Let's cut to the chase. :) Here is the "unboxing" of Kalafina's After Eden album. The packaging is pretty standard stuff from Japan. Relatively nice compared to many of my non-Japanese cds in my music collection. You get a slip case, the CD, a bonus DVD, a booklet with the lyrics and a bonus photo booklet. The photos are really quite nice and will please any fan. The quality of the paper is nice, stiff and a little glossy but not too glossy.Overall mostly cooler colours were used for the album art. The bonus photo booklet has several photos with warmer colour tones but the actual album and its insert booklet uses a colour palette that was in general cooler with just itty bits of a warmer colour, like red, to break it up a bit and give it life. It's nice... I like the different costume / art direction that they took. If they were looking to go in a different direction with the music, it made sense to move away from the Gothic, Romani, Eastern European feel of their previous image. This feels more like classical English maybe???? I don't know, I can't say for sure except that it's not Eastern European influenced... I was terrible at my classical art / music / literature class... I barely passed it :) Except for some of the accessories, the overall look doesn't look as Romani influenced and certainly not as dark as their previous image. This look does fit in better with the greater number of breezier, cheerier songs in this album.
Overall, I rather like the art / costume design of their current album and image. The Gothic, Romani, Eastern European style seems to be quite popular in Japan and it's nice that they are breaking away from that and taking a direction that is a little bit more unique. I don't know that much about fashion... I am part of the "T-Shirts and jeans" are always in fashion crowd :) ... but to my limited knowledge, this new image is not that common in Japan.
The mouse pad is okay. If you're a rabid fan... then go for it. I am a rabid fan so I did want the limited first press edition so I could get the mouse pad. But seriously, this isn't a mouse pad most people could use and perhaps, it was never meant for using. I know, even if it were bigger, I probably wouldn't have used it anyway. :) Given the nature of the material that mouse pads that aim to be somewhat usable are made from, the printing on the mouse pad isn't that sharp. The colours are a little muted and there is a matte finish and the surface is textured. This collectable is pretty much strictly something I think only fans will really like.
If you're a fan and can afford it, I do encourage you to pick up the Limited Edition because it does come with the very nice 40 page photo booklet and a bonus DVD that doesn't just simply contain one PV. The DVD contains both the symphonia PV as well as footage of their trip to the Anime Expo in LA this year. It's a nice bonus for fans. Personally, I think that if you like Kajiura Yuki and Kalafina, the After Eden album is worth getting. The music is good and the packaging of the CD is nice.
Here are the links to getting the album if you are interested. These are CDJapan links... other places like playasia, yesasia, Amazon Japan, HMV Japan etc will also offer these cds.
After Eden [w/ DVD, Limited Edition] 
After Eden [Regular Edition]And finally... here are the photos of the "unboxing".... sorry... the composition of the photos etc looks very uninspired to me and I really should have shot a few more photos of the inside of the booklets.... I was kind of tired when I shot them and I'm too lazy to shoot better ones. :p
That's it from me for tonight. Have a good week everyone. :) Time for bed... good night. :)
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