I don’t do Black Friday—at least not in the way I used to. Several years back, I was in the crowds, getting in line early for all the deals, but I don’t do that anymore. Nowadays, I usually go later in the day and evening and pick up just a few items, and rarely any extravagant. And I definitely don’t usually buy anime stuff—I don’t typically think of Black Friday as a time when anime is particularly on sale (if anything, Right Stuf has me trained to consider December the month for that). However, @mdmrn pointed me toward the Sentai Filmworks sale that’s been going on, which has had me spending a few bucks on DVDs this week (he also posted about Cyber Monday deal—Matthew is all over the good anime purchases!).
The collection I was most excited about buying was Azumanga Daioh ($4.99), a series I’ve been wanting to own for years. It hasn’t been available for streaming online for a very long time (ever?), which kills me because I frequently get the itch to watch it and want to share the series with my family. And speaking of my wife and kids, I also purchased seasons one and two of Chihayafuru ($6.99), a favorite of ours. I’m always afraid these great series will go out of print or otherwise become too expensive to own (looking right at you Honey and Clover), so this was a preemptive buy of sorts.
Garden of Words ($3.99) is frequently on sale, but I’ve never pulled the trigger on it. Earlier this year, I watched about half of it on Amazon Prime, and intended to return to it, but found that it left the service. So I decided to buy it and complete the film. I also purchased Mawaru Penguindrum ($4.99) volume two to complete my collection of that series, and The Perfect Insider ($4.99) for largely the same reason I bought Chihayafuru.
These DVDs are effectively my wife’s Christmas present to me this year, one of those “You buy, I’ll wrap” kind of deals, and they’ll accompany a couple other buys this Christmas season, though those other purchases aren’t DVDs. A Kahamigara Nadeshiko nendoroid (Yuru Camp) is currently headed my way out of Tokyo—I’m so excited to get it! I also placed and order on the reissue of Yuigahama (Oregairu), joining the matching Yukino I already own.
But enough about my purchases—what about you? Did you get any any anime stuff on Good Friday? Do you plan on buying any anime goods for yourself or others this holiday season? Let us know in the comments below!
I’ve contemplated buying one of the light novels you guys read for my Kindle, but never actually pulled the trigger on one. That’s about as close as I’ve come to buying anything anime-related. So, total noob sez assist meh plz. Speaking as someone who has never bought anime stuff, where are good places to shop for such things, should I someday want to see what sort of stuff is available? What kinds of anime-related items does one commonly buy?