Daria: The Complete Animated Series

I'd like to start off by saying that I never saw Daria when it aired on TV. When I found out that the girl from Beavis and Butthead got a spin off I decided to check out the show (illegally) online. I then decided to purchase (after realizing I couldn't watch the entire series on YouTube) this box set. After watching the whole series I'm very glad that I did. Daria is now one of my favorite shows of all time. It's smart, witty and, very funny. If you don't already know, the series is about a teenaged girl named Daria and her life throughout high School. Of course this has been done before, but what makes this show special are the characters. The title character is truly unique. I honestly believe that there will never be another main character like Daria; she's smart, very sarcastic, and funny. After watching the entire series I know that I will be quoting her for the rest of my life and you will too. The rest of the cast is not as unique as Daria, but they still bring a lot humor to the series. There is Jane (Daria's artistic friend), Quinn (Daria's shallow sister), Kevin (dumb Jock), Upchuck (pervert), Mack (Black guy), Jake (Daria's manic father) and the list goes on. The comedy comes from putting the characters through everyday situations and just having them be themselves .Truly the work of very talented writers. A huge benefit of owning the entire series is that you can watch the show in rapid succession and you will be able to see the great deal of character development that goes on over the course of the entire series very clearly. Almost all the charters in Daria mature and change throughout the series in very realistic ways, something that isn't done in many shows that I watch nowadays. The last reason that I'm recommending this DVD box set is that even though the show is no longer on the air its themes are still relevant to this day. Even though the show will have you laughing through every episode, it still deals with things that every teenager, including myself, deals with. Sex, morality, and questioning one's own existence are the themes of certain episodes and these episodes happen to be my favorite ones because of how well the subject matter is handled. It is fair to say that any teenager will be able to relate with Daria in some way. I know I did. Until know I have only been talking about series itself, but now I will talk about the actual box set. All 65 episodes are here with the 2 TV movies and some extras. The actual box is very simple with very simple artwork on the front and back and only a note from Glenn Eichler, the series creator, inside the box. The extras are not much,but were fun to look at. You get original character sketches, the unaired pilot episode (my favorite extra), and a music video from one of the shows characters. My biggest problems with the box set are actually about 2 of the extra features. My first problem was that both of the TV movies are a part of the extra features and not a part of the main feature. Since there is not an episode list included with the box set, I had no idea were too chronologically place the movies in the Daria time line. Thankfully I was able to find episode guides online, but it still annoyed me. The other problem I had was with this one extra feature that has Daria and Jane counting down the top 10 animated music videos of all time. For some reason they skip the music videos after Daria and Jane introduce them. Why couldn't MTV include the videos? There were 11 music videos on the Beavis and Butthead Box set and there were 3 of those and in my opinion Daria in a better show. Anyway, to fix this all you need to do is watch the extra feature on your computer, wait until they introduce the music video, pause it then look up the video on YouTube. I know that it's a hassle, but Daria and Jane's introductions are as smart and funny as anything that they say on the show plus the music is good (oasis!!!). The final thing that I would like to bring up about the box set is about the music used in the show. I know that many long time Daria fans complain that the box set doesn't use the original music that the show used when it aired on MTV due to legal issues. For people that don't know when Daria aired on MTV it used licensed music from various popular artists for transition and background music, so that means that the box set had to use generic stock music instead because of the cost of home distribution licensing. From what I have read the show was better with the original music but I don't have opinion on the matter, I never got the chance to hear the difference (I didn't even know about the whole music issue until I read the note inside the box) so it doesn't bother me one bit.Final thoughtsThe show 5/5It's smart, witty, and very funny. I don't think there ever was or will ever be a TV show like Daria, truly one of a kind. I understand that it might not be for everybody, so watch an episode online and if you like it you will LOVE the 24 hours of teenage angst that are in this box setThe Box set itself 4.5/5Could have done better and it did annoy me a little with the extras, but it gets the job done very well.AfterthoughtsWhy doesn't MTV air any reruns. I would really enjoy watching the show with the original music. Do we really need all of those" reality" shows? I know I'm willing to replace any one of them with 9 year old episodes of Daria. Any daria fan would agree with me right? In my opinion there is more" reality" In Daria than anything on MTV now a days.

As soon as I finished the series, I knew I had to get this. There are a bunch of cool special features and even a mystik spiral pilot script!! The only "down side" to this is that the music isn't the same. However, I personally can't really tell the difference (maybe cuz i've only watched the whole series once) But other than that, love this.And soo cheap :D!!!

When I 1st purchase Daria DVD, in early 2000's. Some of the dvd discs, was scratch. Now there Awesome & playing Excellently so far & the Price is Right. "I Love watching Daria". My Kids(now in there 30's) starting me watching Daria, when it came on MTV. "Laughter is like Medicine", I take it almost Every Day.

I'll try and be as detailed as possible.1. The Packaging.The complete set comes in one DVD case. It's plastic, not cardboard. The DVDs themselves are attached to "pages" inside the DVD (similar to the Justice League and Superman complete series sets, if you're familiar with those. A lot of other DVD compilations have started using this format lately as well, so you might've seen it elsewhere). The DVDs are NOT dual-sided, thank goodness, so inadvertent scratching should be minimized. All in all, the packaging looks sturdy, and arrived in perfect condition from Amazon. Not a single disk was out of place.2. The Episodes.When you first load up a disk and get to the menu, you're presented with two options: Episodes and Play All. These are pretty self explanatory, however, it appears that if you want to see the Daria Day intros, you must go to the Episodes section and individually select the episode you want to watch, and you'll be presented with an option to watch the ep with the intro. Not every episode has an intro. Also: only the first episode on a disk has the complete credit sequence, all the rest just have the title card (as if they had been edited into a large TV marathon, which I think helps).Also, as most of you are already aware (especially the ones who downloaded some eps off of Amazon recently), most-if-not-all of the incidental, licensed music has been replaced with, as the initial press release said, "generic and scene-specific music." The music is SIMILAR thematically to the original tracks but, yanno, a hell of a lot cheaper. Those of you who taped every episode of Daria off the TV and watched them until the tapes broke, you're probably gonna be disappointed. However, if you love the SHOW (or if you're like me, and have only seen a handful of original eps), the loss of the music is really inconsequential. Also, the music they used IS appropriate to the scenes, so someone actually paid attention while dubbing this stuff in, and didn't just throw generic tracks in at every point where a licensed song used to be.One final musical note: every commercial bumper now has a sampling of the Splendora theme, and each credit sequence has a lyric-less version of the theme playing over it. This does KINDA get annoying after awhile, but really, you can ignore it. At least they actually kept the bumpers IN, y'know?In terms of episode quality, they all look GREAT. Everything is crisp and as clean as it could possibly look. The sound quality is nice and clear.Disk 1: Season 1 (Picture of Daria)Episodes 101 through 109Esteemsters; The Invitation; College Bored; Cafe Disaffecto; Malled; This Year's Model; The Lab Brat; Pinch Sitter; Too CuteDisk 1 also has three ads at the beginning for The Maxx, The State, and the three Mike Judge Beavis & Butt-head compilations. This seems to be the ONLY disk in the set with these ads, which is good. You can manually skip past these straight to the menu, but you cannot use the 'menu' function to jump past them.Disk 2: Seasons 1 & 2 (Picture of Jane)Episodes 110-113, 201-205The Big House; Road Worrier; The Teachings of Don Jake; The Misery Chick; Arts 'N Crass; The Daria Hunter; Quinn the Brain; I Don't; That Was Then, This Is DumbDisk 3: Seasons 2 & 3 (Pictures of Quinn & Trent)Episodes 206-213 and 301Monster; The New Kid; Gifted; Ill; Fair Enough; See Jane Run; Pierce Me; Write Where It Hurts; Through A Lens DarklyDisk 4: Season 3 (Pictures of Kevin & Brittany)Episodes 302-310The Old and the Beautiful; Depth Takes a Holiday; Daria Dance Party; The Lost Girls; It Happened One Nut; Daria!; Lane Miserables, Jake of Hearts; SpeedtrappedYes, Daria! (aka The Musical Episode) is included. All of the music should be intact, since it was created specifically for the show and doesn't used licensed tracks.Disk 5: Seasons 3 & 4 (Pictures of Helen & Jake)Episodes 311-313, 401-406The Lawndale File; Just Add Water; Jane's Addition; Partner's Complaint; Antisocial Climbers; A Tree Grows in Lawndale; Murder, She Snored; The F Word (aka "Fail"); I Loathe a ParadeDisk 6: Seasons 4 & 5 (Pictures of Stacy & Upchuck)Episodes 407-413, 501-502Of Human Bonding; Psycho Therapy; Mart of Darkness; Legends of the Mall; Groped by an Angel; Fire!; Dye! Dye! My Darling; Fizz Ed; Sappy AnniversaryDisk 7: Season 5 (Pictures of Jodie & Mack)Episodes 503-511Fat Like Me; Camp Fear; The Story of D; Lucky Strike; Art Burn; One J at a Time; Life in the Past Lane; Aunt Nauseam; Prize FightersDisk 8: Season 5 (Pictures of Mr. DeMartino & Ms. Li)Episodes 512 & 513Movies: Is It Fall Yet? & Is It College Yet?Special Features3. Final Thoughts.As mentioned elsewhere, the DVD comes with a special letter from Glenn Eichler, explaining the reasons why 99% of the music has been changed.Aside from the music issue (which, again, to me is a non-issue), this is the set we've all been waiting for. The episodes are INTACT (not the Noggin edits), pretty, and as funny as they were the first dozen or so times you watched them.Really, I implore you, if you've been waiting for Daria on DVD, don't let the music thing hold you back. You really DO want this set. It's not EXACTLY what you've been asking for, but it's within 99% of it, and in my opinion that is DEFINITELY worth it.

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