The French market for anime has proven to be a healthy one for decades already, with many series and films getting decent releases there while English speaking territories still had to wait for years. Check how fast the French were onto Studio Ghibli, for example.
You'd almost forget that the French also have their OWN animation industry, one which also makes the occasional foray into adult entertainment. In 2016, a 26-episode French series called
Lastman aired, based on a popular series of graphic novels (themselves heavily influenced by 80s and 90s anime, so the circle is round). In it, a lazy bouncer is suddenly targeted by other-dimensional forces, and has to take custody of a very special orphan. Brutal fisticuffs and fantasy ensue.
Wild Side Video is a favorite distributor of ours (
check what they did with Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer for example), and it has now released the
Lastman series in an incredibly lush edition, one which sports English (and Spanish) subs and even an optional English dub. Parbleu!
It also has a kick-ass artbook and some physical extras, so here is a gallery of shots. Click on the edge of the pictures to scroll through them, or at the center of each to see a bigger version.
Here it is: a big black box.
The box is pretty damn stacked: you get the series on Blu-ray and DVD, a vinyl 45 rpm single of one of the character's pop-hits, two reversible posters, a small flip-book one of the characters uses in the series, and a big artbook.
All contents opened: I had to move furniture to display it all.
The backside of the Blu-ray digipak.
The reversible sides of the posters.
This is the flipbook. Let the pages slide past your thumb with a "frrrrrrrrrp" noise, and you see a small animation of a penguin who tries to catch a fish.
This is the artbook. It's big, and floppy, and contains over 160 pages.
You get pretty much everything in here: designs, animation breakdowns, backgrounds, character explanations... the works! This is an excellent extra for fans of the series, and my main reason for buying this edition. It's in French, but 99% of it is about the pictures.
The (back)end of a fine release!
As a colIector, I'll keep checking out what Wild Side Video has on their agenda...