Onto part 2 of the FLCL ultimate edition box set review. Here’s the lowdown on the extras. To be honest with the relatively high cost per episode for this box set we really had better get something stuffed in the box that doesn’t suck. Let’s get right into it (for pictures, please refer to part 1):
FLCL guide book
I’ll start with the more obvious extra, the notes book. The book is bound in sturdy glossy paperboard with good semi-gloss stock for the internal content. The content inside consist of these sections:
*Not listed in the table of contents
The book looks great and has color deliniations for different sections. 67 pages of notes and commentary is pretty good. I also don’t know what the original guides from the regular single disc sales were, but they put together a nice booklet to accompany the set.
T-Shirt Post Card
As this suggests, you mail this in and the send you a t-shirt. I do not know what the design will look like, as they don’t seem to clue you in, and your only choices are sizes (S, M, L, and XL). No shipping and handling is required for the shirt.
Sticker Sheet
A sheet of stickers of FLCL and it’s associated kana in different forms of script. I feel a little old to stick these anywhere, or I just can’t think of where to stick them.
Postcard Set
6 post cards with pictures to correspond to each episode on the front, and song titles from popular music as well (thanks for pointing that out Crayotic Rockwell). I’m not sure if I really like the postcards all that much, but the song titles do have some relevance to the episode in question.
Silicone Bracelet
I didn’t take a picture of this before, but the set also includes a silicon bracelet with “Never Knows Best” engraved in it. The text is written in normal Sans Serif block lettering. It would’ve been cooler to have it match the text on Mamimi’s smokes, but you can’t have everything.
4th disc (the FLCL Test Type music video DVD)
I had at least one inquiry into this one. This disc contains six music videos with various scenes of the show with various full songs also featured in the show. It’s a cute extra, but some have said that the whole of FLCL itself is one big music video. Certainly you can look at it that way, or just enjoy some good music with some good animation with the full versions of the songs. This disc like the others contains outtakes and galleries as well.
Stuff spread across the three main discs
The actual episode discs contain director commentary tracks for all of the episodes, English voice actor commentary for three episodes, and storyboard comparisons.
With as minimal as some box sets are getting nowadays it’s nice to see some thing extra come with a full series. I’m not complaining about the other boxes, but like I said earlier, this set is a good chunk of change, and it’s not like it was less expensive if you bought individual discs at full retail price when they came out before. I don’t think any of the things included suck by any means, and I’m not underwhelmed.
The truly wonderful things about this series is the content. I’ll have more to say about that in Part 3. Stay tuned.
