The Inuyasha Fifth Season Box Set includes five DVDs, which contain the twenty-seven episodes that make up the fifth season of the anime. The first three discs contain five episodes, the fourth disc contains six episodes, and the fifth disc includes six episodes and the special features.
The main menu on the first four discs allows you to play the disc, set up your options for viewing, and scene selection. The menu on the fifth disc includes these options, as well as a choice for the special features. In the Disc Set-Up menu, you can choose between the Japanese and English language tracks, as well as choose whether or not you want to see the subtitles.
Disc five contains two special features. The first feature is labeled as, “Inuyasha Special Footage.” This piece runs for eleven minutes, and it basically explains who the characters are, as well as some of the concepts that appear in the anime series. Most of the footage seems to concentrate on the second season, although there is one shot from the third season. The piece ends with a lead-in to the fifth season. I would assume this piece was produced to promote the fifth season of Inuyasha, even though it hardly used anything from season three, and completely ignored season four.
The only other special feature on the disc is “Textless Ending.” This includes the textless versions of both of the ending credits that appear on this box set. The two endings have been put back-to-back as one piece.
This season of Inuyasha advances the story much more than season four did. However, when you watch season five, you discover that one of the episodes of season four is actually very crucial to what happens in season five. This season also sees some major character development for Inuyasha, especially the final two episodes in this DVD box set. The fifth season also introduced the story arc with the Band of Seven. This was a decent story arc, which ultimately leads up to the return of Naraku. However, the final few episodes in the arc felt like they were being stretched out to make the story arc last longer.
If you’re a fan of Inuyasha and want to have all the episodes on DVD, then you need to acquire this set. Like the other Inuyasha box sets, this one retails for around $90. On the one hand, this contains some very pivotal episodes of the series, which do help to justify the price tag. However, the relative lack of special features (which have a total running time of around fourteen minutes) is a mark against it. In the end, though, this DVD box set is a “must have” if you’re an Inuyasha fan that wants to have all the episodes of the series on DVD.
In order to write this review, I checked out a copy of this DVD box set through the King County Library System.
