. I still haven’t seen it yet.

I am getting good use out of the One Piece drawstring bag we got previously so I’m actually rather happy about this. I probably wouldn’t have bought it individually but I am certain I’ll be using it frequently so yay. It seems sturdy and the print is decent but the white on a flat green background scheme is pretty boring. I would have much preferred a full color version.

Fairy Tail Rhodonite Manga

Apparently this is an exclusive cover for this manga. I’ve been growing my Manga library lately so I’m pretty happy to get any but Fairy Tail would not have been my first choice. I do have a huge amount of Naruto and One Piece books cluttering up my bookcase already.

It’s a pretty average manga. Not the best quality the have had but fair. No colored pages and the paper is a little rough and yellowed. On the up side this is a stand alone spinoff which is rather nice. I can just jump right into it and I won’t need to buy hundreds of books to get the full story. I’ll let you guys know if it’s good!

Overlord Pin

Loot Anime have decent pins. Always metal with good needle placement and decent weight. Interesting designs you rarely see anywhere else. And this one is no exception but I’ve never seen Overlord and the picture isn’t something that I find that attractive out of context.

I have a feeling that wearing this would get me a lot of questions and I would constantly be explaining that I was wearing a pin for a show I hadn’t seen and I would feel stupid…Most likely this will go unused unless I find someone who’s interested in it.

Neon Genesis Evangelion Eva-01 T-Shirt

For the longest time I use to call this show Neo Genesis… Neon still sounds wrong to me. So far this is the first show I  care about and getting a t-shit rocks.

In fact, this may be a girl’s x-small because it actually fits. It’s not to tight but it doesn’t look like a sack on me. I was psyched! Maybe it’s just that it’s smaller? Here it is for comparison over my Steins;Gate T-shirt from the last box… Any of you know how I can shrink my Steins;Gate T-shirt?

In any case, as you can see it’s very purple (the only purple thing I own…) and soft. I do like it quite a bit. I wish all the previous T-shirts fit this well…

Assassination Classroom Lanyard and Poster

As some of you may know I am currently watching Assassination Classroom and I absolutely love it. But when this box was announced, I hadn’t seen it yet. Which is why I probably would have skipped it as Eva would have been the only franchise I knew I really liked. The Poster is nice but a little too cutesy for me to put up. Nevertheless I’m happy just having it cause I’m a child.

As for the lanyard, it was probably meant to be a filler item, (once again there is no phone charm here) but it’s in fact a very timely surprise. I go to a lot of conferences and have multiple work passes as such I wear a lanyard pretty much every day. My UbiSoft one broke a while ago and I am using a Crunchyroll one I got from a con at some point but it’s pretty boring and kind of dirty. I was actively looking to buy an anime lanyard but couldn’t find one I liked.

I am going to be wearing it at work so Fanservice Boys and Girls were not a good idea. This one is perfect. Fairly high quality, soft on the neck and really rather pretty. The stitching isn’t that great but otherwise it’s exactly what I wanted. I’m unreasonably happy about it.

As you can see, the items are actually pretty good. I’ll get a lot of use out of most of them and I’m happy to have them…but… This just doesn’t feel like it’s worth the price. Pretty much all their manga end up in their Loot Vault store and they regularly mark them down to a few bucks. For instance I got all these (Log Horizon is a light novel) for about 12 bucks in their last sale.

The tote and lanyard are fine but again these are smaller items that I wouldn’t really pay more than a few bucks for, which leaves the small pin and T-shirt. That just doesn’t seem like 50$ worth of Merch, especially as the understanding is that you are saving some money because you don’t get to chose your items.

If a future box with potentially exciting merchandise comes up I will order it to see if this trend of lower value items keeps up. There is something fun and exciting about the surprise though.