Taking a Look at the 25th Anniversary “Rockcan”

It’s finally out; one of the most expensive Mega Man collector’s items you’ll ever come by: the “Rockcan Sound E Can”. This puppy comes with ten discs for each of the ten main series Mega Man games (and then some). And, it costs a whopping ¥14,700 (roughly $188 US – oh my!).
I’m guessing a lot of you likely aren’t picking this one up, what with its price and the difficulty of grabbing it outside of Japan. But at the very least, I can show it to you. I was a bit to lazy to make one of those fancy, trendy unboxing videos (sorry Protodude), but hopefully some photos will suffice.

Here’s the top of the box. Are you excited yet!?

One of the sides has some humorous warnings. FRAGILE (Crash Man), THIS END UP (Gravity Man), DON’T GET WET (Pump Man), CAUTION HOT (Heat Man).

A message from Dr. Light! “Rockman! This box is a transportation device! I can’t exchange it for a return, even if its just stained, torn or bent, so be careful!” Of course you can’t return it, that ¥14,700 is ours now!

Here’s the back. I have nothing interesting to say about this.

Alrighty, let’s open ‘er up.

Just looking at it makes you feel a little rejuvenated. The can has the same “E” design on the opposite side.

And now we break into the can. All the sweet energy! I mean, music! Although here we have the one major complaint I’ve found with this OST set: no CD spines. How do you know which CD is which when they’re packed away!? The CDs themselves have expressive and colorful designs, but the plain clear jewels that hold them gives a slight “fan made” feel.

Most of the full color booklet features this kind of track listing for each CD, accompanied with the game’s title artwork. Nice, if not a bit simplistic.

The credits page of the booklet, featuring Mega Man artwork over time. Interesting that Tatsuya Kitabayashi is credited, he was the producer for various Mega Man games in the mid 2000s (and I think was on Legends 3 too). Curious what Hitoshi Ariga is credited for in the end, since none of his work is in the booklet. And I wonder who that Uchida guy is…

The booklet face is still pretty cool, even if it’s just a collage.

 

  

And here they are, all ten CDs. Like I said, colorful!

As for the quality of the music itself, it’s as good as one could expect. It’s nice and clear, and more or less pure sounding. I should make a particular comment of that when it comes to the earlier 8bit music. The tracks retain a lot of the coarseness and popping like they would coming from the real hardware. Audio purists ought to love that, but those who have come along listening to the cleaning, simulated music of emulators and such might find it annoying.

All in all, do I feel like it was a worthy purchase? Well, being a totally crazy Mega Man fan, yeah certainly. It’s definitely a neat collector’s item to have. Truth be told, though, ten years ago I’d have absolutely gone gonzo over this. Today, it’s really cool, but so much of this music has been available freely for a while now, I think it does deter from the worth. Your near $200 US is primarily going towards a steel can, ten CDs and a trophy amidst the Mega Man fandom. Mega Man’s music itself, however, is priceless.

LanceHeart