I’m a couple years younger than you, but a lot of this resonated for me. Custom installers were some of my early inspirations for making apps that didn’t have the traditional gray box aesthetic.

However, I will say that Kenshin was a thing in the US. Samurai X was only the name of the OG movies where he was still lethal AFAIK.

I burned a Blu-ray a few years back just to supplement some of our encrypted Google Drive backups with copies that would be more accessible in case of my demise, or physically grabbable in case of disaster. I know they won’t last forever, but if Drive shut down on the same day my local copies failed at least I have an option.

Otherwise, I haven’t used physical media in years. I got the 4K LOTR set when it came out and tried to use it, but it ended up being easier to just pirate the rips like anything else.