The fourth and penultimate season of the Naruto anime television series, labelled as the "4th Stage" in the Japanese DVD release, is directed by Hayato Date, and produced by Studio Pierrot and TV Tokyo. Based on Masashi Kishimoto's manga series of the same name, the season follows Naruto Uzumaki and his fellow ninjas being assigned to other missions after the failed mission to prevent Sasuke Uchiha from joining up with Orochimaru. The season ran on TV Tokyo and its affiliates from April 27, 2005, to April 5, 2006.
The English dub was shown on both Cartoon Network's Toonami and YTV's Bionix programming blocks from January 19 to June 28, 2008.
Sony Pictures Entertainment collected the episodes in a total of twelve DVD volumes, each containing four episodes, between January 1 and December 6, 2006. Only the first three episodes were released by Viz Media in DVD volumes, leaving to DVD boxes that collected the entire series.
Nine pieces of theme music are used in the episodes; four opening themes and five ending themes. The opening themes are by Sambomaster (used for episodes 131 to 135), by Stance Punks (used for episodes 136 to 157), by Snowkel (used for episodes 158 to 177), and "Re:member" by Flow (used for episodes 178 and 179). The ending themes are by No Regret Life (used for episodes 132 to 141), "Speed" by Analog Fish (used for episodes 142 to 153), by Amadori (used for episodes 154 to 165), by Chaba (used for episodes 166 to 177), and "Yellow Moon" by Akeboshi (used for episodes 178 and 179). The English version replaces the ending themes with an instrumental version of "Rise" by Jeremy Sweet and Ian Nickus. __TOC__
Episodes
Home media release English DVD + Naruto Uncut (USA) Volume Date Discs Episodes Reference 10 October 14, 2008 3 121–135 11 December 16, 2008 3 136–149 12 February 10, 2009 3 150–163 13 April 7, 2009 3 164–177 14 May 26, 2009 3 178–191
+ Naruto Season Box Set (USA) Box Set Date Discs Episodes Reference Season 3, Vol. 1 June 29, 2010 6 107–135 Season 3, Vol. 2 August 31, 2010 6 136–163 Season 4, Vol. 1 October 26, 2010 6 164–191
+ Naruto Unleashed (UK) Volume Date Box Set Release Disc Episodes Reference Series 6 Part 1 April 20, 2009 October 26, 2009 3 131–143 Series 6 Part 2 June 29, 2009 3 144–156 Series 7 Part 1 August 24, 2009 February 1, 2010 3 157–169 Series 7 Part 2 October 26, 2009 3 170–182
+ Naruto Uncut (AUS / NZ) Collection Episodes DVD release date Reference 10 121–135 February 18, 2009 11 136–149 April 15, 2009 12 150–163 June 24, 2009 13 164–177 August 19, 2009 14 178–191 October 21, 2009
+ Naruto Origins (AUS / NZ) Collection Episodes DVD release date Reference 3 107–163 4 164–220
Blu-ray + Viz Media (Region 1/A) Set Date Discs Episodes References 5 October 19, 2021 4 111–137 6 March 1, 2022 4 138–165 7 June 14, 2022 4 166–192
References