Welcome to the first GEEKY SHIT post, where we’ll be taking a look at rare/interesting/geeky items! Our adventure through the endlessly inane items available for pop culture consumers like yourselves begins with Anime Limited‘s Gurren Lagann Ultimate Edition Blu-Ray Box Set!

Anime Limited (or All The Anime) are the talented folks behind some of the most excellent UK anime releases in recent years, covering everything from modern to classic anime, from Garden of Words to Cowboy Bebop. Their releases have been of higher quality than many of the other region B blu-ray anime, but often with a caveat. They’re great… as long as nothing goes wrong! Unfortunately, their first release of Cowboy Bebop had video and labelling errors (replacements are on their way) and their deluxe Durarara!! set had subtitle and menu errors, and the replacement discs are yet to be produced.

It seems like even this fantastic package couldn’t escape bug-free. Many people (I got lucky) had a skewed third plastic holder within the digipak. Small sections of footage in a few episodes had to be replaced by DVD footage due to gaps in the originals that were sent from Japan. Even with these issues (Anime Limited are replacing digipaks at no cost), it still stands as the definitive Gurren Lagann collection.

For those who never saw the craziness that was Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (the Japanese title), it offered silly robot battles and SO MANY DRILLS. Released in 2007, it stood as a comedy-centric counter-point to the philosophical Neon Genesis: Evangelion, Gainax’s other giant robot adventure.

Fundamentally, it tells the story of humanity, as it faces hostility by aliens piloting giant robots. Forced underground, there are entire villages who no longer believe that a world above ground exists. The show follows Simon and Kamina as they find their own mecha and turn it on the aliens, only to find out their Gunman (mecha) has the power to assimilate others, growing bigger (and more ridiculous) with each encounter. The show is fun, silly, and often packs an emotional punch, despite the crazy places it goes for its endgame. 27 episodes were created, along with 2 movies and a whole bunch of OVA’s. All that content is included in this release.

In fact, this limited run is the only place you’ll find many of the bonuses, which won’t be included in the future regular editions of Gurren Lagann.

What’s included in the Ultimate Edition? Everything.

Packaging:

• Sleeve around box with ratings and information
• Clean box using Japanese Deluxe Edition artwork
• 4-tray digipack (holding 6 discs)
• Art card with your individual number on it (out of 2000)
• A5 hardcover 100 page artbook

On the discs:

• TV Series, Episodes 1-27 in HD
• TV broadcast version of Episode 6 (which differed from the intended episode due to the child-friendly time slot it was moved to)
• Film 1: Childhood’s End
• Film 2: The Lights in the Sky Are Stars
• Parallel Works (15 OVA’s)

Extras:

• Yoko goes to Gainax bonus feature
• Sazigen 3DCG Test Animation Footage
• From storyboard to animation featurette, including animated storyboards
• Clean Opening 1
• Clean Ending 1
• Clean Opening 2
• Clean Ending 2
• Music montage from end of the first half of the show

Audio:

• English dub – 5.1 track
• Japanese audio – 2.0 track
• French audio – 2.0 track

Subtitles:

• English subtitles
• English song/sign tracks
• French subtitles

As you can see, this is the FULL PACKAGE. If you’re a fan of the show, you’ve probably already hit the store to order your copy. It can be purchased from Amazon or Zavvi.

The quality of each component really is top notch. The cardboard case is the sturdiest of any of those in my collection, and the binding and cover art on the art book go above and beyond. You can tell this geeky shit was made by geeky geeks.

Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got just shy of 1000 minutes of silly robot action to watch!

A comparison with some of Anime Limited’s other releases