Well, not exactly, but this one shot of Oguie’s bookcase in the first episode of the new Genshiken is pretty weird. Those DVDs on the same shelf as the Hi-Fi are pretty specifically UK editions – you can even see the BBFC logos replicated on them. Some of the content looks to be a little esoteric as well – the Aliens Quadrilogy boxset should be obvious, as should the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood. Next to the Torchwood to the right seem to be a volume of Classic Doctor Who (the silver bannered packaging is pretty distinctive), a couple of volumes of New Who and a bunch of stuff I just can’t make out.

To the right of the Aliens box is what looks to be the Gremlins Collection boxset and what is the really odd thing here – Bo Selecta.

The thing to bear in mind here is that any of these appearing on Oguie’s bookself is kind of weird in itself – if it’d been Ohno, who had spent some time in the US, it’d maybe make more sense, but despite the fact that the UK shares it’s DVD region with Japan, these would still be PAL disks in English. That any of these things are there is a little odd, even if they are likely ludicrously cheap in comparison to buying Japanese media.

Bo Selecta, though, is particularly esoteric British comedy that, honestly, most people over here probably don’t even find particularly funny a lot of the time, although it was pretty darn popular for a while. How it ended up in the show is anybodies guess – is there a fan on the staff? Did they copy the bookcase off another show? Was someone simply trawling Amazon or the rest of the internet for weird BD covers to use?

I’ve no idea, but just the fact that they’re there is kind of interesting to me.

In related news, I guess someone stole the mikan box which used to be kept on-top of the clubroom fridge in prior installments of the show. Dang.

Also, although I’ve been picking up the manga as it’s being released in English, this all honestly feels like an entirely unnecessary production. I guess the fact that I’m still buying the manga, and watched even just this first episode of the anime, validates it as an exercise in existence – there’s still money to be milked from it – but I’m not sure I’m going to be able to deal with the new voice of Madarame. Not that there’s anything particularly wrong about the new VA in isolation, and I’m not having any issues with the other changes, but Hiyama was so distinctive in the role that it’s causing an awful lot of dissonance for me that’s proving tricky to overcome.