In the fifth volume of D. N. Angel the show starts to feel more like a shojo anime than a comedy adventure series.  Instead of Phantom Dark attempting to steal mystical treasures, these episodes are devoted to people reciting soliloquies about their feelings and wondering who it is they really love.

Diasuke Niwa is a young boy who leads a fairly ordinary life.  Until he turns 14 that is.  On that day, a gene that all the males in his family possess becomes active and turns his life inside out.  This gene causes him to transform into a notorious thief, Phantom Dark, whenever he thinks about the girl he loves.   These transformations will continue until Diasuke's love is returned.  The only problem is that the object of his affections, Risa, doesn't like him, she loves his alter ego, Phantom Dark.  It's Risa's twin sister, Riku who is infatuated with Diasuke, but he doesn't seem to notice her at all.

As if Diasuke didn't have enough problems with women, Mio is a new student at school and she's fallen for Diasuke in a big way.  She's not afraid to let everyone know it either, much to Diasuke's dismay.  She follows him around and is always throwing herself at Diasuke, but it only seems to irritate the young man.

Diasuke and his classmates go to an island for a week of fun and studying in this volume.  They arrive and, after checking into their hotel, go to the beach for some fun in the sun.  The next day they go on a nature walk up the side of the mountain.  Risa, Riku, and Diasuke end up trekking up the trail alone.  Eventually Risa gets tired, and the remaining two finish the trail alone.

On the way back, Riku falls off the side of a cliff.  Diasuke, being chivalrous and idiotic, jumps after her instead of climbing down like a sane person.  They both fall a couple hundred feet, but the only injury they sustain is Riku's twisted ankle.  Diasuke carries the injured girl up the cliff and as he does, he starts to realize how much he really likes Riku.

The episodes on this disc really feel like a Shojo anime show.  A lot of the time people are thinking about who they like, if they should like someone else, and if the person they like likes them in return.  This is a dramatic departure from the beginning of the series where the Phantom Dark would try to steal some mystical artifact every episode.  Dark hardly makes an appearance in the whole volume.

I really didn't like the soap opera like turn this show has taken.  Risa crying that she's never loved someone deeply just made me roll my eyes.

In between all of the times that people are thinking about their love lives, the plot does get advanced a little bit, but not much.  Mio's character becomes more mysterious in these episodes.  It turns out that she and Hiwatari's father have cooked up a scheme to trap Dark.  The elder man keeps threatening her to spring the trap, or else she won't get a 'real life.'  She was ready to sacrifice Diasuke to gain her life, but as she grows to know him, she starts having her doubts.  What she really is, and why she isn't human is yet to be revealed.

This subplot with Mio was interesting, but it was a case of too little too late.  This was a very minor part of the show, and it didn't make up for all of the romance that suddenly was inserted into the series.

This volume contains the four episodes of the show, and comes in a clear keepcase with a reversible cover.  There is also an insert listing the episodes and extras.

Audio:

As is becoming the standard for anime, this disc offers the choice of a 5.1 dub in English, or the original Japanese audio in stereo.  I alternated languages while watching this and found them to be about equal in quality.  I like the Japanese voices a little bit more, they just seemed to fit the characters better.  I have to admit that I loved Jessica Boone's version of the bubbly Mio Hio.  Her 'valley girl' style was wonderfully comic.  A great job!  The English dub made good use of the soundstage though, with voices and sound effects panning both from left to right and front to back.  There were no audio defects worth noting.

Video:

The full frame image was pretty good over all.  There was a slightly larger than average problem with aliasing, causing fine lines to sometime shimmer and diagonals to have a stair-step effect.  Other than that, it was a fine looking disc, with the colors being reproduced faithfully and the image sharp and clear.

Extras:

Like the other volumes in this series, this disc has some good extras included on it.  There is a commentary on the an episode with Mariela Ortiz the DVD coordinator and David Williams the director for the English dub.  I'm not a big fan of anime commentary tracks, and this one didn't do a lot for me.  This one started off badly and didn't really improve much.  It opens with Mariela laughing and laughing when David introduces her, and I'm not sure why.  She also plays With, the rabbit-like creature in the series.  Mariela mews in With's voice a lot, which didn't add a lot to my understanding of the show.  David does an admirable job trying to keep the commentary on track, but he doesn't really succeed.

In addition to the standard clean opening and closing there is D. N. Angel Talk 3 with actors Miyu Irino and vocalist Shunichi Miyamoto.  This 9½- minute segment has the two young boys talking about who their favorite character in the series is and why, as well as which one they identify the most with.

3D Scene Production Part 1 is a 9 ½ minute featurette about how the crage and use the CGI effects in the show.

The last extra is D. N. Angel Unplugged - The Day it Begins.  This 6½ minute short follows the group Minawo as the prepare for a show and give an interview before playing a song from the show.

Final Thoughts:

The series takes a strange turn with this volume.  Dark doesn't appear, and there isn't a robbery or even mystical object that's causing problems.  The episodes in this disc are devoted to soap opera like romance plots between Risa, Riku and Diasuke.  It's as if this show was magically transformed into a shojo anime.  While I don't mind romantic anime that's not what this show was when it first began.  The sudden change in tone and ignoring the main plot are the things that I really dislike.  This volume would make a good rental.