Digimon Data Squad: Season 5

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

Never have I seen so much action, cliffhangers, and pure awesomeness than I’ve seen in this season. I literally spent the last 3 days watching nothing but Data Squad. Data Squad can’t be compared to the other seasons; it’s almost like it’s very own show. Data Squad almost has this more “mature” feeling to it, considering the action is more intense and most of the characters are/look older than the kids in the other season. This season is great because it really emphasizes ethics and the characters’ struggles to choose a side (humans vs. digimon, bad vs. good, family member vs. family member, government vs. personal beliefs, friends vs. family). Data Squad has their fair share of humor as well, but it’s not the cheesy/punny kind that you see in the Adventure or Fusion seasons.

Overall, I think Data Squad is a very well-rounded show; it’s serious but fun at the same time. Data Squad is so good, I think it even beats Tamers (which is hard to beat).

-Canadian Graffiti

A good show. I do hate how the dub has been edited however. The show was aimed for a young adult audience. However after many edits, a number which were rather unnecessary, we have a fraction of what it originally was. If you had watched it on TV, you know what to expect. I had only seen the subs before and wanted to see how it was changed for English speaking release.
Still, it is a good show that moves in a different direction than the series that came before it. Having something fresh is good!

-Bayson

At long last, all 48 unedited USA-prints/episodes of Digimon’s 5th season are finally together on a whole DVD set, by Cinedigm! After Disney lost its ownership of Digimon by the summer of 2010, that’s how Well Go USA never completed this highly-anticipated season on DVD. It’s a crying shame that when Data Squad was on the air, I never had access to Digital Cable nor wireless Internet access to see this amazing comeback of a landmark former-Disneytoon-now-Nicktoon series. So Digimon fans who wanted to see Data Squad on DVD had to settle for Well Go USA’s sets, and they suddenly stopped putting more episodes on DVD because of what I said earlier. You can put those sets “in hock”, selling them to pawn shops or places like Amazon, FYE or Suncoast, now that Cinedigm listened to us and finally put out all 48 episodes of season 5 on an 8-disc set! For those who don’t notice it, Marcus Damon’s Agumon is a different species than the one belonging to Tai in seasons 1 & 2 (and upcoming 9th season counting all 3 Fusion seasons), and sounds remarkably like Takato in season 3. Lots of other familiar-but-fun voice rehashes are in this much-sought-after season, such as Yoshi sounding like Sora, Lalamon sounding like Sora’s Biyomon (as Yokomon), Kristy sounding like Rika, Keenan sounding like Tommy with the speech impediment of Furbies or Grumblemon, Thomas sounding like Koichi, one of Vilemon’s DemiDevimon sounding like Myotismon’s famous flunky of the same name/species, or Commander Sampson sounding like Oikawa. Let’s not forget that the events of this season were mostly masterminded by the Adolf Hitler-like Professor Kurata, right down to his hatred of civilizations & wanting world domination like Hitler himself. This also marks the 2nd time in the show’s history that a season’s biggest enemy is a non-Digimon entity; King Drasil! (With season 3, it was the D-Reaper.) It also marked the series’ first Dark Mode Change, during Kurata’s reign as a Schikelgruber-esque government official; that being ShineGreymon in his Ruin Mode. And of course, MetalPhantomon was considered the first “X-evolved” Digimon in the entire series, and sounds a lot like Cherubimon in season 4! There’s lots of other exciting, fun, sad and brutal times seen in this rare but worthy season. In fact, it debuted just a few months after my historic high-school graduation from Swannanoa, NC’s Community High School, and this season ended in November of 2008, just a few months before Toon Disney & Jetix kicked the bucket. Had it not been for Digimon Fusion, seasons 6 to 8, the entire series of Digimon would’ve stayed tied with the total amount of episodes of a famous sitcom called The Jeffersons; 253 apiece for both shows! Speaking of Fusion, its first season’s on DVD now (or #6 of the whole shebang), but no word on season 7 yet (Fusion’s 2nd), nor the theatrical or TV movies period, or who might release them that way. But I digress, whether you own seasons 1 to 4 of Digimon on their own or as the 32-disc deluxe set, Data Squad’ll make a be-awesome companion to those sets if you’re a veteran Digi-fan like me. In the tradition of those sets, this one also contains a Character Guide Booklet & a photo gallery on the 8th and last disc; but it sadly doesn’t contain the promo video from one of the earlier Data Squad sets, nor the 5.1 Surround sound option. Aside from those, our hopes and prayers are finally answered with the entire Official 5th season DVD set of Digimon. As Marcus’ Agumon once said, “The sins of the employee are the sins of the Boss”. Brace yourselves for a season of Digimon unlike any other, before Fusion came in 2013 that is. It’s still a crying shame that this season’s own TV movie never got translated to English for the USA, or “dubbed” as it were. “It’s fightin’ time again!” to quote “the Boss”. Thanks for listening to us, Cinedigm! And please bring on the theatrical & TV movies AND the next 2 Fusion seasons on DVD if you get a chance!

-ToonXpert87

DVD Wholesale Main Features:

Actors: Motoko Kumai, Hiroki Takahashi, Yasuhiro Takato
Directors: Akiyoshi Hongo
Format: Multiple Formats, Animated, Box set, Color, NTSC
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Dubbed: English
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only.)
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number of discs: 8
Studio: New Video Group
DVD Release Date: March 11, 2014
Run Time: 990 minutes