Blind Disappointment

Alright, so I had never done this before, and will likely never do it again. I've seen and heard a mixture of responses to loot crates, mystery boxes, and whatever other names might be given to a container of random junk. For me, a Halloween-themed variation sounded appealing, and the first to mention this to me was through an email from Crunchyroll.

Had I looked at the store page first, checked out the reviews, and delayed my decision to mull it over, I would have ignored this immediately. I didn't, the email skipped the store page entirely to take me to a processing step, and the only things to cross my mind were, "I wonder what sort of vinyl figurine I will be forced to give away," and, "I hope the imported candy will be an assortment of weird and unique flavors I can't find around here." For those of you who collect paper dolls, figurines, models, puppets, body pillows, or whatever the fuck else is available to the otaku community, you probably saw the word "vinyl" and know immediately what kind of toy it was. I didn't.

There are Funko Pop figurines of probably every fictional, nonfictional, and superstitional being to ever be conceived, and they are all as ugly as sin covered in shit and Pabst Blue Ribbon, which is also shit, but in its purest liquid form. Each one has the body proportions of Betty Boop and the cold, dead stare of ex-girlfriend who also happened to be an anthropomorphic shark... or maybe she was just a regular shark, but it was a rebound relationship for both of you, so I don't know why she hates you so much right now. I thought the break-up was mutual.

To add insult to the injury, only a few pieces of candy were of any value. Two of the... I think the promise was "Filled to the brim with snacks, exclusive items and other goodies for you, pay ONLY $50 for an $85 value!" Those are the words of Crunchyroll itself. The box I received was mostly empty, but I didn't genuinely believe it would "filled to the brim." I was, however, expecting to receive goodies that didn't amount to individually-wrapped sticks of regular gum, a bag with an entire THREE mints, and standardized options, like plain M&Ms and E.L. Fudge Cookies, except in much smaller amounts by companies that, I'm guessing, charge more for their versions of these snacks, because they come in a key-shaped package or resemble panda heads. In fact, the only treats I received that I was happy to have tried were a bag of puffs that I have no clue what they were suppose to taste like and a small glass bottle of matcha soda. That's the sort of stuff I wanted. I can buy chocolate and gum in any grocery store!

There was a promise for two CR exclusive items, but the only one I got was a metal pin of the site's orange logo. Perhaps the second item was the set of Crunchyroll Hime stickers that were already used on the damaged, near-empty box everything came in.

Gee, thanks a bunch!

The package also came with three Horror films from Asia: The Commitment, Witch Board (Bunshinsaba), and Red Eye. The highest score among them on IMDb is Witch Board with a whooping 5.8/10, and the reviews for each did little to raise my hopes.

Witch Board is also known as Ouija Board, since the story revolves around bullied teenagers trying to call upon a spirit to curse their classmates. Things go too far, there's a lot of fire, and the film's budget couldn't afford to hire an actual child to read the lines in the beach scene. I don't even know there was dialogue at all in that scene. Special effects took the form of setting stuff on fire and a long-haired girl slowly raising her head to reveal cloudy contact lenses. Oh, you get to see that a lot in this one. If you don't watch it, you won't be missing anything.

Red Eye takes place within a haunted train and centers around a newbie attendant who sees all sorts of spooky shit taking place around her. There are plenty of secondary characters receiving their fair share of the supernatural, but no one is really fleshed out, so watching somebody die probably won't leave much of an impact upon the viewer. The effects in this one are a heck of a lot better than in those found in the other two movies, but, using that logic, Roba is the best-looking member of the Problem Solverz, so interpret it however you want.

The final flick is easily the most boring. It tries to sell itself with three gory covers. This one is the least offensive, I think, and I remember seeing in in the movie. The other two, a girl with her mouth sewed together and the other holding her removed eyeballs in her hands, were nowhere to be seen, though I may have been yawning when they appeared.

The whole thing is about a group of cute girls making wishes at a haunted shrine and promising to do something in return for having their wishes granted. The wishes are silly and dumb, there are too many characters to care about, and scares are almost entire provided through bad dreams. The acting is comically atrocious, there are two scenes involving aggressive hair, and there's nothing cohesive about it. I don't even understand what the significance of the beginning was.

We sell movies of similar quality at the store, and those generally cost $5.99, unless they have a proven fan base or cult following. The figurine of L is $9.99, and good luck convincing me that tiny pin of the CR logo is worth more than five bucks, but we'll say $7.99 just to be generous. So, in all, I don't even believe the candy properly brought the value of this box up to the $50 I spent, let alone the $85 it promised itself to be worth. Was this the usual bad luck I experience on a daily basis, or are nearly all blind buys like this?

I found a link on Youtube to another sucker this year. Some of his candy is different, but otherwise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr2zMFeV1yk.

Really, I just wanted to try an assortment of rare candies. Maybe level up to 100 with them and become a competitive member of the community. I was already in a terrible mood this month. Chops, in particular, knows what I mean, so receiving this was especially disheartening.

In an attempt to end this on a positive note, I did manage to complete four "scary" games for the month, blog about them, and finally discovered a copy of Monster Party for a reasonable price at Lukie Games. Even with S&H, it was cheaper than the least expensive copy currently on Amazon.

To celebrate, here's the first and only remix I have ever found for the game: Bertn1991.

I hope everyone else had a Happy Halloween. I'm expecting the rest of this holiday season to be a bummer. Sigh... so much for positive.

**Update 11/7/17**

I just now received my shipping confirmation for my already-delivered package.

...fucking idiots.

**Update 11/8/17**

I was asked to review my purchase, but since that product was removed from the store about a week before Halloween, I won't know if it'll be posted next year or if it was automatically deleted.