Rurouni Kenshin DVD Economy Box Season 1
Rurouni Kenshin DVD Economy Box Season 2
Rurouni Kenshin DVD Economy Box Season 3
Samurai X (Rurouni Kenshin) DVD Complete Collection
there is also a Premium Box of each season (Wandering Samurai , Legend of Kyoto and Meiji Era) but they are getting harder to find. This is one of my all time favorite animes.
I don't think they ever released a collection of all 3 seasons together.

The box sets for seasons 1, 2 and 3 are the Rurouni Kenshin television show (which you may have seen the first two seasons when they aired on Cartoon Network years ago season 3 was never shown.)

The Samurai X collection (released by ADV/Section23 now) is the movies. I don't remember the exact timeline for the movies, but I believe one takes place prior to the beginning of the series, one takes place at some time during the series, and the other takes place after.

I don't know which is which, and I could be wrong on that.

So, if you want the absolute complete Samurai X/Rurouni Kenshin story, than you'll need to get the TV series and the movies. If not, the movies may be good enough (I don't know how they play out as I haven't seen them.)

http://www.rightstuf.com/cgi-bin/catalogmgr/maVv5LkgYkWE5YisRu/browse/item/71598/4/0/0

Sorry for double post, but to be clear, it is this box set that you want that includes all the movies. It has the film, the original two OVA series, and the Director's Cut versions of those OVA series which basically cut them into feature length films.

I believe it is a thinpak box set if memory serves me right.

And, as mentioned above, the 3 seasons of economy box set from Media Blasters are the (only) way to go to get the TV series.

Trust/Betrayal - Before the series
The Motion Picture - During the series
Reflections - After the series

There's a few box sets of the ova's/movies, one of which has the director's cuts and regular editions, another has the regular editions, and another has the director's cuts of just trust/betrayal and reflection (but not the motion picture).

I bought the director's cut box set and the motion picture separately and got it for much cheaper than the other box sets.

In terms of the seasons, IMO season 2 is a lot more serious than the others with higher production quality.

I prefer to interpret that as "I don't yet realize that I've always wanted it".

[b]Trust & Betrayal is excellent and was the second title I ever considered a "10" after proving to me that Cowboy Bebop's awesomeness wasn't just a fluke and, for better or worse, turning me into the raving lunatic I am today. Its only weakness may be that it involves some visual experimentation gone wrong with a few bits of "massaged" live-action footage spliced in that looked a bit garish even then.

The series I consider a rather distant second to the lofty standard set by the OAV but it's still a worthy watch (when you've prepared yourself for a 95 episode series that is). I had seen the bulk of it on TV prior to purchasing it or watching Trust & Betrayal but I found his pacifist leanings far more poignant having seen the OAV.

The first season is solid shonen entertainment that mixes some episodic content with a fair amount of buildup to the Kyoto arc (the second season IIRC). The Kyoto arc is widely considered the best, which I'd agree with, but each season certainly entertains. The final arc is probably the weakest given the overwrought badguy but I'm not sure if the creators knew how to up the stakes yet again without playing the [nearly] supernatural card. In the end he seems more like a Ninja Scroll cast-off than most of the baddies in the series.

For the sake of coherence it would be at this point that I'd recommend watching the actual movie. It's like a long and rather bland episode of the series. It seemed like it was pretty chatty and full of posturing and political blustering and rather light on the action but I admit that I may have simply been distracted by the change in [English] voice actors for a large part of it.

Clearly watching Reflections is the best way to cap it off. I haven't actually watched it for a very long time and only saw it once well *before* watching the series to completion which no doubt robbed it of much of its emotional vigor. At the time I was less than impressed with it but few things could truly hold up to the standard set by Trust & Betrayal so the cards were already stacked against it.

I'll know that the series was a hit when you post pictures of your Cheness reverse-blade. If it rains blood, then I know the OAV won your heart.