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Viewster Omakase Kill la Kill Box Review

Date: 2015 November 24 17:19

Posted by Joe

The good folks from streaming anime company Viewster have just sent us a complementary Omakase box to review. The service itself is an interesting one. You pay $29 USD (plus shipping and handling, which we're told is $19 USD to the UK, brining it up to $48 USD) for a 2 months on-line access to Viewsters HD ad-free anime streaming service, plus they'll send you a box full of goodies. Currently the service is available in the US, Canada and the UK. For UK based readers the customs charges are already factored into the shipping and handling costs, so the price you pay to ship is the price you'll pay to receive the anime goodies.

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The box measures about 32 cm wide by 9.5 cm high and 24.5 cm deep. Viewster have clearly put effort in the packaging, as it features their own box design. The exterior shell of the box is light blue with the logo of a present on a sushi tray. This is in keeping with their the theme of omakase taken from the concept from sushi restaurants, where you let the chief pick for you, in other words "I'll leave it up to you".

The inside of the box features colour anime-equese pictures of the heads of chibi girls and boys, cats, onigri, magical girl wands, robots, katana and the Omakase Logo. The tissue paper it's wrapped in features a similar design.

On opening the box the first thing that hits you is that it's packed to the brim.

The top of the box is the Omakase menu card, one side has a picture with lots of the characters on The rear has all the text it introduces Kill La Kill and gives a rundown of the merchandise included in the box.

One thing we did notice is that someone at Viewster has taken their time to write decent copy for the menu card. With stuff like this it would have been easy to include a paper print out just listing the items. Instead they've taken the time to make a card with an amusing description for each item and explain if it's an exclusive or not.

Omakase Box 1: Kill la Kill : Gold Foil Manga

Given first billing is the Kill La Kill Manga Volume 1. This is a special Gold Foil Hard Cover edition, only available exclusively in this Omakase box. The menu card explains that only one run of this edition will ever be produced. It's shiny, it's golden. It's got a nice big hardback cover.

Next up on the menu card is the Senketsu Scarf. Produced by merchandising company Great Eastern. It's red, and another Omakase exclusive.

It's made from some sort of (undeclared) synthetic fibre, and has Senketsu's Eye in one corner. It's perfect for those Kill la Kill cosplayers out there.

The Mako Towel takes up about half of box. It's described as follows:
"Wipe away your blood sweat, tears and croquette crumbs with this stylish Mako Mankanshoku towel!" The card goes on to explain that the Omakase box has the first run of these 100% cotton towels and they'll won't be released to anyone else until next year. They're fairly big towels. Measuring at about 68 cm x 144 cm, it's more of a beach / ornamental towel.

Also included are a pair of Mitsu Boshi Wristbands, an appropriate wristband tie-in. Again produced by Great Eastern.

Finally on the menu card is a pair of Guts Buttons (or pin badges depending on which country you're from). It's a small badge with a picture of Guts the dog.

Is it worth the money? Well you're paying $29 USD for $60+ of merchandise. Certain items such as the manga would retail for $12.99 by itself for the standard edition, the gold foil edition is an Omakase exclusive. The Senketsu Scarf is also an amusing addition for cosplayers and fans alike. While you also get access to Viewster's ad free HD streaming service (currently an Omakase box subscription is the only way to do so). It all really comes down to how much merchandise would you like in your anime collection? Omakase does exactly what it says, they'll pick some merchandise for you with each box having a particular theme. Just like in a sushi restaurant, it can be a lucky dip, you'll get some interesting exclusives plush some items you never knew existed or maybe wouldn't normally get.

When we first heard of the merchandise box subscription service concept we were cynical. We saw it as a way for companies to off-load items they've overstocked on or simply can't sell. This is not what Viewster are doing. They've gone out of their way to produce exclusive items or get early access to certain merchandise. As the shows they're dealing with are new, it's too soon for things to be overstocked, it's all very fresh. They've provided an interesting selection of things. We'll be very curious to see what goodies they have in their upcoming boxes.

Source: Otaku News

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