I tried searching because I thought such a topic exists, but didn't find it, so sorry!

I've decided to limit my collecting of my favorite movies/anime/music on LD mostly to items I'll want to ritually open and appreciate for the goodies inside before putting the disc in, maybe enjoying bonus discs w/ interviews not on DVD, and maybe getting extra copies for decorations. But it's hard to both search out the 1,000s of movies, etc. I like and then see if any special editions were released, etc.

My collection is small, but the three best sets/extras I have are Perfect Blue, The Arrival special edition, and the Japanese Twin Peaks full episodes set. Of these, for extras Perfect Blue ranks #1 for me, besides loving Kon Satoshi. The box is worth framing, there's an extras disc, a huge 20-ish-page booklet, character sheet, original cel and sketch from the movie, and 2 frames of film.

I don't have many Japanese boxsets. Ghost in the Shell and Dune are missing some things. Evangelion the movie boxset is complete as are the the 3 boxsets for the entire show. So in my small collection I would say Eva and Nadia Complete collection because I found one with the transport box.

As far as US releases boxsets my favorite would Nightmare Before Christmas with the book.

I have only one PAL release and that is my favorite set release of Jurassic Park. I can't play PALs but I do have JP on DTS LD and BD.

This box has the most physical extras I ever came across:
Neon Genesis Evangelion: The Movie: Limited Box (1997) [KILA 9401~4]
Made of pure win and super awesome, if you like anime you should have this in your collection.
Also, I wonder how this managed to get a rot report...

Agreed with Lons_vex (and xtempo), the Evangelion Movie collection is probably my favorite box set released on any format.

Kudos to Pioneer Japan for keeping the design consistent from the simple CLV release Perfect Blue: Regular Edition (1997) [PILA-99001] from September 1998, to the CAV boxset Perfect Blue: Special Collection Box (1997) [PILA-9002] and DVD release [PIBA-3001] from December 1998.



Julien

There honestly aren’t a lot of [edit: anime] LD sets with bonus junk. There are a lot of nice sets but they very much focus on the actual contents and not the figurines and other BS that inflates the size and price to even huger heights. Most of the time when you bought a giant box set in one or two parts for like $800 and it was made to contain 49 episodes of something that’s literally all you got. Printed inserts are usually pretty good with a TV series often containing design works and such…but rarely anything unknown to people who buy anime art books. Movies typically have next to nothing printed extra.

With anime in particular budgets were minuscule. There was almost never extra time and money to shoot Making Of segments along side a show where they worked 90 hours a week for less than minimum wage. Theatrical trailers for feature films are often included. Sometimes you get TV CM for related toys and such. Very very short clips.

Some LDs come with CDs but again this is rare. Anime CDs were expected to get their $20 each all on their own and OSTs were often handled by a different publisher than the video so don’t count on seeing this very often.

The bonus heap was a thing invented mostly during the DVD era, very rare in the 80s and early 90s. Since most early DVDs were simply transfers of LD era home video releases, often the LD version’s bonus became the DVD’s bonus so trying to find actual exclusive to LD bonus stuff on anime LDs that has never been reproduced in a newer format…well, it’s going to be a short list. The stuff that had international money and was aimed at world release will have more stuff such as Ghost in the Shell and Perfect Blue but I don’t really know how much of that stuff is exclusive to LD. The OVA Birth has a good Making Of, it may only be on the reprint. I think it ended up on the DVD though…

For a long time one of the best “Easter eggs” on LD was the Miyazaki directed pilot film for Little Nemo but that’s been on Blu-ray for ages now so the LD is less entrancing. Often AMV releases stayed on LD but then how bad do you really want that stuff?

From a collecting perspective I think there are probably more LD exclusive anime than there are LD exclusive bonus segments. I’m pretty sure this a true now that I think about it…

LD is a good format for watching, is what I’m saying, not as good for framing or hunting for lost media.

I quite like the releases that come with the original novel or a soundtrack CD, not the most exciting pack-ins but fun nonetheless.

Phantasm, Jaws (even though the book is BS) and Schindler's List come to mind from my personal collection.

This is an interesting comment (and I know that this is off-topic). Do you mean, because of the sex stuff in it? Or, something else/other things? Putting completely irrelevant sex sub-plots in novels seemed to be very common in the 1970s. Of the movie versions, The Towering Inferno is the only one that I can think of, that kept some of those parts in it. (I never read "Earthquake", if it was a book first, but it would probably count here, too.)

Gettysburg: Collector's Edition is a really nice box set. Has extras like a replica period map of Gettysburg, PA, a minier ball (a bullet) replica, Soundtrack CD, book and portraits of some of the Generals involved. All the extras make the box a bit larger than most box sets! Biggest downside is that the film itself, while being the extended cut that ran on TNT over several days, has a horrible transfer. Almost like it was recorded off of TV to VHS then transferred to LD!

My Fair Lady: 30th Anniversary Edition has a Gold CD soundtrack, some costume design prints, the book and clips of a 70mm reel of the film.

The CAV box set of Tenchi Muyo! In Love had some ok physical extras like a fan and a bunch of fake sakura petals. However, I guess you could include this a physical extra as the supplementary disc is not only gold, but the non-program side has "Pit Art" of the characters on it.

For me the best extra in box sets, collector's or special editions etc. is the packaging itself. I just love when the packaging is so well made that I can feel the passion the creators put into it.

Well, its a good thing you live in Japan.
There are a lot of Japanese box sets that have cool features, maps, model kits, CDs, phone cards, key chains, segments of film and more.
This takes a lifetime of collecting to find these features, luckily you are in Japan so you can find them easier.
Some USA sets as posted have CDs, books, scripts.

Overall Japanese discs have more and there are more sets with goodies.
If you are getting an anime series, its unlikely that you will have extras of scenes. Anime films will have making of but in Japanese only.

Since you know of films you want, search them up and decide if they are worth the risk, otherwise search up everything and find the
extras!!!!!!

The beautiful original artwork done for many anime LD jackets/boxes/booklets is probably my favorite thing.

I have Slayers: TV 1st Season LD Box (1995) [KILA 9076~82], it's about the only box I have with non-media extras. I could do without its little trinkets though.

The PC-98 disk included with Sol Bianca (1990) [N60L-13] is kind of a neat idea, but I don't have a PC-98 and the content doesn't seem to be anything too special.

I wish more LD boxes included records, even though I didn't get my own record player until long after I had a LD player. The record included with Record of Lodoss War: OAV Box (1990) [VILF-150~6] (I wonder if the idea for to include it was inspired by English title) doesn't sound great since it's a picture disk and seems to come from a 44.1kHz master (if Spek's analysis is any indication), but I still like listening to it.

In the 80s/90s the idea of including a record in an LD box…when CDs exist…and LD players play CDs…would have seemed pretty ridiculous. It being a picture disc is its only justification for existing. There was nearly zero vinyl in production in Japan after 1990 or so, probably even earlier. The only record pressed in Japan that I own from the entirety of the 90s is a Boredoms 12”, which is also a picture disc.