The Packaging of Case Closed Viridian Collection Seasons 4 & 5

The Viridian Collection editions of Case Closed seasons 4 and 5 arrived earlier this week from RightStuf (ahead of their March 23rd street date) and they look like nicely designed box sets.

The discs feel more stable in these Scanavo cases than in the ones used in earlier thinpak season sets. (I’ve had bits of the disc holders break off in a few sets.) The case design licenses US patent 5,743,390 from Pozzoli and looks custom-ordered to hold the four discs in each set.

However, I noticed the descriptions on both boxes were EXACTLY THE SAME. I guess since the season 3, 4, and 5 Viridian sets shared a release date (March 23rd), the packaging copy people thought it’d be easier to just make a one-size-fits-all description for the sets despite the different sub-titles for each season, e.g. “Detective Conan and the Chains of Iron” for season 5. It seems that the season 1 & 2 Viridian sets also bear the same paragraph.

At least it had been changed from the same-on-each-set descriptions used for the first round of season box sets, though there are some similar components (unchanged parts in bold italic):

The criminal mind is a twisted one and Jimmy Kudo knows the shady corridors of humanity like no other detective in the business.

…

Utilizing his unlikely new persona and cutting edge technology, Jimmy is hot on the trail of his assailants as Conan Edogawa.

I’m not entirely disappointed by the copy-and-paste jobs because, to be honest, not a lot of mythology (or key character story stuff) happens within each 25/26-episode chunk – I think only two or three “big picture” things have happened in the first five seasons. The Black Organization episodes that introduce Ai Haibara would be five deep into a season 6 set if FUNimation were to resume dubbing but she has been in movies 3 through 6 so she’s appeared in some Region 1 releases, voiced by Brina Palencia.

On an ANNCast episode in January (about 62:15 in), FUNimation’s Lance Heiskell said the movies sell well and they have had a good amount of box set sales but not enough volume to warrant licensing more seasons – so if you’d like later seasons & movies to be released (for any continuing franchise), I’d advise voting with your wallets!

Back to the sets themselves, one neat thing about the packaging is each set’s ISBN being listed on the reverse cover wrap. It’s redundant because the ISBN is also listed on the back of the box but its inclusion gives the feel of a book interior with even a first printing number line. (I doubt FUNimation is actually considering updating that number if these get a second printing but it’s a nice touch n.)

Of course, I can’t go without sourcing the pull quotes: IGN’s comes from this review of Case 1.4 DVD single and Mania’s from a review of the season 1 collection. The same IGN quote also appeared on the first run of season box sets.

Now that I own all five seasons currently out, I have plans to fill out many barren episode listings on Anime Vice. I also bought the first six movies a few months ago – I intend to watch those in sequence & then write about them collectively in the context on how accessible or inaccessible they are to non-fans and attempt to discern why I like this franchise at all. That hopefully appear within the next month.