02. MONSTA X Haul

CURRENT MUSIC: MONSTA X / Trespass
CURRENT MOOD: Bleh

This honestly wasn't supposed to be a major haul or anything. All I did was order the limited edition (I don't know if that's what it's actually called, but that what I'm calling it) of MONSTA X's Shine Forever album repackage. I knew it was going to come with some goodies, but I was not expecting it to be THIS much stuff. Add that to the fact that I also ordered two other MONSTA X items, there was a lot in the small package UPS dropped off this past Monday. Oh, and I've still got a poster on the way. If the store I ordered this from ever decides to ship it.




I'll start with the Shine Forever repackage. I went all out (or should I say All In?) and bought the $48.99 one. I'll be honest, I was a bit shocked at that price for a K-pop album. I mean, K-pop albums have always been pretty cheap, about the same price as albums you'd buy in the US (fancier though), and definitely not as much as a typical Japanese album. the GazettE's DOGMA limited edition was like $100. I can say with confidence that there is probably (at least in my mind) $100 worth of stuff in this album repackage.

This version comes with two CDs. Yes, two copies of the same Shine Forever CD. From my understanding, who you get on the CD is random. The Shine Forever version had Jooheon on it and The Complete X-Clan version had Shownu. The Shine Forever version comes in a little paper jacket while X-Clan version slips into a slot in the back of the X-Clan photo book.

And now on to the photo books. You get two: Shine Forever and The Complete X-Clan.

The Shine Forever photo book contains photos (duh) of all of the members and has the lyrics for the album's tracks on the last few pages. The photos all share the same aesthetic and include individual and group photos. The book is a full-sized book and measures at about 7"x9" (186x235mm). This book is quite thinner than the X-Clan book at 88 pages.

The X-Clan photo book has the same dimensions as the Shine Forever books, but clocks in at 148 pages. In addition to photos of the members you also get descriptions of music video concepts and member interviews. This book also contains the lyrics to the songs on the album.

Okay, CDs and photo books. None of these were a surprise, though I was a bit surprised at how thick the books were. The real bonus content comes in the form of...

STICKERS. Forgive me as this photo was taken after I had made use of some of the stickers. You get two pages of stickers that have the members' names on them. That seemingly blank sheet of paper behind the purple-lettered stickers has the same stickers, but they're white on a white background so they're hard to see, even in person. I would imagine that they would pop on a colored background. You also get a sticker of each group member and then one group photo sticker.

You also get two small posters, random. I got Kihyun and Hyungwon. There's also a folding mini poster, which is the photo beneath the two posters. Each member photo is perforated and after debating for a long time, I decided took mine apart. 

You can see above that I already made use of some of the stuff that came with this album. My notebook for this upcoming school year is MORE THAN READY. I wanted that Jooheon photo on my notebook, so that's why I went ahead and separated the folding mini poster. The missing purple stickers are also on the notebook. I also got two (I believe random) photo cards: one of which is like the cutest photo I have seen of Wonho ever, and then one of Hyungwon (his was good too, don't get me wrong, but Wonho's expression was killing me). I also got this fancy plastic photo card of Kihyun with the Beautiful aesthetic.

I really wasn't expecting to get this much stuff! I was flipping through the photo books and all this stuff just kept falling out! After seeing everything that was included, $48.99 was a really good price.

The extra bonuses I ordered along with the CD were a slogan towel and some photo cards.

The towel has all seven members on it, but lack of space forced me to fold it in order to take this photo. It came in a plastic bag similar the kind of bag my shirt from their concert in Dallas came in, but with no sticker or anything. It's a lot longer than it is wide and is more like a scarf than a towel. Also, it's like this really soft polyester material. My only complaint is because of how it was folded, there's this really deep crease right in the middle of my Joohoney's beautiful face (T.T)

 

Now on to the photo cards I ordered separately. This was a pack of 30 photo cards. I don't believe the actual dimensions of the cards was disclosed on the website, so these were a bit smaller than I had anticipated. They're about the size of a business card. You get a nice array of group and two individual photos of each member. These cards also can function like memos since there's a little design on the back of each card and To:... section on the back. There's also nice MX logo in the bottom corner of each card.

All and all, I'm very happy with everything I ordered. MX also came out with a DVD set recently and while I realized this was big repackage for their first album, I more than convinced to go ahead and order the rest of their mini-albums. They're bound to come with at least some photos, right? I don't know if this is the joy of being into a group that's still pretty new and really at the peak of their popularity at the moment, but all this available stuff that just came out is blowing my mind (and would be blowing my bank account if I wasn't a responsible as I am...yeah, I couldn't even type that with a straight face). I mean, when I was really into TVXQ!, they were in the middle of that lawsuit and their last Korean release was almost a year old. And the Japanese stuff... it's expensive. And while the GazettE's DOGMA and Beautiful Deformity limited editions were nice, and I realize they aren't a boy band idol group like MX by any means, but would it be so much to ask for more photos of my Gazeboys? I have physical copies of all of their albums and NONE of those had a SINGLE photo of anyone, with the exception of BEAUTIFUL DEFORMITY and DOGMA.

But, yeah, I'm done ranting. If anyone is curious where I ordered this stuff from, I got it from a Korean music shop called Music Plaza (music-plaza.com). They're based in LA, so if you're in the US and don't want to worry about international shipping/costs, I recommend them. HOWEVER. Their shipping has recently gone through the roof. I had to pay nearly $30 for UPS Ground shipping, and the box only weighed 3 pounds and was pretty small. I don't know what happened, but that was the most I'd ever spent on shipping from them (and that was the cheapest option). Also, if you order something that comes with a poster, you will probably have to hound them for it. It's been almost two weeks since they shipped my CD and still no word regarding my poster. This is currently the second time I've had a poster take 2-3 weeks longer to ship than the CD...