(Photo above was taken by myself)
To be honest, I never heard or knew that there were companies out there that actually send or have these monthly mystery box subscriptions. For the longest time, I always wanted to get clothes, keychains, posters, manga etc. related to Anime, especially my favorite ones, but never really knew where I could get all of this for a decent price.
At first, I was only made aware of this about 3-4 months ago when an acquaintance reconnected with me and sent me a photo of a really cool marvel superhero shirt they got from a company called “LootCrate.”
I then proceeded to ask them: “A loot crate? What is that?” There response was a shocked surprise emoji face. They explained that “LootCrate” is basically a company that pack or send a variety of products such as t-shirts, action figures, notebooks, keychains etc. to subscribers in a decent sized box or “crate.”
The idea is that in each “LootCrate” or box you get more in retail value than what you pay for the subscription (how this exactly works is beyond me). Basically, imagine if you pay $30.00 a month for a “loot crate” the total retail value of the products in the “crate” would or should be worth above $30.00 every month.
However, you don’t just get one product. You actually get multiple.
So after hearing about this, I do what I always do before buying or looking into purchasing products: research.
I went onto Google.com and just simply typed in “Anime Loot Crate” and other various key terms. I came across a bunch of different company websites, but more importantly I came across some blog posts about the different rates and subscriptions. These were extremely helpful in helping me make my decision to subscribe to “LootAnime” and to “Lootaku.”
What I loved about doing research on this was watching videos of “spoilers” and unboxing as well as viewing some of the past products that they have had in the past.
I happen to like “LootCrate” better simply because they actually have multiple “lootcrates” they don’t just only have one for anime. They actually have LootGaming crates and even one’s for specific video games along with apparel crates as well.
They also tend to have and be more willing to have special offers, sales, and discounts.
LootAnime also has monthly themes making it all the more interesting. In fact, they actually design the inside of the LootAnime box making it interesting and even considering it may be worth to save the whole box! Below is the Loot anime August 2017’s “Work For It” inside crate box design:
Lootaku on the other hand doesn’t really offer any discounts and is more expensive. However, the look of their box is in that of a treasure chest, which just makes it all the more fun and pleasing to get and unlock. Just imagine coming home to find this treasure chest looking box at your front door or outside your apartment door! But the inside look is just that of a simple ordinary cardboard box.
Another big difference between these two companies is that “LootCrate” actually has and sends out surveys asking questions such as “How would you rate your overall experience with the (name of month’s theme) crate?” and other such question; whereas Lootaku doesn’t even offer surveys for the subscribers.
Lastly, it appears that LootAnime crates gives you a variety of products such as T-Shirts, Manga, action figures/figurines and so on. Lootaku’s September box (the first one from my subscription), on the other hand only came with action figures (at least so far). (I actually haven’t fully opened or used the products yet, since they are so precious to me! I also have siblings and don’t want them to destroy or break them, especially the action figures!).
I also found the Hello Subscription and My Subscription Addiction websites to be useful and has a variety of a list of different anime monthly loot boxes that are out their as well as photos of past products and themes.
Though I don’t know and never subscribed to any other anime monthly subscription service, I feel it is important for me to include some of the others for others to make a better decision on what they want or looking for. Here is a list of company websites along with their current standard prices (not including shipping and handling):
Loot Anime – $26.95 USD for 1 month
$25.95 USD for 3 month
$24.45 USD for 6 month
$23.95 USD for 12 month
Anime Bento– $35.00 USD for month-to-month
$99.00 USD for every 3 month
$180.00 for every 6 month
$360.00 USD for every 12 months
Akibento– $23.95 USD per month
$23.50 per every 3 months
$23.00 USD per every 6 months
Lootaku– $44.95 USD auto-renews every month
$132.00 USD auto-renews every 3 months
$257.00 USD auto-renews every 6 months
addvganimer.wordpress.com 
The way it works economically is the stuff still in the warehouse that didn’t get sold in the region is instead sent to the crate company instead of taking up need space. So they get items at less than market value
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